Edith Sullwold Memorial Lecture: “Social Media and the Collective Unconscious: Archetypal algorithms and the impact on children and youth”

This lecture is an in depth exploration of the often negative impact of heavy social media use on the developing psyches of children and youth. The colonization of the human psyche driven by greed and hunger for power during this period of end-stage capitalism has played a part in weaving algorithms that infect the unconscious. Jane maintains that heavy social media impacts the healthy developmental processes of children and youth. It interferes with the psyche’s capacity to develop a symbolic life and the egoic strength necessary for the healthy creation of identity which in needed in the evolution of the ego-Self axis. Many underestimate the influence of this cultural phenomenon on both the individual and collective psyche. Jane believes that Jungians have much to offer in sounding the alarm bells given our understanding of the unconscious and the archetypal realm.