The Loneliness of Modernity: A Theory of Modernization as an Age of Isolation

Modernity presents itself as an age of increasing social disintegration: secularization and rationalization, urbanization and globalization, individualization and digitalization make it difficult for communities today. Modernity comes with desirable promises that make it attractive, but it does not come free: Its price is escalating modern loneliness. Denis Newiak tells a cultural history of modernization that, from industrialization to the late-modern network society, produces ever new and harsher experiences of loneliness.

Denis Newiak is a media, film and television scholar, teaches media and communication theory at various universities and conducts research on expressions of loneliness in modern societies.