The Spirit in the Machine: Gen Z's Digital Escapism

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 1. Digital Publics & Algorithmic Culture(s)

Abstract

How do cultural narratives and public discourses that idealize technology contribute to "digital escapism"—the retreat from analog society to online spaces?

Generation Z, often described as the “digital generation,” is the first cohort to experience childhood and adolescence mediated by digital technologies. Contemporary research shows that millions of youth spend over eight hours daily online despite negative effects on mental health, relationships, and life outcomes (Coe, et al., 2023). Existing scholarship on excessive internet use emphasizes psychological or behavioural explanations, structural stressors, or addictive platform design (Haidt, 2024; Jouhki et al., 2022; Kardefelt-Winther, 2014). While valuable, these approaches often frame digital overuse as pathology, limiting insight into the symbolic and affective significance of online life.

Using the tools of cultural sociology, this paper offers a theorization of digital escapism as a cultural phenomenon by shifting the analytical focus from pathology and material stressors to meaning-making (Alexander, 2003). Through theoretical reconstruction, it traces the genealogy of Posthuman Romanticism through qualitative analysis of scholarly literature, cultural texts, and public discourses surrounding digital technology (e.g., Braidotti, 2013; Turkle, 2017; Turner, 2006).

This cultural structure sacralizes digital transcendence and profanes embodied material life, framing online spaces as sites of authentic self-realization and freedom from physical constraints. It emerges from the interaction between an expressive romantic culture (Brocic & Watts, in press; Taylor, 1991) and a posthuman information ontology shaped by the paradigm shift in cybernetic thought that began in the 1960s (Hayles, 1999).
By foregrounding culture and meaning as structuring forces, this paper frames digital escapism as a culturally motivated orientation toward technological transcendence. The study contributes to cultural sociology by demonstrating how symbolic structures organize contemporary digital life and shape youth experiences of authenticity, freedom, and selfhood in a world increasingly mediated by digital technologies.

Author

• Hannah Vines, University of Waterloo