Going cold turkey!: An autoethnographic exploration of digital disengagement

Abstract

As the dust of society-wide digitalisation settles, the search for meaningful technological encounters is becoming more urgent. While the Nordic countries embrace digitalisation, recent concerns regarding technology overuse have been gaining increased attention. This tendency is exemplified in practices of limiting digital use, called digital disengagement – an apparent paradox in Nordic societies where digital is the dominant paradigm. In this article, we explore the emergence of disconnection-centred devices called “dumbphones”, which cater to individuals wishing to escape hyperconnected lifestyles. Drawing on a new materialist perspective, we present a content analysis of dumbphones’ advertising material, followed by a collaborative autoethnographic study in which we replace our smartphones with dumbphones. We critically weigh the promises of the dumbphones against the actual experience of digital disengagement in Sweden. Our findings illustrate a struggle with digital technologies, even despite their absence, due to emerging workarounds and societal expectations of use.

When digital inequalities meet digital disconnection: Studying the material conditions of disconnection in rural Turkey

“…Future studies will need to carefully explore the changing contexts, dynamics, motivations, contradictions and meanings of digital inequalities and disconnection, as well as their variable intersections and configurations in both the Global North and the South. Material conditions of dis/connection also open future research opportunities in the Global North, where the pervasive and progressive digitalisation and datafication of infrastructures (including good and services) makes it almost impossible to disconnect in everyday life (Bucher, 2020; Ghita and Thorén, 2021). Finally, this paper shows to policy makers the importance of overcoming connectivity issues relying on alternatives such as satellite Internet access in remote and difficult environments.…”

Mapping a pluralistic continuum of approaches to digital disconnection

“…Enli and Fast, 2023; Ytre-Arne, 2023; Gangneux, 2021) and of scholars themselves (e.g. Ghita and Thorén, 2021; Lucero, 2018), as well as discourse analysis of digital disconnection public discourses and materials (e.g. Jorge et al, 2022; Portwood-Stacer, 2013; Syvertsen and Enli, 2020; Van Bruyssel et al, 2023).…”

Studying digital disconnection: A mapping review of empirical contributions to disconnection studies

“…These studies, among others, laid focus on the meanings of disconnection in and for society on a macro-and meso-scale, observing both resistant (critical and activist) and compliant (neoliberal and productivity-oriented) paradigms from empirical and theoretical perspectives alike (Casemajor, et al, 2015;Fast, 2021;Guyard and Kaun, 2018;Kaun and Schwarzenegger, 2014;Kuntsman and Miyake, 2019;Natale and Treré, 2020). On the micro-level, case studies have also dealt with the ways that digital disconnection is embedded in complex daily realities, including the feasibility of disconnecting, the social consequences of doing so, and the relationship between being disconnected and one's religious beliefs (Cai, et al, 2020;Ems, 2015;Ghita and Thorén, 2021;Jorge, 2019).…”