Doubtless, technology has been valorised and demonised in the fields of social sciences over decades. Technology serves as a double-sword that emancipates but, at the same time, standardises human relationships. In this book, which is edited by Adrian Scribano, readers will find for sure a selection of high-quality chapters written by experts in the sociology of sensibilities who theorise on the different levels of what Castells dubbed ‘the digital age’ (Castells & Kumar 2014; Castells 2015). In my book Technolog y, Terrorism and Apocalyptic Future, I delineated the effects of technology over the mythical narratives revolving around fear. Technology divides the world into two parts, one of wich should be lost in the past, like an Eden or forbidden paradise, and an other which should be purged because of human sin. The first allegory signals hope, and the latter refers to fear. Technology not only creates a more unjust world but also puts man in a disruptive landscape where scarcity prevails. The question of whether technology situates mankind as the (just) administer of the world invariably leads to a state of anxiety which is filled by a set of apocalyptic narratives (discourses). Not surprisingly, in the age of terrorism, technology unplugs us from our emotional inner world (Korstanje 2019). If terror opens the doors to economic programmes that otherwise would be rejected by citizens, it is no less true that emotionality was radically shifted by the COVID-19 pandemic (Korstanje & George, 2021).

In a similar line of inquiry goes the present (pungent) book. Adrian Scribano, in the first chapter, speaks to us about how digital technologies have changed not only our phenomenological world but also human interactions (as well as sensibilities). In this text, he argues convincingly that the trans-globalisation process – far from disappearing –is mutating to a new stage. This change is mainly marked by three points, which Scribano discusses with clarity: the banalisation of consumption, the paradox of sovereignty and the transformation of energy transmission. This world is ruled by a much deeper neocolonial religion that combines mimetic consumption with degraded humanism. This postmodern (predatory) system interposes Hope as the cure for the anxieties mass consumption fails to placate. As he puts it, hope is always rooted in the near future, not always happening as it was imagined.