The Spiritual Symptoms of the Digital Age

Name: The Spiritual Symptoms of the Digital Age
ISBN: 9787208195066

姜宇辉Shanghai People's Publishing House · ChinaJun 2026

4.2

Word count: 300K words
Chapters: 25
ISBN: 9787208195066

Report an error Find this book

Summary

Smartphones and the internet seem to make it ever easier to find friends—but can you truly open your heart to your online friends? When we spend hours every day updating, liking, and replying, can you really escape loneliness and emptiness? When staged photos, lies, and AI fabrications are so widespread that true and false become indistinguishable, can you still trust your intuition?

How are we to understand and make sense of ourselves in the digital age? Drawing on the sharp thinking of Foucault, Deleuze, Agamben, and other thinkers, this book offers an incisive analysis of the mental states and symptoms of life in the digital age: loneliness and intimacy, narcissism and idols, dance and weight, fiction and reality, affective computing and manipulation, and more.

Editor's review

This book seizes on an experience that is everyday yet hard to articulate: digital technology makes connection cheap, but does not necessarily make intimacy real. Drawing on the conceptual tools of Foucault, Deleuze, Agamben and other thinkers, the author strings together loneliness and intimacy, narcissism and idols, dance and weight, fiction and reality, affective computing and manipulation into a set of slices of spiritual symptoms. It neither wallows in techno-panic nor credulously believes that connection is cure. Its value lies in translating vague feelings like "the emptiness after scrolling on the phone" and "trust anxiety under AI fabrication" into analyzable questions, while preserving the sharpness of philosophical inquiry. Suitable for reading a section or two in fragmented time such as commuting or before bed, then returning to one's own usage habits to verify; it can also serve as reading-group material for discussing the ethics of digital life, but one should not expect operational withdrawal plans.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers confused by the experience of digital life and willing to reflect on their own usage habits
Researchers and students in philosophy, communication studies and sociology who follow digital culture
Organizers seeking contemporary-issue materials for reading groups or general-education courses
People in psychological companionship, education or content creation who care about online relationships

Not a good fit for

Practical readers looking for concrete phone-detox methods or time-management tools
Social-science researchers who prefer systematic empirical data and statistical conclusions
Casual readers who entirely reject philosophical concepts and want light reading

Reading tips

Read section by section by theme, and after each section write down one corresponding scene from your own digital life.
Start with the chapters on loneliness and intimacy, fiction and reality, which connect more easily with everyday experience.
Skip unfamiliar philosophers' concepts for now and grasp the author's descriptions of phenomena and problem awareness.
After finishing, keep a three-day record of social-media use and reflect on it against the symptoms in the book.

About the publisher

Shanghai People's Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

Shanghai People's Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher whose list focuses on academic monographs and general-interest titles in philosophy, social sciences, politics and law, economics and management, and history. Among its books are Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties History in the Chinese Dynastic History series; The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in foreign literature; the Wenjing Classical Translation Illustrated Edition of The Complete Greek Tragedies of Euripides; and works of social theory such as Max Weber's Economy and Society and Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Its authors include Wang Zhongluo, J.R.R. Tolkien, Luo Niansheng, and Zhou Zuoren.

版权信息
前言从技术到影像，从精神政治到精神症候
导引元宇宙中的脆弱主体
第一部分技术
第一章姿势：技术时代的无根基性
第二章前馈：人与技术之间的“死亡循环”
第三章生死：元宇宙的时间政治
第二部分影像
第四章美学：数字“海洋”中的“崇高”与“创伤”
第五章媒介：暗黑生态与电影之本原
第六章思考：论文电影中的主体性难题
第三部分肉身
第七章体验：福柯哲学中的僭越与盲视
第八章舞蹈：复魅，抑或共情？
第九章孤独：数字时代的心盲之舞
第四部分主体
第十章数字亲密：爱还是痛？
第十一章数字自恋：偶像及其复像
第十二章数字情感：情感设计，情感计算与情感操控
第五部分真实
第十三章虚构：深度伪造与电影之真
第十四章触感：真实电影与阿彼察邦
第十五章重量：数字时代的三重“坠落”
结语脆弱的算法——最底限真理，根茎式分类与否定性思考
后记

FAQ

Does the book offer concrete methods for breaking phone dependence?

Judging from the introduction, the book focuses on using thinkers' resources to analyze the spiritual states and symptoms of the digital age—loneliness, narcissism, the blurring of true and false, emotional manipulation—rather than providing a behavior-correction checklist. It is more likely to help readers see the structure and sources of the problem; if you need concrete intervention plans, you should use it alongside books on time management or clinical psychology.

Do I need to understand Foucault, Deleuze and Agamben first to read it?

Not necessarily. The author uses these thinkers as analytical tools but addresses the experience of digital life itself. Ordinary readers can first focus on the phenomena and ways of questioning described in the book, and grasp the general meaning of theoretical concepts from context when they appear; readers with a philosophy background can further trace the sources of the concepts for a deeper pleasure of dialogue.

Is this book suitable as discussion material for a reading group?

Quite suitable. The topics are close to daily life—online dating, likes and replies, AI fabrication, affective computing—and easily prompt participants to discuss their own experience; at the same time, the philosophical perspective can elevate the discussion. It is suggested to choose one symptom theme each time, read it in advance and share personal usage experiences, so as to avoid turning into mere tech complaining.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

姜宇辉 Author

Jiang Yuhui: public information is limited; currently only three of the author's works are known to be in the collection: Symptoms of the Spirit in the Digital Age, Taking Life Philosophy to the End, and Black Noise, White Noise, and Ghostly Voices. The writing generally falls under social science and Eastern philosophy and often focuses on the spiritual condition of contemporary people and on life philosophy, attempting to bring philosophical reflection into discussions of everyday experience in the digital age. Judging from the titles, the author tends to approach abstract issues through concrete phenomena, with a speculative style and a cross-disciplinary perspective on topics such as noise, sound, and spiritual symptoms. The three works differ in subject yet echo one another, offering some reference value for readers interested in how philosophy responds to the circumstances of modern life.