Through a Glass too Brightly: a long history of media, social expectations and loneliness

Authors

Edward Brennan, Technological University DublinFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0003-2675-1673

Document Type

Conference Paper

Disciplines

5.4 SOCIOLOGY, 5.8 MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS, 6. HUMANITIES, Radio and Television, 6.5 OTHER HUMANITIES

Publication Details

AufDistanz: Institutskolloquium: Erfahrungen mit Isolation und Einsamkeit in der Geschichte. 9 June 2022. Institut für Geschichte. University of Graz, Austria.

Abstract

This paper looks at how media, social expectations, and chronic loneliness are intertwined. It uses a historical and cultural approach. Loneliness—a painful gap between the social connections that people have and those they expect to have—has always existed. However, modern life and new media technologies have changed how loneliness feels. Using examples from the telephone, radio, television, and social media, the paper shows that society regularly has greeted new technologies through a polarised hopes and fears discourse. A more long-term history, however, reveals that while media may have positive and negative effects on social connection, the relationship between media and loneliness is undoubtedly a hallmark of Western modernity.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/6crs-r583

Recommended Citation

Brennan, Edward, "Through a Glass too Brightly: a long history of media, social expectations and loneliness" (2022). Conference Papers. 60.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/aaschmedcon/60

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.