Vulnérabilité et éthique de la présence à l’ère numérique

Digital technologies place their functionality and power at the service of a hypercommunication that is now reaching all strata of the population, especially students. Against this backdrop, the relationship with knowledge is itself reconfigured: cultural, scientific and academic contents, etc., are accessible online and students frequently use them. This communicational and informational efficiency allows social distancing and can reinforce it. Using the lens of the ethics of care, we can understand that the care that everyone needs, as a dependent being, requires a presence. This presence is not simple; it carries multiple parameters, including a certain relationship with others and a form of composure. In order to better understand this hiatus between digital distancing and presence, a survey was carried out among two groups of students, which allowed us to situate the experience and feelings of young people during the different phases of (COVID19) confinements and highlighted the extent of the difficulty induced by distance.