Nnadiebube Journal of Philosophy

Digital technologies have indeed changed the way we communicate and learn, access information and participate socially. Nevertheless, technologies also have increased the competition for human attention, the collection of personal data and the quantification of social recognition, thus raising challenging questions of philosophy of inner peace, for human freedom and human flourishing. Though digital technology offers unquestionable benefits, much less focus has been paid on its role in the formation of our reflective agency, our own judgment and our way of living a meaningful life. Employing conceptual analysis and critical interpretation, this paper investigates how digital technology and human flourishing are connected with respect to attention, autonomy, inner peace and how generative AI impacts on our human judgment and creative agency. The essay proposes that the main challenge of digital life is not the connection itself, but the existence of externally programmed patterns of desire and attention which may deprive us of our self-governing capacity. Then, it is illustrated that we need to realize that inner peace requires more than our self-control or our disengagement from technological sphere: it actually requires our ability of developing critical consciousness, responsible use of technology, meaningful human interactions and aligning our use of technologies with our human considerations. Finally, the paper concludes that we need to find a way to synchronously cultivate ourselves and address the design of digital technologies, as well as developing technological systems that preserve our freedom and our capacity for reflective living and our human flourishing.

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