For a Critical Theory of the Digitalization of Everyday Life

The process of digitalization of our daily lives is becoming increasingly invasive, providing to the network users new and innovative ways to increase and share their own social, cultural and economic capital. The connection opportunities allow to the individuals to have a rich framework of solutions, based on a collective intelligence (Lévy), that improve the individual and collective wellness within a global and systemic vision but, at the same time, scholars and researchers are trying to explore the dark side of the network to identify the negative externalities of this process and give life to a real critical theory (Fuchs) of the information society and the social media. At the dawn of this new digital age (Schmidt and Cohen) is establishing a vision linked to a digital risk society (Beck, Lupton) in which are highlighted new forms of coercive power (Bauman, Lyon), risks of social anomie (Durkheim, Turkle), collective obsessions (Lovink), dystopian drifts (Morozov) and forms of social alienation (Marx, Carr) due to the excessive dependence on the tool. The objective of this paper is therefore to analyze the apocalyptic theories of the network, understand the results at a social level in order to photograph a world that is changing and to identify what are the risks to be faced in the near future.