The prediction, in brief:

One detects amid the hurly-burly of contemporary life a new constellation of feelings or sensibilities, a new pattern of self-consciousness. This syndrome may be termed multiphrenia, generally referring to the splitting of the individual into a multiplicity if self-investments. This condition is partly an outcome of self-population, but partly a result of the populated self’s efforts to exploit the potentials of the technologies of the relationship … As one’s potentials are expanded by the technologies, so one increasingly employs the technologies for self-expression; yet, as the technologies are further utilized, so do they add to the repertoire of potentials … Someday there may indeed be nothing to distinguish multiphrenia from simply “normal living.”

Predictor: Gergen, Kenneth J.

Prediction, in context:

The 1997 book “Computers, Ethics, and Society,” edited by M. David Ermann, Mary B. Williams and Michele S. Shauf, carries an excerpt of “The Saturated Self,” a 1991 book by Kenneth J. Gergen. Gergen argues that technology has transformed social relationships. He writes: ”One detects amid the hurly-burly of contemporary life a new constellation of feelings or sensibilities, a new pattern of self-consciousness. This syndrome may be termed multiphrenia, generally referring to the splitting of the individual into a multiplicity if self-investments. This condition is partly an outcome of self-population, but partly a result of the populated self’s efforts to exploit the potentials of the technologies of the relationship. In this sense, there is a cyclical spiraling toward a state of multiphrenia. As one’s potentials are expanded by the technologies, so one increasingly employs the technologies for self-expression; yet, as the technologies are further utilized, so do they add to the repertoire of potentials. It would be a mistake to view this multiphrenic condition as a form of illness, for it is often suffused with a sense of expansiveness and adventure. Someday there may indeed be nothing to distinguish multiphrenia from simply ‘normal living.'”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1991

Topic of prediction: Community/Culture

Subtopic: Relationships

Name of publication: Computers, Ethics, and Society (book)

Title, headline, chapter name: Social Relations and Personal Identity in a Computerized Society

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 145

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne