‘Hyper-Connected yet Alone’

Catholic Communicators gathered in Seoul for the three-day SIGNIS World Congress discussed the theme of hyper-connectivity and loneliness in the digital world in its opening session on August 16.

The Keynote speaker Paulo Ruffini, the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, started up the study days with the question “How is it possible to be simultaneously hyper-connected, and terribly alone?”

Appointed in 2018, Ruffini is the first layperson to head a Vatican Dicastery.

Ruffini pointed out that man has become the protagonist of his future thanks to the artistic, scientific and technological progress. Yet “people are simultaneously hyper-connected, yet alone”, because we have more “connection” than communication and communion, he said.

Being closed in themselves humans use social media to exhibit narcissism rather than making them windows to the world. Instead of demonizing or divinizing the communication media, humans should have courage to be what they are called to be.

Only relationship, which is connection based on love alone can make humans happy. Hence togetherness, friendliness, encounter and dialogue and physical presence are the antidote to loneliness in the digital world.

Four other panelists, Father Anthony de Luc from Thailand, Siter Teresia Wamuyu Wachira from Kenya, Natasha Govekar from Gregorian University, Rome and Paolo Granata from University of Toronto, spoke on the challenges of hyper-connected isolation and the possible pastoral responses from a catholic communication perspective.

The panelists converged on the point that in the age of integrated technology, humans need to learn to blend the real and the virtual. Embodied engagement is the antidote to the social, cultural, religious and ecological disconnect caused by hyper-connected living.

SIGNIS is the world organization of the Catholic Communicators. The World Congress 2022 is taking place in Seoul, South Korea from August 16 -18 on the theme ‘Peace in the Digital World’.