To disconnect or not to disconnect: A question negotiated between unequal structures and different scopes of personal agency

In the “digital age” (Ahmed, 2020) and its “constant connectivity” (Couldry & Hepp, 2017), the countertrend of digital disconnection is gaining momentum in both popular culture and academia. And although media non-use practices seem more relevant than ever, not everyone is able to self-determine their media use. This scholarly essay seeks reasons for the unequal access to digital disconnection. The theoretical basis is provided by contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens to the structure and agency debate. Building on this, I introduce the fictitious agent of homo disconnectus, who is given maximum agency and the best structures to digitally disconnect. The homo disconnectus thus serves as a tool to illustrate contrasts between privileges and marginalization. A deeper examination of gender and class reveals that digital disconnection is particularly difficult for women and low-income earners. Therefore, I conclude that research should not focus solely on digital disconnection that is already practiced but should also closely investigate where and why it cannot take place. In the “digital age” (Ahmed, 2020) and its “constant connectivity” (Couldry & Hepp, 2017), the countertrend of digital disconnection is gaining momentum in both popular culture and academia. And although media non-use practices seem more relevant than ever, not everyone is able to self-determine their media use. This scholarly essay seeks reasons for the unequal access to digital disconnection. The theoretical basis is provided by contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens to the structure and agency debate. Building on this, I introduce the fictitious agent of homo disconnectus, who is given maximum agency and the best structures to digitally disconnect. The homo disconnectus thus serves as a tool to illustrate contrasts between privileges and marginalization. A deeper examination of gender and class reveals that digital disconnection is particularly difficult for women and low-income earners. Therefore, I conclude that research should not focus solely on digital disconnection that is already practiced but should also closely investigate where and why it cannot take place

Temporal ambivalences in smartphone use: Conflicting flows, conflicting responsibilities

This article explores implications of the central position of the smartphone in an age of constant connectivity. Based on a qualitative study of 50 informants, we ask how users experience and handle temporal ambivalences in everyday smartphone use, drawing on the concepts flow and responsibilization to conceptualize central dimensions of such ambivalences. The notion of conflicting flows illuminates how brief checking cycles expand at the expense of other activities, resulting in a temporal conflict experienced by users. Responsibilization points to how users take individual responsibility for managing such conflicting flows, and to how this practice is difficult and conflict-ridden. We conclude that while individual time management is often framed as the solution to temporal conflicts, such attempts at regulating smartphone use appear inadequate. Our conceptualization of temporal ambivalence offers a more nuanced understanding of why this is the case.publishedVersio

The process and affordances of platform-specific social media disconnection

This article examines millennials' experience of platform-specific disconnection, focusing on the ambiguous intersection of engagement and disengagement with social media. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with (non)users who have quit specific social media platforms while remaining users on other platforms, this study addresses a specific practice of social media disengagement as a phenomenon, regardless of the (non)users' demographics. As a result, the study introduces phases leading up to platform-specific disconnection, which can extend to, or derive from, other practices of media rejection and resistance. These different stages refer to the technical and social affordances that influence users in their decision to (dis)engage with specific platforms, revealing a bias between the perception of the phenomenon and the lived experience of the disconnected. By visualizing the process of platform-specific disengagement, this paper provides novel insight into media resistance and non-use, and challenges the misconception of disconnecting in the digital age

Users Recounting Temporary Disconnection on Instagram

UID/CCI/04667/2016This article looks at the discourses of Instagram users about interrupting the use of social or digital media, through hashtags such as “socialmediadetox,” “offline,” or “disconnecttoreconnect.” We identified three predominant themes: posts announcing or recounting voluntary interruption, mostly as a positive experience associated to regaining control over time, social relationships, and their own well-being; others actively campaigning for this type of disconnection, attempting to convert others; and disconnection as a lifestyle choice, or marketing products by association with disconnection imaginary. These discourses reproduce other public discourses in asserting the self-regulation of the use of social media as a social norm, where social media users are responsible for their well-being and where interruption is conveyed as a valid way to achieve that end. They also reveal how digital disconnection and interruption is increasingly reintegrated on social media as lifestyle, in cynical and ironic ways, and commodified and co-opted by businesses, benefiting from—and ultimately contributing to—the continued economic success of the platform. As Hesselberth, Karppi, or Fish have argued in relation to other forms of disconnection, discourses about Instagram interruptions are thus not transformative but restorative of the informational capitalism social media are part of.publishersversionpublishe

Was können wir von Ablehnung lernen?: Eine Befragung von NichtnutzerInnen im Kontext einer Produktentwicklung

