A Heideggerian Interpretation of the Relationship Between Technology and Human Education: Rethinking the Existential Dimensions of Education in the Digital Age

Abstract

The present study aimed to provide a Heideggerian interpretation of the relationship between technology and human education and to rethink the existential dimensions of education in the digital age based on the experiences and perspectives of educational and technology specialists. This qualitative study employed an interpretive-hermeneutic phenomenological design. Participants were 18 university professors, researchers, and specialists in philosophy of education, educational sciences, educational technology, digital education, and philosophy of technology in Tehran, selected through purposive criterion-based sampling. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews, and recruitment continued until conceptual saturation was achieved. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological-hermeneutic approach. The analytical process involved repeated reading of transcripts, identification of meaning units, initial coding, constant comparison, development of subthemes and overarching themes, and iterative interpretation between individual parts of the data and the dataset as a whole. The analysis revealed four overarching themes: transformation in the disclosure of knowledge and the world, transformation of the learner’s existential dimensions, reconfiguration of educational relationships and human presence, and the possibility of openness and authentic education within technology. Digital technologies were interpreted as potentially reducing knowledge to retrievable information, reinforcing speed, efficiency, and calculative thinking, reducing tolerance for ambiguity and sustained reflection, and algorithmically structuring encounters with knowledge. Fragmented attention, accelerated experiences of time, diminished opportunities for silence and self-reflection, the emergence of digital identity, and weakened lived presence in teacher–learner relationships were also identified. Conversely, a conscious and critical relationship with technology, restoration of questioning, promotion of reflective thinking, redefinition of the teacher’s role, and creative rather than passive uses of digital tools emerged as conditions supporting authentic education. The findings suggest that the central educational issue in the digital age is not merely how technology is used, but how human beings exist in relation to it. Human education can be preserved within technological environments when digital possibilities are accompanied by questioning, reflection, presence, dialogue, creativity, care, and self-understanding, preventing technological rationality from becoming the unquestioned logic of education.