Disentangling: The Geographies of Digital Disconnection 9780197571880, 9780197571873

Citation preview

Disentangling

Disentangling The Geographies of Digital Disconnection Edited by

André Jansson and Paul C. Adams

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Control Number: 2021939193 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​757188–​0 (pbk.) ISBN 978–​0–​19–​757187–​3 (hbk.) DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America

Contents Acknowledgments  Editors  Contributors 

Introduction: Rethinking the Entangling Force of Connective Media  Paul C. Adams and André Jansson

vii ix xi

1

PART I: POW ER G E O M E TR I E S O F CO N N E CT I V I TY 1. Disconnection and Reconnection as Resistance to Geosurveillance  David Swanlund 2. Locational Technologies in Post-​disaster Infrastructure Space: Uneven Access to OpenStreetMap in Post-​ earthquake Haiti  Mimi Sheller

23

41

3. Disconnection as Distinction: A Bourdieusian Study of Where People Withdraw from Digital Media  Karin Fast, Johan Lindell, and André Jansson

61

4. Digital Disconnection as Othering: Immersion, “Authenticity” and the Politics of Experience  Neriko Musha Doerr

91

PA RT II: ( DIS )CON N ECTED LIVES 5. Automating Digital Afterlives  Robbie Fordyce, Bjørn Nansen, Michael Arnold, Tamara Kohn, and Martin Gibbs

115

vi Contents

6. Senses and Sensors of Sleep: Digital Mediation and Disconnection in Sleep Architectures 

137

Bjørn Nansen, Kate Mannell, and Christopher O’Neill

7. Digital Ruins: Virtual Worlds as Landscapes of Disconnection 

163

Gonzalo C. Garcia and Vincent Miller

8. “Think on Paper, Share Online”: Interrogating the Sense of Slowness and Disconnection in the Rise of Shouzhang in China  189 Yan Yuan

PA RT III: RE TH IN KIN G D ISCON N ECTION I N A D I S RUPTE D WORLD 9. Disconnect to Reconnect! Self-​help to Regain an Authentic Sense of Space Through Digital Detoxing  227 Gunn Enli and Trine Syvertsen

10. Retreat Culture and Therapeutic Disconnection 

253

Pepita Hesselberth

11. Networked Intimacies: Pandemic Dis/​Connections Between Anxiety, Joy, and Laughter 

273

Jenny Sundén

12. Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection 

295

Paul C. Adams, Vivie Behrens, Steven Hoelscher, Olga Lavrenova, Heath Robinson, and Yan Yuan

Index 

325

Acknowledgments This book is the result of several years of deliberation on digital disconnection or, as we eventually came to call it, disentangling. We started with a shared interest in studying how, why, where, and when people are able to get away from things like e-​mail and Skype. However, we relied on those digital technologies to stay in touch despite living some 8000 km (5000 mi) apart. This sort of long-​distance collaboration hardly merits attention at this point—​a fact that indicates how far so many of us have come over the past several decades in normalizing long-​distance work routines and socializing. Still, Skype calls and e-​mail only maintained the impetus brought to this project by our opportunities to travel abroad for a mix of collaboration and sightseeing. Paul got to visit the retreat where André unraveled digital entanglements, and André got to visit the retreat where Paul unraveled digital entanglements. These places, where each of us felt connected to the slow rhythms of life—​more in touch with material objects, animals, and the weather—​played a role in prompting us to reflect on what we meant by disentangling and the limits of this endeavor. André is grateful for the seed funding he received in 2019 from the Geomedia Research Group for traveling to the United States and developing trans-​Atlantic collaborations, of which this book is one of the outcomes. Paul benefited from funding by the Anne-​Marie and Gustaf Ander Foundation for Media Research which allowed him to visit Karlstad University as Ander Visiting Professor in Global Media Studies from 2016 to 2017, as well as a Supplemental College Research Fellowship from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. This research visit planted the seeds for the project. Both authors also wish to express their appreciation for the interest and support of Oxford University Press, particularly Sarah Humphreville whose initial visit in Austin helped get this project going. It seems odd to thank a pandemic, but it must be admitted that COVID-​19 did serve as a cattle-​prod to make us painfully aware of certain things that made it into this book.

viii Acknowledgments André wants to thank Karin for making everyday companionship so exciting, even during the current period of social enclosure, liquid home offices, and remodeled logistics. Paul is grateful, as always, to Karina for putting up with him when his head is in the clouds, which is always the case when working on a project like this. Paul is also grateful to his brother, Steve, for helping make his writing retreat a bit more habitable. Austin, Texas, USA, April 2021 Karlstad, Sweden, April 2021

Editors André Jansson is Professor of Media and Communication Studies and Director of the Geomedia Research Group at Karlstad University, Sweden. His most recent books are Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in Digital Modernity (with Karin Fast, Routledge, 2019) and Mediatization and Mobile Lives: A Critical Approach (Routledge, 2018). Paul C. Adams is Professor of Geography at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Geographies of Media and Communication (Wiley-​Blackwell, 2009), co-​author of Communications/​Media/​Geographies (Routledge, 2016), and co-​editor of the Research Companion to Media Geography (Ashgate, 2014).

Contributors Michael Arnold is Professor in the History and Philosophy of Science Program in the Arts Faculty at the University of Melbourne. His research lies at the intersection of technology and contemporary life. Vivie Behrens graduated with highest honors from the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities. Behrens works at the intersection of visual art, American studies, media studies, transnational feminist theory, photography, and public humanities. Neriko Musha Doerr received a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Cornell University. She currently teaches at Ramapo College in New Jersey, USA, and does research on politics of difference, language and power, and education including study abroad and civic engagement in Japan, Aotearoa/​New Zealand, and the United States. Gunn Enli is Professor of Media Studies, University of Oslo. Enli’s books include The Media Welfare State (2014), Mediated Authenticity (2015), and Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics (2016). She participates in the project Intrusive Media, Ambivalent Users and Digital Detox (Digitox) from 2019 to 2023.​ Karin Fast is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University, Sweden, but during 2020 to 2021 holds a full-​ time research position at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, Norway. She is the author of Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in Digital Modernity (with André Jansson, 2019). Robbie Fordyce is Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash University. His research focuses on the rules and exploits of digital systems and platforms. Gonzalo C. Garcia is a novelist and Creative Writing Lecturer at the University of Warwick. His recent novel, We Are the End, is heavily influenced by his interest in video games, digital culture, and everyday constructions of narrative. Martin Gibbs is Associate Professor in Human-​Computer Interaction in the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. He is the co-​ author of the recent books Death and Digital Media (2018) and Digital Domesticities (2020).

