ABSTRACT
In Heidegger, nearness takes many forms and stands for many different processes; above all, it constitutes a metaphorics of imaginative perception that transforms a potential reality into a certain reality. Human beings participate in this process as one part of a fourfoldian synergy, whilst technologies play their own part. Technologies, as metaphoric machines, influence the way something is perceived as something. They are, thus, focal for the functioning of imagination, perception, and nearness. In order to examine the reality of new digital technologies, we turn to Facebook, which is an important technology of nearness of our times. The analysis shows that Facebook’s features constitute automated metaphoric schemas that form time as certain time and nearness as a specific type of being-near.
