Emotions, Intimacy and Disciplinary Power in Digital Capitalism

In my research on the structure of digital capitalist subject formation, I focus on the changes contemporary digital technologies, in particular dating apps, bring to our everyday experiences of intimacy as well as on the knowledge and technologies of the self related to them. I do so by integrating my analysis of the phenomenology of dating app use with the discursive, technological, and economic context in which it is embedded. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s conceptualisation of disciplinary power, I analyse how digital technologies reshape our experiences of intimacy, while also scrutinizing the underlying economic and power structures. I argue that digital capitalist society operates as a profoundly disciplinary environment, characterized by a synthesis of surveillance, self-policing, and datafication. Contrary to narratives of fluidity in digital life, I contend that rigid categories persist and taxonomies of the self become ever more precise, fragmenting individuals into manipulable data points. The design of dating apps embodies a disciplinary apparatus that maximizes user engagement through behavioural conditioning to optimize participation. Through preliminary empirical findings, I demonstrate how intimate experiences become integrated into disciplinary systems, shaping subjectivities in ways often obscured by the illusion of choice and authenticity. Users, believing they have “found themselves,” remain vulnerable to the subtle coercions of digital capitalism, where their desires and emotions are co-opted and rendered legible to algorithms. In particular, I will outline the mechanisms of power at play in the construction of digitized selves, emphasizing the significance of intimacy and emotions within this framework. By situating dating apps within the larger context of digital capitalism, I aim to reveal the complex interplay between technology, subjectivity and emotions, and power.