xii Contributors Pepita Hesselberth is Assistant Professor of Film and Digital Culture at the Centre for the Arts in Society at Leiden University and the Director of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA). Steven Hoelscher is Professor of American Studies and Geography, Faculty Curator of Photography at the Harry Ransom Center, and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Professor Hoelscher’s research interests include the history of photography, race and racism, North American and European urbanism, social constructions of space and place, and cultural memory. Tamara Kohn is Professor of Anthropology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Recent co-​authored books include Death and Digital Media (2018), Residues of Death: Disposal Refigured (2019), and Sounding Out Japan: An Ethnographic Tour (2020). Olga Lavrenova is Leading Researcher at the Institute of Scientific Information on Human Science (INION) RAS, Professor of MISIS and GITR (Moscow, Russia) as well as honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and President of the International Association for Semiotic of Space and Time (https://​www.ias-​st.com). She is the author of Spaces and Meanings: Semantics of the Cultural Landscape (2019) and the long-​term interdisciplinary project The Geography of Art. Johan Lindell is Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University, Sweden. Kate Mannell recently completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne on how young adults negotiate their social availability via mobile messaging. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Computer-​Mediated Communication, Mobile Media and Communication, and Platform: Journal of Media and Communication. Vincent Miller is Reader in Sociology and Cultural Studies at the University of Kent. He has recently published two books on the digital: Understanding Digital Culture (Second Edition, 2020) and The Crisis of Presence in Contemporary Culture (2015), both with SAGE Publications. Bjørn Nansen is Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne; his research focuses on emerging forms of digital media use in everyday life. He is the author of Young Children and Mobile Media (2020) and co-​author of Death and Digital Media (2018) and Digital Domesticity: Media, Materiality and Home Life (2020).

Contributors  xiii Christopher O’Neill has recently completed a PhD thesis at the University of Melbourne on the genealogy of biosensors in the fields of medicine, labor, and the home. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, Science, Technology & Human Values, and First Monday, and he has served as Editor in Chief of Platform: Journal of Media and Communication. Heath Robinson is a doctoral candidate working in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focus includes social studies education, pre-​service teacher preparation, teacher identity, curriculum studies, and cultural memory. Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology, Head of the Sociology Department, and founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is founding co-​editor of the journal Mobilities and author or co-​editor of 12 books, including most recently Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (2020) and Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (2018). Jenny Sundén is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Karlstad University, Sweden. Her work is situated in the intersection of digital media studies, feminist and queer theory, and affect theory. David Swanlund is PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University studying location privacy and GIScience. Trine Syvertsen is Professor of Media Studies, University of Oslo. Syvertsen’s books include The Media Welfare State (2014); Media Resistance; Protest, Dislike, Abstention (2017); and Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting (2020). She chairs the project Intrusive Media, Ambivalent Users and Digital Detox (Digitox) from 2019 to 2023. Yan Yuan is Professor in Journalism and Communication School at the Huazhong University. She initiated a Media Geography course in China, with research interest covering Media Geography and Media Culture.

Introduction Rethinking the Entangling Force of Connective Media Paul C. Adams and André Jansson

Introduction Digital connectivity platforms are designed to encourage dependence. Marketed as convenient solutions to virtually every spatial and temporal challenge, from purchasing plane tickets to reserving a table at a restaurant, from keeping in touch with friends to learning about world events, from monitoring one’s exercise regime to navigating unfamiliar urban environments, connective media have become ubiquitous, and seemingly indispensable. They take us, as van Dijck (2013) notes, into an era of “platformed sociality,” where our desires are measured, predicted, and reproduced through the operation of algorithms. Facilitating the search for information, entertainment, and social connections, this custom-​tailoring of the media landscape appears to multiply the apparent usefulness and convenience of media in general. But its value-​added comes from the ability to measure and steer, or stream, digital subjects and their engagements (as data) in the ways that are most profitable (e.g., Pigni et al., 2016; Cheney-​Lippold, 2017; Karppi, 2018; Bernard, 2019; Goriunova, 2019). Thus, as Couldry (2017) puts it, our everyday tools are now working upon us, and the media landscape has become not just customized but deeply entangling. This digital entanglement takes communication into new territory. It prompts a (re)turn to questions of disconnection as a right (Hesselberth, 2017), as a way of shaping experience, as a statement, as a reaction to confrontation or overload, as a response to changes in one’s life, or even as an optional event after one’s death. In response to the digital connectivity regime, trends in society prescribe or assist in various forms of media abstention. Paul C. Adams and André Jansson, Introduction In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0001

2 Introduction Self-​help books have appeared with titles like Digital Minimalism, How to Break Up with Your Phone; and Slow Media, addressing those who hope to reclaim their independence from digital media or rebuild a more “mindful” lifestyle (Newport, 2019; Price, 2018; Rauch, 2018). Organized retreats are proliferating, with custom-​tailored forms of “digital detox tourism” for those who seek to push back the forces of connection and carve out a space for unmediated existence (e.g., Fish, 2017; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). While people’s efforts to disentangle themselves from digital ties may be psychologically, economically, or spiritually motivated, they all converge around the desire to lead a more autonomous life, anchoring oneself, one’s awareness, and one’s actions in the here and now. In this context, there is a need for geographers to reflect on the dialectics of digital connection and disconnection. They could consider digital disconnection to be a form of resistance to social phenomena that geographers have investigated, such as “digital geographies” (Ash et al., 2018), “geosurveillance” (Crampton, 2007; Swanlund & Schuurman, 2016, 2019), and “data doubles” (Haggerty & Ericson, 2000; Amoore, 2011), as well as concepts from outside of geography such as mediatized “spatial selves” (Schwartz & Hallegoua, 2015). However, although geographers have analyzed “digital divides” that characterize involuntary disconnection from digital media (e.g., Warf, 2001), and have considered ways in which daily life is “reterritorialized” by digital media (Wilson, 2018: 12), little work has been done to understand where people deliberately disconnect from digital media and how practices of digital disconnection carve out their own sorts of places. Questions about how and why people disconnect have been discussed to a greater degree within media studies, as has the question of whether “disconnection” is even possible; this work has been driven largely by concern over the rise of social media and “smart” devices (e.g., Light & Cassidy, 2014; Karppi, 2018; Jorge, 2019; Bucher, 2020). Media scholars have interpreted voluntary digital disconnection as a recent expression of a recurring trend toward media resistance or rejection (e.g., Syvertsen, 2017; Kaun & Treré, 2018; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019), and have depicted disconnection, brokenness, and failure as inextricable aspects of connectivity (e.g., Paasonen, 2015; Sundén, 2018). This has taken media theory beyond simplified dualistic notions of connection/​disconnection to a broader existential terrain (Lagerkvist, 2017, 2018; Karppi, 2018; Kuntsman & Miyake, 2019). However,

