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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

EV1104

Intersubjective oversaturation: toward the depathologization of loneliness in the age of hyperconnectivity

INTERSUBJECTIVE OVERSATURATION: TOWARD A DEPATHOLOGIZATION OF LONELINESS IN THE AGE OF HYPERCONNECTIVITY

The authors argue against treating loneliness as a target for disease intervention in a hyperconnected environment, suggesting that withdrawal may be an adaptive response to sociotechnological conditions.

The study aims to examine how modern social forces shape the experience and meaning of loneliness; loneliness is consistently associated with the development of depression and anxiety, as well as poorer outcomes in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and is considered a major public health concern. The authors argue that psychiatry risks becoming an instrument of normative social regulation if it adopts loneliness as a diagnostic target without critical review, and that the nuances of this subjective experience and related concepts, such as chosen solitude, are not adequately distinguished. The method is a conceptual analysis: the paradox of increasing loneliness despite growing urban density and digital hyperconnectivity is addressed through a critical examination of social phenomena ranging from peaceful protest as an expression of healthy collective attachment to the normative pressures of compulsory digital sociability. The background presents evidence that prolonged smartphone use plays a role in dissociative and depersonalization experiences, particularly during isolation caused by pandemic lockdowns, alongside the argument that phenomena such as doomscrolling produce passive, dysphoric hypervigilance; it also notes that Australia, France, Spain, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Austria, and Denmark have introduced or proposed restrictions on access to social networks. The authors use the term intersubjective oversaturation to describe a condition in which individuals are continually pressured to desire connection and legitimate withdrawal becomes impossible; they suggest that what appears to be isolation may be an adaptive response to historically specific sociotechnological conditions rather than pathology. Defenses involving withdrawal and affective detachment, traditionally regarded as schizoid or negativistic, are becoming increasingly maladaptive in a hyperconnected environment that demands engagement with a continuous stream of digital content; sycophantic artificial intelligence systems are also described as reinforcing distorted self-referential cognition and increasing the risk of psychotic states. The poster contains no numerical findings or sample; its conclusion argues for further phenomenological analysis of loneliness as both an experience and a concept, clarification of the boundary between normality and pathology, and the development of community-level initiatives that legitimize the need for solitude while restoring a sense of belonging to the community.

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