Die Humanzentrierung stellt den Menschen in den Mittelpunkt der (Weiter-)Entwicklung von (neuen) Produkten. Der Fokus liegt jedoch hierbei hauptsächlich auf den Menschen, die das betreffende Produkt besitzen oder nutzen. Nichtnutzung und Ablehnung wird im Kontext der NutzerInnenfreundlichkeit allerdings seltener betrachtet, kann jedoch wertvollen Input für eine Produktentwicklung bieten, indem mehr als nur das Negativfeedback von Nutzenden betrachtet wird. Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit dem Thema Nichtnutzung im Kontext der Produktentwicklung und wie der Aspekt Ablehnung zukünftig eingebunden werden kann. Im Rahmen einer Fallstudie werden NutzerInnen und NichtnutzerInnen von Kaffeeautomaten über ihre Nutzung bzw. Ablehnung des Produkts befragt, um die Ergebnisse anschließend für eine umfassende Produktentwicklung aufzubereiten. Es wird untersucht inwiefern sich die Ergebnisse unterscheiden und welche davon für eine Produktentwicklung wertvoller sind. Es werden Vorschläge gemacht, wie die Ergebnisse aufbereitet werden können, zum Beispiel mithilfe der sogenannten Non-Persona, die das Konzept der Persona auf Nichtnutzung übersetzt. Abschließend werden Empfehlungen für die zukünftige Einbindung von NichtnutzerInnen in der Produktentwicklung gegeben

The Process and Affordances of Platform-Specific Social Media Disconnection

This article examines millennials’ experience of platform-specific disconnection, focusing on the ambiguous intersection of engagement and disengagement with social media. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with (non)users who have quit specific social media platforms while remaining users on other platforms, this study addresses a specific practice of social media disengagement as a phenomenon, regardless of the (non)users’ demographics. As a result, the study introduces phases leading up to platform-specific disconnection, which can extend to, or derive from, other practices of media rejection and resistance. These different stages refer to the technical and social affordances that influence users in their decision to (dis)engage with specific platforms, revealing a bias between the perception of the phenomenon and the lived experience of the disconnected. By visualizing the process of platform-specific disengagement, this paper provides novel insight into media resistance and non-use, and challenges the misconception of disconnecting in the digital age

The Process and Affordances of Platform-Specific Social Media Disconnection

This article examines millennials’ experience of platform-specific disconnection, focusing on the ambiguous intersection of engagement and disengagement with social media. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with (non)users who have quit specific social media platforms while remaining users on other platforms, this study addresses a specific practice of social media disengagement as a phenomenon, regardless of the (non)users’ demographics. As a result, the study introduces phases leading up to platform-specific disconnection, which can extend to, or derive from, other practices of media rejection and resistance. These different stages refer to the technical and social affordances that influence users in their decision to (dis)engage with specific platforms, revealing a bias between the perception of the phenomenon and the lived experience of the disconnected. By visualizing the process of platform-specific disengagement, this paper provides novel insight into media resistance and non-use, and challenges the misconception of disconnecting in the digital age

Language and the Newness of Media

How is the newness of new media constructed? Rejecting technological determinism, linguistic anthropologists understand that newness emerges when previous strategies for coordinating social interactions are challenged by a communicative channel. People experience a communicative channel as new when it enables people to circulate knowledge in new ways, to call forth new publics, to occupy new communicative roles, to engage in new forms of politics and control—in short, new social practices. Anthropologists studying media have been modifying the analytical tools that linguistic anthropologists have developed for language to uncover when and how media are understood to provide the possibilities for social change and when they are not. Taking coordination to be a vulnerable achievement, I address recent work that elaborates on the ways that linguistic anthropology segments communication to explore how a particular medium offers its own distinctive forms of authorship, circulation, storage, and audiences

Teachers and 1:1 technology in classroom activities: A quantitative study comparing perceptions and stage of adoption

This quantitative research study examined high school teachers’ perceptions concerning the incorporation of 1:1 technology into classroom activities. The study collected data from teachers at rural, southeastern high schools with 1:1 technology programs. Data were collected from teachers via an online survey. The Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989; Marangunic & Granic, 2015) was used as a basis for examining teachers’ incorporation of 1:1 technology into class work. Teachers’ adoption of the technology into pedagogy was analyzed to determine if relationships exist between level of adoption, perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, organizational factors, and teacher characteristics. Identification of relationships provided insights that may inform future decision-making about 1:1 technology integration into curricula and pedagogy, allowing opportunities for interventions that might influence adoption

UNDERSTANDING HOW INTENTIONALLY UNPLUGGING FROM CELL PHONES SHAPES INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND THE UNDERGRADUATE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of what motivated college students—the Unplugged Students—to intentionally use their cell phones less and how they understood the impact that unplugging had on their interpersonal relationships and college experience. Nine undergraduate college students from four private schools were interviewed in one-on-one semi- structured interviews. These students, considered non-users, provided a particularly useful perspective as these students made a conscious choice to counteract social norms and experienced both being plugged in and unplugged. Cell phones and the act of unplugging proved to make up a complex and more nuanced topic than expected. Emerged from the research were themes that brought to light the personal and external factors that motivated students to unplug, unveiling the opportunity for families, schools, and public figures to educate students. The study also includes the student perspective about the complexities of relationships in the digital age, the major role of social media, opposing views on the impact of unplugging on community spaces, and students’ shared vision for the future