DIGITAL ABSENCE AND SUBJECTIVITY: A PSYCHOANALYTIC ANALYSIS OF THE NON-USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

This article analyzes, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the subjective effects of the absence of social media in the lives of individuals who chose not to use these platforms or who abandoned them. The qualitative research involved 52 volunteers whose narratives were interpreted through the lens of Freud’s theories and contemporary Brazilian psychoanalytic authors. The findings indicate the presence of defense mechanisms such as sublimation, rationalization, and repression, associated with the search for subjective authenticity, reduction of psychic overload, and reorganization of unconscious investments. For many participants, digital withdrawal emerged as an attempt to reorganize the psyche in response to the discomfort produced by constant exposure and the performative logic of social networks. The analysis shows that this distancing can be both a gesture of subjective resistance and a process of emotional self-regulation.