Technology as fiction of autonomy.

The screen convinces us there are no consequences. When the avatar bleeds, someone real dies. Technology lies.

Technology as fiction of autonomy.

The screen permits a devastating fiction: that we do not participate in the social. The gamer who kills virtually, the troll who destroys reputations, the digital harasser—all operate under the illusion of being removed, autonomous, limitlessly powerful. The digital membrane separates the subject from consequences of their acts. The other becomes eliminable avatar.

Swatting crystallizes this structure with horror: gamers calling police to report fictitious violence at real addresses. A "game" that has produced deaths. Reality becomes videogame material. "Just do it," a young woman texted, encouraging her boyfriend's suicide. The superego's voice converted to push notification.

The contemporary subject inhabits a limbo between virtual and real without being able to distinguish them. Current clinical practice must name this confusion without moralizing, recognizing that digital violence is violence without mitigation. The other's body was never truly an avatar. The screen lies; the damage is real.

Psychotherapy

1h

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