In the June issue of Turkish literary journal Varl\u0131k <\/em>\u2013 titled \u2018Loneliness in the age of information\u2019 \u2013 contributors attempt an accounting of what we\u2019ve gained and lost in the transition to digital spaces and technologies.<\/p>\n For many, what has been discarded are the subtleties and comforts of communication mediated through the human body. \u0130lknur Do\u011fu \u00d6zt\u00fcrk makes the case for more physical and embodied communication.<\/p>\n Human interaction relies on body language, tone of voice and other elements that are absent from social media, she writes.Stripped of those signals, online communication favours \u2018high-pitched messages spoken\/written by people who are trapped in echo chambers, who do not want to hear anything that does not support what they say, who always want to be right, who believe that they are superior to others\u2019.<\/p>\n By ignoring our surroundings in favour of the drama and scale of online forums, we are creating new form of \u2018voluntary loneliness\u2019, in which people opt for the \u2018digital world\u2019s ability to express emotions and convey thoughts to large crowds, while in the real world they avert their eyes to avoid talking to whoever is next to them\u2019. Digital and virtual forms of art can reduce physical social interaction in galleries or city spaces, thereby isolating individuals, comments Canan Arslan. Digital technologies may \u2018contribute to democratisation of cultural capital\u2019 but they also \u2018put individual experience to the forefront by transforming the ways spectators interact with art\u2019.<\/p>\n Similarly, Bilgehan Ece \u015eakrak shows how digital technology has changed cinema from an art form embedded in an urban social experience into a more private and isolated form of consumption. She links the experience of cinema to the urban explorations of the 19th<\/sup> century flaneur. But such possibilities are contracting and \u2018the flaneur has quickly grown accustomed to performing the act of viewing in a domestic space where there is no public impact\u2019. The pandemic\u2019s restrictions have only accelerated the process of transforming \u2018cinema viewers into uses of digital platforms\u2019.<\/p>\n Zeynep Genel offers a balanced overview of the state of gaming. While digital games can build \u2018a global social platform that brings together people from different cultures in a virtual universe\u2019, problems are also becoming clear. Competitive online games can foster rage, bullying and stress and can \u2018cut some players off from social life\u2019. Excessive online gaming can also \u2018lay the foundations for social isolation, depression and anxiety\u2019. The future is in the hands of game designers, as well as players, pedagogues and policymakers.<\/p>\n Burcu Zeybek traces Turkey\u2019s social divisions back to the late Ottoman era when westernising and reformist elites first clashed with Islamic traditionalists. Those divisions only deepened in the early 20th<\/sup> century during the secularising reforms under Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk. \u2018This dilemma has become the determining feature of political culture\u2019, writes Zeybek. The resulting polarisation has excluded groups seeking compromise and created a country where \u2018centrist or moderate positions are destroyed and extremism becomes the mainstream\u2019.<\/p>\n Varl\u0131k<\/em> also offers responses to About Dry Grasses, <\/em>the 2023 drama from director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who dedicated his 2008 Cannes Best Director award to \u2018my lonely and beautiful country\u2019. The critic Feridun Anda\u00e7 says isolation runs through all Ceylan\u2019s films. He \u2018likes to describe people in their loneliness. For this reason, the heroes of his story are, in a sense, lonely, incompatible, contradictory personalities; they also carry the spirit of the age\/time they live in.\u2019<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Varlik62024-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPolarised nation<\/h2>\n