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Social media face criticisms about anticompetitive reach, addictive design, and toxicity to democracy, but disconnection practices-restricting, detoxing, deleting-often only reinforce these effects of social media. This book addresses the ambivalence, commodification, and complicity involved in attempts to separate from social media.
List of contents
Introduction: Reckoning with Social Media in the Pandemic Denouement
Aleena Chia, Ana Jorge, and Tero Karppi
Defining Disconnection
Why Disconnecting Matters? Towards a Critical Research Agenda on Online Disconnection Magdalena Kania-Lundholm
The Ontological Insecurity of Disconnecting: A Theory of Echolocation and the Self
Annette N. MarkhamDesiring Disconnection
'Hey! I'm back after a 24h #DigitalDetox!': Influencers posing disconnection Ana Jorge and Marco Pedroni
Privacy, energy, time and moments stolen: Social media experiences pushing towards disconnection
Trine Syvertsen and Brita Ytre-ArneQuitting Digital Culture: Rethinking Agency in a Beyond-Choice OntologyZeena Feldman
Designing Disconnection
Ethics and Experimentation in The Light Phone and Google Digital Wellbeing Aleena Chia and Alex Beattie
From digital detox to 24/365 disconnection: between dependency tactics and resistance strategies in BrazilMarianna Ferreira Jorge and Julia Salgado
Delaying Disconnection
Overcoming Forced Disconnection: Disentangling the Professional and the Personal in Pandemic TimesChristoffer Bagger and Stine Lomborg
Disconnecting on Two Wheels: Bike touring, leisure and reimagining networksPedro Ferreira and Airi Lampinen
Analogue Nostalgia: Examining Critiques of Social Media
Clara Wieghorst
About the author
Aleena Chia is assistant professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research on gaming and digital cultures has been published in journals such as Television & New Media, American Behavioral Scientist, and the Journal of Fandom Studies. Her previous research positions include postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland's Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies and Ph.D. Intern at Microsoft Research New England. Her work has been supported by a fieldwork grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, training from Cornell University's School of Criticism and Theory, and an invitation to the Social Science FOO Camp at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park.
Ana Jorge is guest assistant professor of communication at the Catholic University of Portugal, University NOVA of Lisbon, and Instituto Superior Miguel Torga, in Portugal. She researches on children, youth, families and media, audiences, celebrity and microcelebrity, and digital disconnection. Under these areas, Ana explores how media technologies are appropriated and negotiated in specific cultural contexts. Her research has been published in journals of Media and Communications, and Cultural Studies areas, such as Social Media + Society, Journal of Children and Media, Celebrity Studies, Cyberpsychology and Communications; in collections Childhood & Celebrity, Celebrity and Youth, and Internet of Toys. Ana has co-edited a volume, Digital Parenting , with Mascheroni and Ponte, and special issues in Portuguese and Spanish journals (including in English) Mediterranean Journal of Communication, Observatorio(OBS*) and Media & Jornalismo. She serves as vicechair of ECREA's Digital Culture and Communication section (2016-20).
Tero Karppi is assistant professor at the University of Toronto. He teaches at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology and the Faculty of Information. He is the author of Disconnect: Facebook's Affective Bonds and his research has been published in journals such as Theory, Culture & Society, Social Media + Society, and International Journal of Cultural Studies.