Introduction  3

this work is still lacking in subtlety and depth when considering the spatial, environmental, or geographical implications of disconnection strategies. Disconnection is a research topic that will, we believe, define social science in the 2020s, the way networking has in the 2000s and 2010s. Therefore, this edited volume is designed as an inherently interdisciplinary venture. It examines both wanted and unwanted forms of disconnection, with attention to the ways in which places and spaces are increasingly structured by different degrees and types of connectivity, as well as to peculiar ways of facilitating disconnection. The project ultimately rethinks how boundaries of place respond to digital flows and how they are (re)drawn in relation to digitalized environments. We have thus solicited chapter submissions consisting of original research that addresses various aspects of what we would call the geographies of digital disconnection and relates disconnection to the wider challenges of society today. Should we, for example, think of being disconnected as exclusion (something bad) or seclusion (something potentially good), or a mix of both? Digital divides evolve quickly and involve many unexamined variations in access to technology, social norms, and practical knowledge, but what are these variations and how do they work? Both voluntary and involuntary disconnection can result when people reassert place boundaries to exclude unwanted chatter or seclude themselves from unruly technologies. What are these practices, where are they enacted, and why? How do such practices, and cultural constructions of them, reveal different social and cultural positions as well as the intersectionality between these positions? An important theme that binds together the chapters of the book is that “voluntary” and “involuntary” aspects of disconnection need to be considered in tandem. They are interrelated aspects of the uneven diffusion and socially entangled geographies of communication technology. This, in turn, underscores the premise that digital connection/​disconnection is an ambiguous and socially contested terrain where one side may entail, precondition and/​or pre-​mediate the other. As Sundén states in her contribution to this volume (p. 277), “disconnection is something that lives within every connection [ . . . ] networks and connections are bound to fail, reception can be patchy, devices might break or glitch, run out of power, or be left behind.” The flipside to Sundén’s argument that connection entails disconnection has been raised in recent literature on voluntary disconnection. Fish (2017), for example, describes the function of digital detox camps merely as a way of

4 Introduction lubricating the machinery of digital capitalism. Similarly, Jorge (2019: 1) concludes in her study of how people motivate their disconnection from Instagram that such actions often take the shape of temporary interruptions, and “are thus not transformative but restorative of the informational capitalism social media are part of.” As such, people’s attempts to disconnect or create alternative networks seem futile in a society where connectivity industries such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon colonize our entire lives down to our most mundane and intimate undertakings (see, e.g., Cheney-​Lippold, 2017; Karppi, 2018; Andrejevic, 2019; Couldry & Mejias, 2019). Even the photos taken of oneself and loved ones while disconnecting are shared with Facebook “friends” as soon as connectivity is reestablished. In this opening chapter, we provide a map of this complex terrain. Bringing together key arguments from the contributing chapters, we weave an argument that also represents an agenda for research into the geographies of digital disconnection. Accordingly, the following discussions match the triadic structure of the book. We begin with the increasingly pressing questions of ethics and justice, or what we with Massey (1991) call power geometries, framing digital (dis)connection today (Part I). We then explore existential issues stemming from digitally entangled lives, where disconnection seems an increasingly futile undertaking even in “analog” settings or in one’s afterlife (Part II). Third, we reflect on how ambiguities of (dis)connection are accentuated and exposed in time-​spaces of social disruption—​as evidenced not least during the COVID-​19 pandemic (Part III). These discussions lead up to a concluding section, in which we propose disentangling as a complementary term to disconnection, contextualizing issues of (dis)connection from a social and spatial perspective. Disentangling implies something more than just disconnection, since the latter is often furtive, escapist, or periodic. Disentangling is about the reassertion of resilient boundaries between the individual life and larger political, economic, cultural, and technological systems. While deliberate disconnection sometimes articulates a “longing for place,” and ambitious measures taken to satisfy this longing, such ambitions also escalate our awareness of, and frustrations with, how deeply our existences today are entangled with digital media. Such entanglements can best be understood as technologically distributed (and automated) agency permeating our entire lives. Even as disconnecting subjects who intend to reconnect to something non-​digital (for example real place, nature, others, or, simply

Introduction  5

life), we bring our entanglements with us regardless of what kind of place we retreat into.

Power Geometries of Connectivity Generally, disconnection evokes negative connotations. To be disconnected means that you are cut off from something, no longer capable of staying in touch with your loved ones or accessing your information sources. This, in turn, points to a subordinated position of some kind: marginalization, lack of infrastructure, communication failure. Yet, we increasingly encounter discourses that celebrate digital disconnection as a form of empowerment. To actively disconnect is to regain control over one’s life: resisting the surveillance and exploitative power of connective media, avoiding information stress and reconnecting with one’s inner self and the relations one values the most. Digital connectivity has become an issue that cuts both ways in regard to struggles for justice and debates about ethics. Who should have the right to which types of connection? Should there also be a right to disconnect? What kinds of judgments are involved in our decisions to connect or disconnect under different circumstances, and what does this say about the place of the “disconnected” in segments of society? We can with Doreen Massey (1991) say that connectivity—​in itself harboring the balance between connection and disconnection—​constitutes an increasingly important, and complex, type of power geometry in society. Massey coined the term to capture how different groups and individuals are unequally positioned in relation to various resources of mobility and connectivity and how such positionalities (re)produce social power relations at large. What is interesting to see, then, is that social power and status can no longer be unequivocally associated with the possession of what Elliot and Urry (2010) call network capital (including, for example, communication devices, means and documents of travel, and access to safe and secure meeting places). On top of power geometries stemming from unequal infrastructural resources, there are increasingly fine-​grained distinctions emerging, especially among those who already have an abundance of such resources and take their network capital more or less for granted. Such distinctions concern how connectivity is handled, including where and when we ought to disconnect. The individual capacity to manage connectivity in day-​to-​day life,

