Digital Schizophrenia

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From the early dreams of cybernetics and computing in the late 1950s to the internet-saturated world of smartphones, social platforms, and algorithmic governance, digital technologies have come to permeate nearly every aspect of life. Yet we are only beginning to grasp the full extent of this transformation—and the psychological, social, and political costs it entails.

While transhumanist visions celebrate the promise of “intelligent machines” and “virtual reality,” a growing body of research points to the harmful effects of screens, the dangers of digital platforms, and the weaponization of attention. Devices designed to collect data and captivate users have unleashed new forms of psychic and cognitive disruption. What if the myth of artificial intelligence is not a leap forward, but a mask—concealing the fractures and crises the digital age has set into motion? And how might we begin to break free from what Anne Alombert provocatively calls our “digital schizophrenia”?

In her first English-language monograph, Digital Schizophrenia & Other Essays, Alombert dismantles the metaphysical fictions of transhumanism, urging us to move beyond simplistic oppositions between human and machine. In lucid, incisive prose—expertly translated by Daniel Ross—she invites readers to rethink the stakes of technology, intelligence, and subjectivity in a world increasingly shaped by code.

This book is part of Pensées soignées, K. Verlag's new series of works-in-translation dedicated to relaying how intellectuals and activists in the non-Anglophone world are thinking about care and caring about thought. By proliferating new concepts, models, and tools, the series aims to address the tragedies of our diminished and imperiled historical moment. Digital Schizophrenia & Other Essays is currently forthcoming and available for pre-order.

Anne Alombert is an associate professor of philosophy, a teacher-researcher in contemporary philosophy at the University of Paris 8, and a member of the National Digital Council. Her research focuses on relationships between knowledge and technology in the history of philosophy, particularly in the works of Gilbert Simondon, Jacques Derrida, and Bernard Stiegler, as well as on the anthropological, epistemic, and political issues of contemporary technological transformations.

Daniel Ross obtained his doctorate from Monash University. He is the author of Violent Democracy (2004) and Psychopolitical Anaphylaxis (2021), and has translated many books by Bernard Stiegler into English. He is also the co-director of the prize-winning film The Ister (2004).

Read a book review by Jason Q Han in Alienocene journal 15 (4 April 2025) at this link.