“Loading, please wait” – Temporality and (bodily) presence in mobile digital communication

Abstract

Mobile digital communications, as currently the most complex forms of communication, offer a broad view on the phenomenon of communication. The last ten years have seen the addition of new forms of communication (WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.) and the restructuring of a (growing?) share of traditional communication into digitalized forms. Taking these changes as a guideline, this article examines the concept of communication in its temporality, (use of) technology, and physicality and attempts to adapt this concept to current forms.

Times new plural: The multiple temporalities of contemporary life and the infosphere

“…Every form of communication is a temporal process (Sebald, 2020, p. 992), and with ICTs our relationship with time is heightened, as we inscribe them and they come to inscribe upon us; “a new shared moment of action in time; a vertiginous togetherness” (Keightley, 2012, p. 2). Our ICTs are essentially networked 24/7, and as they offer to save us time, we come to spend more and more time using them, and anticipating their use (Görland, 2019; Haider & Sundin, 2021; Sebald, 2020).…”

“…Every form of communication is a temporal process (Sebald, 2020, p. 992), and with ICTs our relationship with time is heightened, as we inscribe them and they come to inscribe upon us; “a new shared moment of action in time; a vertiginous togetherness” (Keightley, 2012, p. 2). Our ICTs are essentially networked 24/7, and as they offer to save us time, we come to spend more and more time using them, and anticipating their use (Görland, 2019; Haider & Sundin, 2021; Sebald, 2020). Virilio (1997, p. 33) wrote that instantaneous telecommunications would anchor us exclusively in the present, collapsing spatiality while cementing our sedentariness before the vertiginous screen of our transmissions; the “final void” of this vacuum (Virilio, 1997, p. 33).…”

Times New Plural – The Multiple Temporalities of Contemporary Life and the Infosphere

“…Every form of communication is a temporal process (Sebald, 2020, p. 992), and with ICTs our relationship with time is heightened, as we inscribe them and they come to inscribe upon us; " a new shared moment of action in time; a vertiginous togetherness" (Keightley, 2012, p. 2). Our ICTs are essentially networked 24/7, and as they offer to save us time, we come to spend more and more time using them, and anticipating their use Sebald, 2020;Haider and Sundin, 2021). Virilio (1997, pp.33) wrote that instantaneous telecommunications would anchor us exclusively in the present, collapsing spatiality whilst cementing our sedentariness before the vertiginous screen of our transmissions; the "final void" of this vacuum (Virilio, 1997, pp.…”

Mobile phones and the experience of time: New perspectives from a deprivation study of teenagers

“…In dissecting the studies discussed above from a methodological perspective, one finds two primary approaches: theoretical studies based on conjecture (e.g., Sebald, 2020), and empirical studies, based on users’ self-reporting (mainly through questionnaires and interviews, for example, Ashbourne and Daly, 2012). But there appears to be a fundamental limitation to the methodological approaches used heretofore, notwithstanding their important contribution to understanding the interface of mobile technology and the experience of time.…”