Info Technology and Mental Health: A Study of Jonathan Franzen's Purity in the Scope of Berardi’s Theory

Abstract

In the contemporary era, information technology and mental health are complexly intertwined and the capitalist system plays a significant role in shaping this relationship. The current study argues that most mental diseases like depression, insomnia, schizophrenia, and other diseases of the contemporary era are occurring as a result of being exposed to a huge amount of information technologies. The main aim of this study is to explore and argue that these mental diseases are not a biological state but it comes as a reaction of the mind against the accumulation and acceleration of information in people's minds. The paper uses the observations and opinions of the Italian communist philosopher Franco Berardi to understand the significance of such figurations in Jonathan Franzen's Purity and it will reflect the idea that developing an understanding of how the capitalist system is blamed for these mental diseases by exposing people to an unlimited amount of information that the human mind is unable to access or deal with. Focusing on a depressed woman who is mentally exhausted as a result of the pressure of the new life and wants to change it, Purity uncovers the evils at the heart of our contemporary information technology society.