6 Introduction and the power associated with this capacity, can be likened with Kaufmann’s (2002) idea of motility: the ability to take control over one’s mobility, including the right and privilege to stay put. In the first part of the book, we have gathered four chapters that illuminate different aspects of these changing power geometries of connectivity. In Chapter 1, David Swanlund discusses the ubiquity of commercial geosurveillance in everyday life, asking whether there is actually any way of resisting such monitoring processes without disconnecting from digital platforms altogether. Geosurveillance refers to the automated collation of spatial data by and through location-​based services, typically linked to social media, which can be seen as a threat to individual privacy. Here, Swanlund stresses the need to move beyond simplified, binary oppositions between privacy vs. surveillance and connection vs. disconnection. He thus singles out minimization as well as reconnection as available tactics against the industry’s “hunger for data.” Minimization is a matter of acknowledging the small steps involved in disconnection that eventually lead to enlarged breathing space: “closing extraneous online accounts, using cash when making purchases, not providing a zip code or rewards card at the grocery store, opting out of software analytics, and denying unnecessary permissions to smartphone apps” (p. 33). Reconnection, in turn, entails “forging, strengthening, and altering connections to favor privacy over geosurveillance” (p. 34) through, for example, appropriating alternative apps and software that obfuscate dominant forms data collection and collation. In all, while Swanlund’s mapping of the everyday terrain of geosurveillance presents some hope to those concerned with human autonomy it also underlines the new power differentials linked to connectivity skills and reflexivity. In the following chapter (Chapter 2), Mimi Sheller provides evidence of similar everyday negotiations, but from a starkly different context. From 2010 to 2013, Sheller studied the implementation of digital infrastructure in post-​earthquake recovery processes in Haiti. Even under such conditions, where new geomedia platforms like OpenStreetMap were implemented by international organizations to sustain humanitarian aid projects, the consequences of (re-​)connectivity were ambiguous. While the distribution of connectivity and other elements of network capital were uneven from the start, especially since local infrastructures had been demolished, the implementation of new platforms further exposed the uneven nature of global power geometries. Sheller shows that many people “on the ground” were bypassed

Introduction  7

by new infrastructure and had to put considerable labor into “patching” together mended infrastructure. Sometimes, they also chose to “strategically disconnect” from new infrastructure “to counter the power of those with high network capital” (p. 43). Disconnection thus unfolded both as an inherent part of infrastructural connectivity efforts and through everyday tactical measures between differently positioned groups. This shows how (partial) disconnection may sometimes constitute an asset, a form of agency, even among socially disadvantaged groups—​which is, of course, not to say that disconnection in general, and in the long run, would be a sustainable path to justice and equality. The next two chapters delve into the current significance of digital disconnection as a form of social privilege, or, cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1979,1984). In Chapter 3, Fast, Lindell, and Jansson provide a survey analysis of where different social groups prefer to disconnect from digital media technology. In Chapter 4, Neriko Musha Doerr brings together three qualitative studies of how digital connectivity was managed under alternative student trips to foreign locations and natural environments. The backdrop to both chapters is the expanding disconnection discourse presenting media discipline and abstention as pathways to well-​being, autonomy, and stronger attachment to the “here and now.” Along these lines, Fast and colleagues demonstrate that experiences of “digital unease”—​including information stress, “fear of missing out,” and feelings of digital over-​use—​are associated with cultural capital and that individual routines for managing connectivity are more common among people in more privileged social positions, and that as a consequence, these groups are more inclined than others to disconnect at certain places, such as in the bedroom, at restaurants, while on vacation or visiting friends, and in nature. Disconnection practices thus manifest ethical standards that tend to distinguish more “cultured” groups from “others.” Doerr takes these discussions further. Based on her analyses of how students handled and conversed about connective media while on study abroad trips and alternative spring break trips to educational farms and wilderness camps, Doerr concludes that disconnection in these settings was invoked as a dominant social norm. It was taken as a prerequisite for gaining the “authentic” experience of local lives and the beauty of nature. Participants who did not adhere to this spatial coding were seen as inferior or suspect. Doerr argues that the disconnection discourse fosters a double othering effect where those who fail to recognize

8 Introduction the constructed value of selective disconnection (related to the quest for “authentic” experiences), as well as people who are involuntarily disconnected, are looked down upon. This group of chapters highlights the growing levels of reflexivity involved in the day-​to-​day management of connectivity, whether we speak of “patching” of fragmented connections or distinctive acts of selective media withdrawal. Ultimately, these practices are political in nature. They make up and manifest the power geometries and spatial codes we live by, that is, how we interpret and judge the social and material landscape. Our ability to manage connectivity (connection vs. disconnection) has an impact on our sense of belonging and our feelings about different places. It also affects how others perceive us at different times and places. As such, power geometries of connectivity concern more than network capital and digital access. They concern the deeper existential bonds we have to place and how these bonds are negotiated. While politicians and other power fractions have few incentives to plead for disconnection or infrastructural restrictions—​removing things like fiber expansion and 5G development from the agenda would seem very odd indeed—​the more digitally entangled we are the more difficult it gets to establish that “breathing space” of privacy that Swanlund talks about, and therefore the more exclusive and privileged such “disconnection retreats” will be. Today, even our innermost lived spaces are technologized and, as such, exposed to ideological, commercial, and other entangling forces.

(Dis)connected Lives The switch from connection to disconnection has been evident throughout history, for example in sleep, in the abandonment of human settlements, and in death. Social connections are broken when one crawls off to bed, leaves the scene, or dies. Our attempts to give meaning to disconnection are therefore not only key among things that make us human, but they are what could be called existential forms of disconnection—​aspects of the human condition. In the digital era, these existential turning points imply new ways of connecting, as well; death is not what it used to be, nor is sleep, nor is the act of departing and leaving behind what one has built. Digital entanglement makes each of these separations into something equivocal, enigmatic, and persistently entangled.

Introduction  9

To start with death (perhaps as a bit of a provocation), funeral customs are ancient and socially sanctioned healing processes. When death severs the social fabric, the living do not simply endure disconnection but follow customs to heal the wound, and it is a wound that seldom heals quickly or easily. Death has always led to a disconcerting alternation between attempted reconnection (imagining what someone would say) and repeated encounters with the intransigent fact of disconnection (remembering that they can no longer speak), which in turn motivate not just funeral rituals but peculiar forms of communication. For example, 19th-​century mourners dressed up their dead and posed with them in photos creating visual evidence of an enduring social connection, in a way that now strikes us as macabre (Bell, 2016). Older yet is the gesture of reconnecting with the dead by visiting a gravesite or monument and leaving flowers or other offerings as a “gift of presence” to those who are absent (Richardson, 2001), performing the act of giving as proof of an unbroken connection, though the senses (normally) show no evidence of a reply. The fact that we now live in and through data streams intersects with such communication efforts and transforms them. The dead are not merely preserved as visual facsimiles or embedded in an economy of gift-​giving, but rather they are extended and simulated in digital form, kept alive as digital agents (Lagerkvist, 2017: 103–​104). Insofar as people develop online personas during life, these “second selves” (Turkle, 2005) are easily repurposed as components of a postmortem presence. As Fordyce, Nansen, Arnold, Kohn, and Gibbs demonstrate in this volume (Chapter 5), digital media and computers afford several distinct methods of doing this: pre-​ written messages sent at intervals after one’s death, surrogates who maintain another person’s online presence, algorithms that post a remixed version of the dead person’s responses, and artificial intelligences that seem to breathe life back into the dead person. These interventions all seem to solve the existential challenge of death, but a question arises whether such digital afterlives (re)connect lives, or rob death of some of its existential meaning. Sleep is a temporary disconnection that mirrors the permanent disconnection of death. If the anxieties that keep us up at night can potentially be solved in a low-​tech way (for example through music, movement, and meditation), these solutions appear slow and uncertain in comparison to high-​tech alternatives: hardware to buy and software to install. Lying in bed, one’s mind hesitates to let go; technology seems to offer a solution. Nansen, Mannell, and O’Neill explore this new digital landscape in Chapter 6. There

