Praying to Our Screens

"From a distance, it looks as though people are praying. Their heads are bowed solemnly, their hands folded before them. But then I notice the phone. They are not praying-just looking at their screens. Since the arrival of the smartphone, rates of mental illness have risen sharply: depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide, especially among the young. Our attention has been captured, our inner lives fragmented, and our sense of self quietly distorted."

"We live in a narcissistic age. And like Narcissus himself, many drown. Some burn out; others fall into depression. According to Han, depression is "a narcissistic illness." Byung-Chul Han was born in South Korea in 1959 but moved to Germany as a young man to study metallurgy. This choice, however, was a smoke screen-an excuse to leave home. In reality, he abandoned metallurgy and began an entirely different path: philosophy. At the time, he could neither speak nor read German."

Smartphone proliferation coincides with sharp rises in depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide, especially among young people. Digital media capture attention, fragment inner life, and distort the sense of self, producing heightened self-focus and narcissistic tendencies. Social platforms amplify echoing, self-referential feedback, intensifying narcissistic-depressive subjectivity. The collapse of psychological distance through constant connectivity weakens capacities for reflection, intimacy, and care. Contemporary pressures produce burnout and exhaustion alongside despair. Practices of sustained attention, silence, and care can counter narcissism more effectively than techniques aimed solely at self-optimization. Young people experience these shifts most acutely, as attention economies reshape developmental environments.

Read at Psychology Today