Google "the digital age" and you'll discover it is rather broadly defined as "the present time"-when most information is available in digital form, as compared to the era before the rise of computers in the 1970s. Depth psychology is the study of the soul, first and foremost associated with uncovering and exploring the unconscious. The Greek word psyche means "butterfly," and is linked to the Greek anemos, meaning "wind" or "breath," as well as "soul" and "spirit"-all concepts that seem distinctly unrelated to technology, yet this diverse and compelling collection of depth psychological insights quickly reveals the archetypal aspects at work on all of us in the depths of the digital age. For one of the founders of modern depth psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, who was born in 1875 and died in 1961, the "digital age" remained in potentia, but even more than half a century ago, he had significant concerns about the challenges of a growing mind/matter split and the excessive focus of western cultures in particular on science, technology, and rational thinking. Jung believed this trend toward "modernity" emerged at the expense of more soulful, reflective, poetic ways of being and issued a strong caution against our increasing reliance on machines and technology. He warned of severe consequences that might ultimately propel our civilization toward collapse, unless modernity could be adequately acknowledged and dealt with from a psychological view. The rapid growth of technology in recent decades, combined with what is arguably a decided lack of psychological context around it, has contributed intensively to concerns for some regarding the speed and quantity of information we and our capacity to navigate such a tsunami of data. Technology has profoundly amplified the speed and efficiency at which we accomplish certain tasks, but at the same time has served to expedite the very pace of our lives, leaving us with little time for reflection and reconnection with things of the soul. Technology alone will never be that thing that enlivens us, enforces our sense of soul in a fast-moving world, and roots us in something which is inherently already there. With the proliferation of digital advances in an increasingly globalized culture, we tend to take "technologies" lightly, without giving them their proper ritual due. In earth-based cultures, "technologies of the sacred" have always encompassed ceremonies, invocations, and rites that created containers in which something very special could occur. Shamanism was only practiced within the proper context by individuals who were designated and prepared to enter sacred space. Over time as the ritual has been lost, the container has also crumbled, and technology is no longer wielded in sacred space but rather is used haphazardly by virtually all members of our society. What is asked for is that we re-boot our understanding of the psychological and soulful aspects of technology in order to adopt a new way of being in a digital world. Social media, video gaming, virtual reality, digital media, screen time, mobile devices, electronic music, "smart" technology, and electronic waste are all everyday imperatives in our current culture, and will continue to be future realities for decades, if not centuries, to come. While the digital age will always produce consternation, scintillation, and debate, no matter the pace of growth or decline, the essays and themes that appear in this collection are timeless, tapping into underlying ideas that can offer context and meaning for generations to come. The authors in this anthology proffer a chance to redeem ourselves, to re-invent our relationship to the digital age and re-infuse these sacred tools with meaning and soul. The details of our technologies may morph, but the contents of this volume are profoundly archetypal, offering patterns upon which we may predicate our own relationship to the depths and breadths of the digital age

Drawing on years of online research, this book presents key principles of life and wellbeing in the digital realm.

Wall Street Journal Best Nonfiction Pick; Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year Clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair takes an in-depth look at how the Internet and the digital revolution are profoundly changing childhood and family dynamics, and offers solutions parents can use to successfully shepherd their children through the technological wilderness. As the focus of the family has turned to the glow of the screen—children constantly texting their friends or going online to do homework; parents working online around the clock—everyday life is undergoing a massive transformation. Easy access to the Internet and social media has erased the boundaries that protect children from damaging exposure to excessive marketing and the unsavory aspects of adult culture. Parents often feel they are losing a meaningful connection with their children. Children are feeling lonely and alienated. The digital world is here to stay, but what are families losing with technology's gain? As renowned clinical psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair explains, families are in crisis as they face this issue, and even more so than they realize. Not only do chronic tech distractions have deep and lasting effects but children also desperately need parents to provide what tech cannot: close, significant interactions with the adults in their lives. Drawing on real-life stories from her clinical work with children and parents and her consulting work with educators and experts across the country, Steiner-Adair offers insights and advice that can help parents achieve greater understanding, authority, and confidence as they engage with the tech revolution unfolding in their living rooms.

Mental Health in the Digital Age, written by distinguished international experts, comprehensively examines the intersection between digital technology and mental health. It provides a state-of-the-art, evidence-based, and well-balanced review and is a valuable guide to an area often shrouded in controversy.

For decades we have witnessed the emergence of a media age of illusion that is based on the principles of physics—the multidimensionality, immateriality, and non-locality of the unified field of energy and information—as a virtual reality. As a result, a new paradigm shift has reframed the cognitive unconscious of individuals and collectives and generated a worldview in which mediated illusion prevails. Exploring the Collective Unconscious in a Digital Age investigates the cognitive significance of an altered mediated reality that appears to have all the dimensions of a dreamscape. This book presents the idea that if the digital media-sphere proves to be structurally and functionally analogous to a dreamscape, the Collective Unconscious researched by Carl Jung and the Cognitive Unconscious researched by George Lakoff are susceptible to research according to the parameters of hard science. This pivotal research-based publication is ideally designed for use by psychologists, theorists, researchers, and graduate-level students studying human cognition and the influence of the digital media revolution.