10 Introduction are technologies marketed as tools to help one go to sleep, stay asleep, sleep soundly, benefit from sleep, and wake “naturally.” These technologies fine-​ tune external aspects of the sleeper’s environment to facilitate a beneficial form of disconnection, including sound, light, and temperature, while “paying attention” to the sleeper’s metabolic processes. The sleeper becomes less of a disconnected body-​mind and more of a body-​mind “upgraded” to a special kind of connection within a sleep-​inducing “architecture” that never sleeps or goes dormant. We can take the idea of architecture more literally by returning again to the theme of disconnection. Recalling that “old” manifestations of disconnection include abandoned structures, derelict places, and ruins, it is unexpectedly productive to inquire into the future of ruins. Without continued maintenance, human constructions have historically been subject to diverse and fascinating processes of deterioration (Weisman, 2007). The tumbled columns and gaping foundations that remain on the landscape lulled poets into sleepy meditation or haunted them as memento mori (compare Robert Browning’s poem “Love among the Ruins” to Percy Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”). More adventurous souls have trespassed on such deserted places as a frontier of exploration (Edensor, 2005). But what happens when the things we build no longer crumble, collapse, rust, or decay? As Garcia and Miller show in their contribution to this volume (Chapter 7), virtual places and spaces that have been left behind can often still be accessed, and every virtual brick is still in place. No digital rats run in the alleys and no digital termites chew through the walls. Digital ruins send a tricky message about disconnection which lacks the traces of time’s passage that inspired poets. The fact that an abandoned digital place remains just as it was, despite changes in the outside world, makes it “an uncanny landscape haunted by the presence of past intents” (Garcia & Miller, this volume: p. 171). Death, sleep, and ruins are similar in that they remind us of our insignificance, our frailty, our fleeting existence, our limitations, and our vulnerability. Technology seems to offer a cure for the malaise produced by such things, but a more accessible antidote resides in daily life. Immersion in daily life must certainly offer a solution to the existential puzzle of disconnection, all the more so if daily life is memorialized in photos, mementos, journals, and scrapbooks. In response to this impulse, many Chinese have taken up the leisure-​time pursuit called shouzhang, transforming daily life into a curated artifact, archiving the self on decorative paper, embellished by slow

Introduction  11

media like handwriting, still photography, and pasted ribbons. However, as Yan Yuan discusses in Chapter 8, digital media permeate this “slow media” culture. Aficionados turn to digital media for the purpose of sharing experiences, learning about slow media techniques, purchasing slow media supplies, and staying in touch with other practitioners. Once again, connection can be found haunting disconnection, like unseen ghosts and rats moving through the ruins of our digital lives. If our online lives prevent us from fully detaching, and our existential encounters with death, sleep, and ruins, all take on qualities of attachment and connection rather than disconnection, then digital practices seem paradoxically to offer antidotes to digitalization. But whichever way we go to bow out, lie down, or wander off the scene, our digital replicas remain present, animated by digital data flows.

Rethinking Disconnection in a Disrupted World All of this can prompt us to turn inward in an effort to disentangle the mind through practices of awareness, centering, and focusing that are sometimes referred to as “mindfulness.” While the term recalls meditation, the movement is also reminiscent of the temperance movements of the past century. Just as the prohibitionists linked alcoholism to poverty, crime, immorality and the breakdown of civilization, the “digital detox” movement views digital addiction as a force undermining physical and psychological health, disrupting social relations, and disconnecting humans from nature. In Chapter 9, Enli and Syvertsen analyze the discourse behind this phenomenon. In the promotional literature for digital detox, one repeatedly encounters a longing for an antidote to the noisy, hyperactive, addictive world of digital sensation-​seeking, sensationalism, and sensuality. In Chapter 10, Pepita Hesselberth offers an insider’s view of detox retreats. A 21st-​century inversion of the mid-​20th century call to “turn on [and] drop out” (Stone, 2019), these structured gatherings help one to turn off and drop in. To achieve “reconnection of body, mind and soul” (Hesselberth, this volume: p. 254), one not only cuts off digital communications but also reestablishes familiarity with stillness through meditation, yoga, keeping silent, chanting, and other techniques for centering the mind. If constant connection is like a drug, then it is not surprising that people recognize its drawbacks cannot be

12 Introduction solved by depending on additional devices and apps. Digital detox retreats are not without their own paradoxes, however. For example, they impose discipline on people as a way to help them regain autonomy. The tension between desire and autonomy is indicated by digital detox efforts, but COVID-​19 brings the same theme into sharper focus. For example, when it comes to dating and “hooking up,” gratification can of course be as fast as swiping left or right to accept or reject a partner on a dating app, but in the midst of an epidemic digital media can also facilitate the indefinite postponement of gratification. In this connection, Jenny Sundén (Chapter 11) turns our attention to the “slower erotic stir of the quarantine,” (p.  283) demonstrating that digital interaction need not be faster than face-​to-​face interaction. Connection can be a way to turn inward, forestalling physical intimacy with another, discovering ways to sustain the distance between bodies, ways to extend desire in both space and time. Here human connection is haunted by disconnection, in an inverse of the situations listed above where disconnection was haunted by connection. These chapters all emerge at a difficult time when the authors have been struggling to balance the demands of research and teaching from homes that have become temporary offices, sharing workspaces with multiple family members, repurposing bedrooms as temporary schoolrooms for our children. As Adams, Behrens, Hoelscher, Lavrenova, Robinson, and Yuan discuss in the final chapter of this book (Chapter 12), we have had to redesign courses for “distance learning” and forgo eating at restaurants while making do with takeout food eaten in front of the TV. Pedagogical routines have been redesigned around Zoom and other teleconferencing technologies, the same all-​purpose apps that allow us to visit with elderly relatives, friends, and extended family, as well as colleagues and students. Education may be permanently changed by this crash course in distance learning and networked collaboration. It reworks connection to fit a disconnected world, but reveals various shortcomings of “distance learning.” Many of the chapters refer explicitly or implicitly to this turn of events with its daily calls to do this or that via some online system or service, the delays and glitches involved in taking so much of life online, and the recurring feeling of being under house arrest. In the midst of this profound reorganization of spatial routines and communication routines, in effect a reorganization of the geography of daily life, a bit of self-​examination may bring to light insights that otherwise fall by the wayside. How are we re-​establishing

