They spend most of their day at work without realizing what they are doing. They are not workers or employees in the classical sense, but they are not as free or owners of their time as they pretend to be. As philosopher Han Byung-chul warns, they exploit themselves under the illusion of autonomy. They believe that managing their time will liberate them, but in reality they are enslaving themselves. “I’m my own boss,” they repeat, while algorithms set the pace and the traditional workday fades away.
Some lucky people work long hours in front of a screen in their pajamas, while others spend their days in rental cars or pedaling around with backpacks on. They have no boss, but they also have no rights. There is no stability, no future, no pause. Freedom became performance. You need to be available, productive, and connected at all times. And at the end of the day, fatigue leaves no room for asking “why?” And in that atmosphere saturated with screens and stimulation, this generation is floating without an anchor or a horizon.
The result is an existential vacuum overlaid with frenetic activity with the illusion that a fortune in virtual gambling will turn them into millionaires or celebrities. With no family plans or children, they live in an eternal present with no desire for transcendence, and everything is “sacrificial and temporary,” the song says. As well as hoping that you can barely make ends meet, there is also fear. Fear of commitment, fear of the responsibility of taking care of others when you can’t even take care of yourself. How do you start a family when your home is rented, your job is unstable, and your future is illusory?
Authoritarians don’t like this
The practice of professional and critical journalism is a fundamental pillar of democracy. That is why it bothers those who believe that they are the owners of the truth.
Deep inside, there is an even deeper suspicion that the world may collapse. Ecological crises, current and potential wars, threatening to eliminate jobs, and artificial intelligence that already thinks better than us. Projecting tomorrow is an impossible luxury. This generation will live longer, but will reach retirement with no savings, no retirement funds, and no children to accompany them. Instead, they will likely coexist with technology that listens to them, cares for them, and simulates companionship with an emotional efficiency that humans can no longer sustain. The utopia of connection has become high-definition solitude.
They also do not believe in education, which has lost its promise of social progress. From schools to the state, institutions do not contain what is perceived as empty, bureaucratic, and ineffective if not oppressive. The only thing left is for each person to act on their own, under the guise of meritocracy, ignoring the increasingly unequal starting line.
All solidity disappears in the need for recognition measured by the number of “likes” pretending to be a community. What remains is a generation that is exhausted, narcissistic, and emotionally fragmented. People who say they can work from anywhere in the world but don’t know where they are.
The result is an existential vacuum overlaid with frenetic activity. It is produced, delivered, fulfilled, and “taken on” without meaning or root. There is no belonging or community here, just people who have grown weary of their hyper-connected individualism. Perhaps the big challenge is not an economic or technical one, but a spiritual one: not to confuse freedom with availability.
*Sociologist. Social psychologist.
About The Author