Re-civilize Life Online! PROVEN Conflict Management and Prevention for Social Media and the Web Ever seem like the Web is just one big screaming match? Ever feel like you’re refereeing a worldwide tantrum on YOUR social media sites, blogs, and online forums? That’s not good for your goals—or your sanity. Stop. Now. Step back. Take a breath. And solve the problem. Thought you couldn’t? You can: there are proven best practices for getting people to be civil online. Even when they disagree. Even if they’re complaining. You can avoid misunderstandings that lead to flame wars, and promote constructive conversation amongst those with strongly held views. And, finally, you can handle the people that just can’t be civilized. Today, these skills are flat-out imperative. Everyone who leads, curates, manages, or participates in online communities needs them. Andrea Weckerle hasn’t just compiled them: she’s created a 30-Day Action Plan for restoring civility to your corner of the digital world. This plan works—and not one moment too soon. Master the foundational skills you need to resolve and prevent conflict online Understand the dynamics of each online conflict, from procedural disputes to online lynch mobs Stay cool and effectively manage conflict in even the highest-pressure online environments Differentiate between what people say and what they really want Create a positive online footprint—or start cleaning up a negative image Recognize online troublemakers and strategize ways to handle them Manage your own anger—and, when necessary, express it online safely and productively Strategically manage others’ online hostility and frustration Limit risks to your organization’s online reputation due to actions it can’t control Draft and implement corporate social media policies that actually work

From emails to social media, from instant messaging to political memes, the way we produce and transmit culture is radically changing. Understanding the consequences of the massive diffusion of digital media is of the utmost importance, both from the intellectual and the social point of view. 'Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age' proposes that a specific discipline - cultural evolution - provides an excellent framework to analyse our digital age. Cultural evolution is a vibrant, interdisciplinary, and increasingly productive scientific framework that aims to provide a naturalistic and quantitative explanation of culture. In the book the author shows how cultural evolution offers both a sophisticated view of human behaviour, grounded in cognitive science and evolutionary theory, and a strong quantitative and experimental methodology. The book examines in depth various topics that directly originate from the application of cultural evolution research to digital media. Is online social influence radically different from previous forms of social influence? Do digital media amplify the effects of popularity and celebrity influence? What are the psychological forces that favour the spread of online misinformation? What are the effects of the hyper-availability of information online on cultural cumulation? The cultural evolutionary perspective provides novel insights, and a relatively encouraging take on the overall effects of our online activities on our culture. Cultural Evolution is an area of rapidly growing interest, and this timely book will be important reading for students and researchers in the fields of psychology, anthropology, cognitive science, and the media.

Winner of the Gradiva® Best Book Award 2022, and the Courage to Dream Book Prize 2023 from the Academy of the American Psychoanalytic Association! This book is a psychoanalytic and philosophical exploration of how the digital is transforming our perception of the world and our understanding of ourselves. Drawing on examples from everyday life, myth, and popular culture, this book argues that virtual reality is only the latest instantiation of the phenomenon of the virtual, which is intrinsic to human being. It illuminates what is at stake in our understanding of the relationship between the virtual and the real, showing how our present technologies both enhance and diminish our psychological lives. The authors claim that technology is a pharmakon - at the same time both a remedy and a poison - and in their writing exemplify a method that overcomes the polarization that compels us to regard it either as a liberating force or a dangerous threat in human life. The digital revolution challenges us to reckon with the implications of what is being called our posthuman condition, leaving behind our modern conception of the world as constituted by atemporal essences and reconceiving it instead as one of processes and change. The book’s postscript considers the sudden plunge into the virtual effected by the 2020 global pandemic. Accessible and wide-reaching, this book will appeal not only to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers, but anyone interested in the ways virtuality and the digital are transforming our contemporary lives.

Technology is rapidly advancing, and each innovation provides opportunities for such technology to mesh with the human enactment of physical intimacy or to be used in the quest for information about sexuality. However, the availability of this technology has complicated sexual decision making for young adults as they continually navigate their sexual identity, orientation, behavior, and community. Young Adult Sexuality in the Digital Age is a pivotal reference source that improves the understanding of the combination of technology and sexual decision making for young adults, examining the role of technology in sexual identity formation, sexual communication, relationship formation and dissolution, and sexual learning and online sexual communities and activism. While highlighting topics such as privacy management, cyber intimacy, and digital communications, this book is ideally designed for therapists, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, counselors, healthcare professionals, scholars, researchers, and students.

In Religious but Not Religious, Jungian analyst Jason E. Smith explores the idea, expressed by C.G. Jung, that the religious sense is a natural and vital function of the human psyche. We suffer from its lack. The symbolic forms of religion mediate unconscious and ineffable experiences to the field of consciousness that infuse our lives with meaning and purpose. That is why we cannot be indifferent toward the decline of traditional religious observance so widely discussed today. The great religions house the accumulated spiritual wisdom of humankind, and their loss would be catastrophic to the human soul. As human beings, we hunger for spiritual experience. To be “spiritual but not religious” is one possible response, but it often doesn’t go far enough. All too easily it can become a kind of do-it-yourself spirituality, which lacks the capacity to effect the kind of growth and transformation that is the true goal of all the religious traditions. Smith argues that we need to be “religious but not religious.” We need an approach to religion that recognizes the essential importance of the individual spiritual adventure while also affirming the value of collective religious tradition. He articulates an understanding of religion as a participation in the symbolic life as opposed to a mere content of belief. By recovering our personal sensitivity for symbolic experience together with a symbolic understanding of religion, we facilitate a profound encounter with life and with the human condition through which one may be tested, tried, and transformed.