Introduction  13

distance in a world where everything has come crashing into our living space? How are we playing with intimacy around the edges of social distancing? How are we managing to access the goods and services we used to reach with a walk or a drive? What can we do to rewire our brains to suit the rhythms and flows of digital life? Why is this reworking of connection and disconnection having such a profound impact on sense of self, and on professional and personal identity?

Disentangling Let us go back to where we started and consider the question of technological dependence. How did our entire lives get entangled with digital platforms and data streams? Since we embarked on this book project, in 2019, digitalization has accelerated and reached a level we could not imagine when we started. We all know the reason. The COVID-​19 pandemic and its consequences constitute (among other, more devastating things) a gigantic connectivity experiment. During this crisis, fiber cables, networked devices, and all kinds of communications software have enabled most of us to maintain some of the capacities that would otherwise have been lost. Meeting others online instead of around the dinner table or in the park or at the shopping mall may not be all that exciting. Still, such restrained, mediated meetings remind us of what it is to be human. As Hannah Arendt (1958/​1998) suggested, a life without social action “has ceased to be a human life” (p. 176). While we (at least theoretically) might manage to pursue our lives without labor and work activities (for example, through exploiting the productive efforts of others), without the ability to act, that is, to appear and disclose ourselves to others, our lives would be “literally dead to the world” (p. 176). Under the pressures of social disruption, connective media are now celebrated as the saviors of human affairs. We can also discern the point where we must critically assess the costs of our new lifesaving technologies. As Nick Couldry (2017: 69) argues in a discussion on the conditions of mediation in the digital world, “a key source of unease, whether or not it emerges in explicit normative reflection, is the sense that digital tools are necessarily entangled in distant processes, powerful processes that we cannot unpick or easily challenge.” What has been achieved by intensified connectivity, at an unprecedented speed due to the crisis, are

14 Introduction precisely that: further entanglements with digital technology and the commercial interests operating in the background. These interests have had a lot to gain from the crisis. In the midst of economic turmoil, tech companies like Zoom, Netflix, Spotify, and the GAFAM quintet (Google/​Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) have skyrocketed on the American stock market. Meanwhile, the real estate market (until very recently a success story) is trembling due the risk that many people may not return to their offices (at least not permanently) as companies start learning how to make ends meet without providing fixed workplaces to their employees. The situation is even more critical for businesses dealing in mobility and hospitality services now that meetings and other social events are predominantly held online. Some hotel chains, such as Scandic (in the Nordic context), are shifting parts of their business to offering flexible (and sufficiently spacious) coworking spaces. A similar sign of accelerating digitalization, perhaps even a tipping point, was when the Swedish banking group Handelsbanken, the last of the national banks to actively promote local bank offices as an essential part of their business model, in September 2020 declared that they will close down 180 of their 380 offices. The public demand is in decline, which may also have something to do with the fact that a great share of those customers requesting face-​to-​face services, especially older people, have been in home quarantine during most of the year and thus more or less forced to adopt digital banking solutions. While these transitions signify an amazing digital leap and a gigantic learning process, especially in societies that were already deeply digitalized and had the right infrastructures in place before the pandemic, the human costs of enforced digital connectivity will gradually become evident. They will most likely penetrate deeper into our lives than the exploitative tendencies of “data colonialism” (see Couldry & Mejias, 2019). They will pertain to the fact that fewer and fewer time-​spaces of our lives provide a retreat from digital connectivity, and thus coercive entanglements. It is true, of course, that the unique qualities of face-​to-​face interaction are deeply desired, even essential to the human condition, and will pull people together again after the crisis. Likewise, digital affordances will not satisfy the thirst for multisensory place experiences and corporeal journeys. But we must also consider the combined and enduring effects of new digital routines, altered organizational procedures, and large investments in new technology and know-​how. A great deal of our newly-​gained digital habits are here to

Introduction  15

stay. Even a partial return to the “pre-​Corona” state of affairs would signify a form of “partial disconnection” and, as such, oppose the dominant thrust of the connectivity regime. The pandemic has made it starkly clear that in a digitalized society there cannot exist any “pure” state of disconnection; such a thing is no longer attainable because our new media are the human condition, as much as they disrupt, corrupt, and contaminate that very condition. Sociality has been platformed (van Dijck, 2013). The chapters of this book all testify, in various ways, to this enigmatic nature of digital connectivity; the fact that there is no way of rewinding the tape. Basically, as Bucher (2020) argues, this has nothing to do with the digital per se. Connectivity—​understood as the socially shaped dialectic of connection and disconnection—​is an inherent aspect of the human condition and people have throughout history invented increasingly sophisticated means for coordinating social (inter)actions across time and space (see, e.g., Peters, 2015). Just like connection has always been haunted by its other—​that is, disconnection, as the threat of failure, breakdown or separation—​even the theoretical possibility of disconnection is predicated upon the coexistence of connection. Still, what sets digital connectivity—​and the logics of connective media (van Dijck, 2013)—​apart from earlier forms of mediated connectivity is precisely what we have hinted at earlier: its entangling force. No previous media regime has even been close to embracing as wide a range of everyday activities as our current regime of digital connectivity platforms, and no previous technology has had the same propensity to link human existences, including our search for recognition, comfort, and orientation, to abstract systems of monitoring and value extraction (Andrejevic, 2007; Zuboff, 2019). Thus, the entangling force of digital connectivity, as we know it, arises from its social, economic, and political scope: its reach, as well as its existential depth. The reason to why we can no longer disconnect from digital media, then, is that we would first have to disentangle from society itself. Or, formulated differently; even if we managed to disconnect on the technological level we would still be entangled in the social, economic, political, cultural, organizational, and bureaucratic structures that generate digital dependence, and thus feel the pressure, or develop what may feel like autonomous desires, to reconnect. Digital technologies are intertwined with the things we love the most and the things we need in order to keep up a decent human life, including the gathering of information about the world (Adams, 2020) and

