Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button

Abstract

Life is increasingly governed and mediated through digital and smart technologies, platforms, big data and algorithms. However, the reasons, practices and impact of how the digital is used by different institutions are often deeply linked to social oppression and injustice. Similarly, the ability to resist these digital impositions is based on inequality and privilege. Challenging the ways in which we are increasingly dependent on the digital, this book raises a set of provocative and urgent questions: in a world of compulsory digitality is there an opt out button? Where, when, how, why and to whom is it available? Answering these questions has become even more relevant since the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the book puts forward the concept of ‘digital disengagement’ which is explored across six key areas of digitisation: health; citizenship; education; consumer culture; labour; and the environment. Part I examines the difficulty of opting out of compulsory digitality in a world where most things are digital by default. From health apps, algorithmic decision-making to learning analytics, opting out comes with a set of troubling consequences. Part II turns to several examples of disconnection and disengagement. The chapters reveal how phenomena like digital detoxes, time-management apps and online ‘green’ spaces are co-opted by the very digital systems one is trying to resist. The book critiques issues relating to digital surveillance, algorithmic discrimination and biased tech, corporatisation and monetisation of data, exploitative digital labour, digitalised self-discipline and destruction of the environment. As an interdisciplinary piece of work, the book will be useful to any scholar and activist in Digital, Internet and Social Media Studies; Digital Sociology and Social Policy; Digital Health; Media, Popular and Communication Studies; Consumer culture; and Environment Studies.

Who cares about digital disconnection? Exploring commodified digital disconnection discourse through a relational lens

“…Paradoxically, however, while the commodification of care gives greater (use) value to the care work by making it more profitable to the seller and/or owner of the care service or product, it often keeps the labor force itself undervalued and exploited.. Digital disconnection is also subjected to processes of commodification, and often also involves digital developments to support it, for instance in the form of screen time monitoring apps. Ironically, these digital developments often stem from the same tech-industry that pushes hyper-connectivity (Beattie, 2020;Jorge et al, 2022;Kuntsman and Miyake, 2022). A recurring critique of these developments is that increasing responsibility and expectation is put on individuals to take care of their own (digital) well-being, even though their individual free choice is constrained by the structural (Kaun, 2021).…”

“…However, there was a lack of discourse showing an acknowledgement for the potential structural causes of these issues such as work overload or long working hours. There was also an inconsiderateness for non-work responsibilities that may spatially and temporally overlap with paid working hours, and that may complicate disconnection, seeing as digital -and especially mobile -devices blur boundaries between social roles of 'play' and 'labor' that bear caring responsibilities, such as parenting (Kuntsman and Miyake, 2022).…”

Book Review: Media Use in Digital Everyday Life by Brita Ytre-Arne

“…A salient feature of the book is examining digital media use by decentralizing media and unraveling the influence of temporal and social factors in engendering digital behaviors. This approach complements a growing study on non-media centric approaches (Kuntsman & Miyake, 2022;Vanden Abeele et al, 2018), demonstrating ways to consider the social and environmental contexts and factors shaping people's media practices. Personally, the methodological intervention of the study may propel readers to do further research on understanding the influence of spatial transformations in navigating digital practices, complementing examples that explore the interplay between spaces and practices that are embedded in and out of the digital (see Farman, 2012;Jansson & Adams, 2021).…”

Book Review: Digital Unsettling: Decoloniality and Dispossession in the Age of Social Media by Sahana Udupa and Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan

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A salient feature of the book is examining digital media use by decentralizing media and unraveling the influence of temporal and social factors in engendering digital behaviors. This approach complements a growing study on non-media centric approaches (Kuntsman & Miyake, 2022;Vanden Abeele et al, 2018), demonstrating ways to consider the social and environmental contexts and factors shaping people's media practices. Personally, the methodological intervention of the study may propel readers to do further research on understanding the influence of spatial transformations in navigating digital practices, complementing examples that explore the interplay between spaces and practices that are embedded in and out of the digital (see Farman, 2012;Jansson & Adams, 2021).

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