May 23,2026

By Anupama Vishwakarma Psychologist & Research Scholar

<aside> 🔖 I found myself revisiting Erich Fromm’s To Have or To Be? almost like walking beside him through the crowded corridors of today’s digital world. If Fromm were alive today, observing humanity through glowing screens and endless scrolling feeds, he likely would not be fascinated by technological advancement itself. Instead, he might quietly observe our restless minds, fatigued eyes, and compulsive attachment to devices and ask a deeply unsettling question:Are we truly living, or are we merely collecting?

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Today, we spend hours online. We feel anxious if we don't have our phones. We look around, and because everyone else is doing the exact same thing, we tell ourselves this is completely normal. But in his book The Sane Society, Fromm gave us a warning that hits close to home today: "The fact that millions of people share the same mental pathology does not make these people sane." Just because everyone is exhausted and glued to a screen doesn't mean it is a healthy way to live.

Fromm’s “Having” Mode in the Digital Era

To really understand what is happening to us, we can look at Fromm's most famous idea from To Have or To Be?. He believed there were two ways to live your life. You can live in the "having" mode, where your goal is to possess things, show off, and boost our ego. Or, you can live in the "being" mode, where our goal is to love, experience the moment, and build genuine connections.

Podcast available on Spotify: Healing in ink

The digital world today functions almost entirely as an ecosystem of the “having” mode.

Right now, the digital world is a giant trap for the "having" mode.Think about how we use social media. We don't just experience a moment anymore; we take a picture of it so we can have it on our profile. We don’t just make friends; we try to have as many followers as possible. We treat our memories and relationships like items we can put on a digital shelf to show others. But Fromm asked a question that perfectly captures the danger of this: "If I am what I have, and if I lose what I have, who, then, am I?" If your phone breaks, or a website shuts down, and you lose all your followers and photos... who are you? If our entire identity is built on digital things we "have," we are building our lives on very shaky ground.

“If I am what I have, and if I lose what I have, who, then, am I?”

On top of this, the internet constantly tells us what to care about. The algorithms feed us trends, outrage, and products to buy. We think we are making our own choices, but Fromm saw this coming decades ago. He wrote, "Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows 'what he wants,' while he actually wants what he is supposed to want. " We think we are choosing to scroll, but really, the system is designed to keep us wanting more.

Tech and teen minds

The internet amplified these systems rather than challenging them.

Personally, I have always felt uncomfortable with the way our capitalist society operates, and the digital world has only made it clearer. Ever since the age of industrialization, we have been trained to be consumers to our very core. We have built a society where we rely so heavily on mass production, generalization, and seeking approval just to survive. Because we are so focused on consuming—on buying the next thing, following the next trend, or fitting into the crowd—we have slowly lost our willingness to genuinely connect with each other. We treat life like a transaction rather than an experience.

Choosing the “Being” Mode in a Digital World

Is your teen more invested in the lives of influencers or YouTubers than their own classmates? We call these Parasocial Relationships. When real-life peer groups in school feel exclusionary or judgmental, teens pivot to creators who "feel like friends" but require no emotional risk. If they talk about streamers as if they are close confidants, they are likely filling a profound social vacuum.

To remain fully, consciously, and authentically human.

Fromm’s ideas aren't just meant for textbooks; they are a guide for how to live today. By understanding the trap of "having," we can step back, take a deep breath, and remember that our real worth comes from simply being human.

About the Author

Anupama Vishwakarma is a working professional and Psychologist specializing in adolescent mental health within educational institutions. As a Research Scholar (PhD), her work focuses on the intersection of digital behavior and psychological well-being, aiming to bridge the gap between academic research and clinical practice.