16 Introduction much of our social life. This is how our interests and behaviors are currently sedimented, normalized as part of the social fabric and as a collective structure. While disconnection at the most mundane level may be thought of as something simple, such as the mechanical act of “unplugging” or “switching off,” disentangling will always be an ethical and political matter. Disentangling is precisely that realm of normative reflection that Couldry (2017) hints at in the earlier citation. It is a way of rethinking, or unthinking, the structures of our digital world, whether channeled through connective or disconnective practices, whether obeying a thirst for human territoriality, sensory enrichment, or open space. As such, disentangling harbors the visions and hopes that we all, as citizens, consumers, and fellow human beings, invest in our life trajectories. Disentangling is never complete; it is always a work in progress. The chapters of this book deal as much with this broader process of disentangling as with the narrower issue of disconnection. They open up a panoramic view of the complex social entanglements that make digital disconnection such an evocative issue in contemporary social scientific thought and public debate. They are engaged, one might say, in rethinking and reworking the entangling forces of connective media.

References Adams, P. C. (online pre-​publication July 2020). Agreeing to surveillance: Digital news privacy policies. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. https://​doi. org/​10.1177/​1077699020934197. Amoore, L (2011). Data derivatives: On the emergence of a security risk calculus for our times. Theory, Culture & Society, 28, 24–​43. Andrejevic, M. (2007). iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Andrejevic, M. (2019). Automating surveillance. Surveillance & Society, 17(1/​2), 7–​13. Arendt, H. (1958/​1998). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ash, J., Kitchin, R., & Leszczynski, A. (2018). Digital turn, digital geographies? Progress in Human Geography, 42(1), 25–​43. Bell, B. (2016). Taken from life: The unsettling art of death photography. BBC News, June 5. https://​www.bbc.com/​news/​uk-​england-​36389581.

Introduction  17 Bernard, A. (2019). The Triumph of Profiling: The Self in Digital Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (1979/​1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge. Brabazon, T. (2012). Time for a digital detox? From information obesity to digital dieting. Fast Capitalism, 9(1), 53–​74. Bucher, T. (2020). Nothing to disconnect from? Being singular plural in an age of machine learning. Media, Culture & Society. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​ 0163443720914028. Cheney-​Lippold, J. (2017). We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves. New York: New York University Press. Couldry, N. (2017). Phenomenology and critique: Why we need a phenomenology of the digital world. In Markham, T., & Rodgers, S. (eds.), Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Perspectives on Media (pp. 67–​ 74). New York: Peter Lang. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). Data colonialism: Rethinking big data’s relation to the contemporary subject. Television & New Media, 20(4), 336–​349. Crampton, J. W. (2007). The biopolitical justification for geosurveillance. Geographical Review, 97(3), 389–​403. Edensor, T. (2005). Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Elliot, A., & Urry, J. (2010). Mobile Lives. London: Routledge. Fish, A. (2017). Technology retreats and the politics of social media. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 15(1), 355–​369. Goodin, T. (2017). OFF. Your Digital Detox for a Better Life. London: Octopus Publishing Group. Goriunova, O. (2019). The digital subject: People as data as persons. Theory, Culture & Society, 36(6), 125–​145. Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (2000). The surveillant assemblage. British Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 605–​622. Hesselberth, P. (2017). Discourses on disconnectivity and the right to disconnect. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1994–​2010. Jorge, A. (2019). Social media, interrupted: Users recounting temporary disconnection on Instagram. Social Media+ Society, 5(4), 2056305119881691. Karppi, T. (2018). Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

18 Introduction Kaufmann, V. (2002). Re-​thinking Mobility: Contemporary Sociology. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kaun, A., & Treré, E. (2018). Repression, resistance and lifestyle: Charting (dis) connection and activism in times of accelerated capitalism. Social Movement Studies, 1–​19. Kuntsman, A., & Miyake, E. (2019). The paradox and continuum of digital disengagement: Denaturalising digital sociality and technological connectivity. Media, Culture & Society, 41(6), 901–​913. Lagerkvist, A. (2017). Existential media: Toward a theorization of digital thrownness. New Media & Society, 19(1), 96–​100. Lagerkvist, A. (Ed.) (2018). Digital Existence: Ontology, Ethics and Transcendence in Digital Culture. London: Routledge. Light, B., & Cassidy, E. (2014). Strategies for the suspension and prevention of connection: Rendering disconnection as socioeconomic lubricant with Facebook. New Media & Society, 16(7), 1169–​1184. Massey, D. (1991). A global sense of place. Marxism Today, June, 24–​29. Newport, C. (2019). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. London: Penguin UK. Paasonen, S. (2015). As networks fail: Affect, technology, and the notion of the user. Television & New Media, 16(8), 701–​716. Peters, J. D. (2015). The Marvelous Clouds: Toward A Philosophy of Elemental Media. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pigni, F., Piccoli, G., & Watson, R. (2016). Digital data streams: Creating value from the real-​time flow of big data. California Management Review, 58(3), 5–​25. Price, C. (2018). How to Break Up with Your Phone. New York: Ten Speed Press/​ Penguin Random House. Rauch, J. (2018). Slow Media: Why “Slow” Is Satisfying, Sustainable, and Smart. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richardson, M. (2001). The gift of presence: The act of leaving artifacts at shrines. In Adams, P., Hoelscher, S., & Till, K. E. (Eds.), Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies (pp. 257–​272). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schwartz, R., & Halegoua, G. R. (2015). The spatial self: Location-​based identity performance on social media. New Media & Society, 17(10), 1643–​1660. Stone, S. (2019). Turn off, tune out, and drop in, at least sometimes. The Startup. Medium.  https://​medium.com/​swlh/​turn-​off-​tune-​out-​and-​drop-​in-​at-​least-​ sometimes-​cf7bd3e0c5df.

Introduction  19 Sundén, J. (2018). Queer disconnections: Affect, break, and delay in digital connectivity. Transformations, (31), 63–​78. Swanlund, D., & Schuurman, N. (2016). Mechanism matters: Data production for geosurveillance. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(5): 1063–​1078. Swanlund, D., & Schuurman, N. (2019). Resisting geosurveillance: A survey of tactics and strategies for spatial privacy. Progress in Human Geography, 43(4): 596–​610. Syvertsen, T. (2017). Media Resistance: Protest, Dislike, Abstention. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Pivot /​Springer. Syvertsen, T., & Enli, G. (2019). Digital detox: Media resistance and the promise of authenticity. Convergence, 1354856519847325. Turkle, S. (2005). The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Warf, B. (2001). Segueways into cyberspace: Multiple geographies of the digital divide. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 28(1), 3–​19. Wilson, M.W. (2018). On being technopositional in digital geographies. Cultural Geographies, 25(1): 7–​21. Weisman, A. (2007). The World Without Us. New York: Picador/​St. Martin’s Press. Wilcockson, T. D., Osborne, A. M., & Ellis, D. A. (2019). Digital detox: The effect of smartphone abstinence on mood, anxiety, and craving. Addictive Behaviors, 99(106013): 1–​4. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: Public Affairs.

PART I

POWER GEOMETRIES OF CONNECTIVITY

1 Disconnection and Reconnection as Resistance to Geosurveillance David Swanlund

Introduction While in recent decades the world has become ever more connected, so too has it become more surveilled. Indeed, the primary cost of connection, whether it be through Facebook, YouTube, or even local news websites, has been our privacy. The Web is rife with trackers that follow our every click and our phones are outfitted with an assortment of sensors that watch our every move. GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth are each used to track what stores we go to and what aisles we shop in, sometimes down to the centimeter (Sawers, 2019). And as we become connected to the Web, so too does our data become connected with other data; when disparate datasets about us are linked together, new information is produced that is often more powerful, revealing, and intrusive than the sum of their parts (Gutmann et al., 2007). In this sense, our data doubles are snowballing into not just vague caricatures of ourselves, but detailed photographs. For these reasons, there has been a growing level of skepticism toward such intrusive technologies and practices. Pew Research recently found that four out of five American adults felt they lacked control over their data from corporations, and that the benefits of handing over their data were outweighed by the risks to their personal privacy (Auxier et al., 2019). Similar results were found with regard to data collection by governments (Auxier et al., 2019). Another recent survey found that 46% of respondents listed privacy as one of their top reasons for quitting Facebook (Newton, 2020), which over 15 million users did between 2017 and 2019 (Edison Research, 2019). Simultaneously, topics are trending that push back against constant connection, as ideas like “data detoxes” and “the dumb-​phone” movement David Swanlund, Disconnection and Reconnection as Resistance to Geosurveillance In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0002

24  Power Geometrics of Connectivity gain popularity, both listing privacy among the chief benefits (Davis, 2018; Tactical Tech, n.d.). After decades marked by rapid connection, it seems there is a movement toward disconnection. Of course, such a movement warrants many questions. First, what makes privacy so valuable that we feel compelled to disconnect? With technology increasingly mediating everyday life, from online banking to dating apps, disconnecting from the technologies that we have come to rely on can seem costly. For instance, leaving Facebook can feel like not just disconnecting from the platform, but losing touch with old friends and acquaintances. Moreover, for political activists, leaving Facebook can mean being cut off from a wide variety of organizing efforts (even those aimed against Facebook), as the platform has (ironically) become a hub for activism (O’Donovan, 2018; Sholes, 2018). Yet, once again the platform recently lost 15 million users (Edison Research, 2019), with privacy being listed as one of the top reasons to abandon the platform (Newton, 2020). We clearly and deeply value privacy, but why? Second, how viable is disconnection for maintaining privacy? Given the vast array of technical mechanisms that afford geosurveillance (the collection of personal data linked to people’s locations, as will be discussed) and the myriad of actors vying for every ounce of our data, even partial disconnection is extremely difficult (Swanlund & Schuurman, 2016). Indeed, some degree of technical sophistication is required to simply identify how data is being generated about us before one can start to consider how to thwart it. As a result, disconnection is no simple task, and requires an intimate understanding of the technologies from which we want to disconnect. Last, is it possible to meaningfully disconnect from geosurveillance and is this the right solution? Given the difficulty of fully shielding oneself from surveillance, disconnecting in favor of privacy can feel like a pointless exercise. And with every day increasingly demanding that we engage with digital systems that put our privacy at risk, not only can disconnection seem futile, but actively counterproductive to advancing in life. How then can we meaningfully resist geosurveillance, especially when disconnection is not an option? This chapter explores each of these issues. It begins by first conceptualizing privacy, a term often used but rarely defined, to better understand why we might desire privacy. It then overviews how geosurveillance

Disconnection and Reconnection  25

operates and in doing so emphasizes the difficulty of disconnection. Finally, it discusses how disconnection and reconnection can be used to resist geosurveillance.

Why Is Privacy Worth Disconnection? Privacy is a concept that is increasingly cited in public debates over technology and yet, somewhat paradoxically, is also becoming more difficult to actually understand. While it is now commonly assumed to relate to some sort of control over one’s information, this is a rather recent development. In fact, privacy as a concept has evolved significantly over the last 130 years, often spurred by technological and social change, such as the rise of tabloids, telephones, and computers (Curry, 1997). As a result, there are numerous different ways we can understand, or conceptualize, privacy. This section explores how privacy can be conceptualized and in doing so attempts to grapple with the questions of what is privacy really, and what makes it worth disconnection?

The Origins of Privacy Privacy as a legal right is relatively young as it was first introduced in an article written by Warren and Brandeis (1890) at the end of the 19th century. In this first formulation, privacy was understood as a right to be let alone, or an opportunity to retreat from a world of tabloid newspapers and photographs that were “overstepping in every direction the obvious bounds of propriety and decency” (Warren & Brandeis, 1890: 196). In a sense, this too was a right to disconnect from the technologies and media of the time, and as these technologies developed so too did our understanding of privacy. The core challenge was (and still is) to differentiate the aspects of our lives that deserve privacy versus those that do not. For instance, as telephones made their way into American homes, a debate began over whether the telephone line, which crossed the threshold of the private home, should also be considered private and therefore be protected from wiretapping. The initial US Supreme Court ruling was that telephone lines extending outside the home were not private, but this

26  Power Geometrics of Connectivity decision was overturned in the 1960s as telephones continued to permeate everyday life (Solove, 2002). Interestingly, it was the right to be let alone that underpinned the court’s decision to protect phone calls from wiretaps. But as Solove (2002) remarks, the right to be let alone “merely describes an attribute of privacy,” and “does not inform us about the matters in which we should be let alone” (p. 1101). It is due to this limitation that scholars from a range of disciplines have since crafted many different conceptualizations of privacy meant to help us understand whether an issue is actually about privacy (versus some other right) and, if so, to what extent we should balance privacy against other priorities (e.g., security). Solove (2002) offers a comprehensive review of many of these conceptualizations, but here we will briefly explore three that are particularly powerful for understanding modern privacy: contextual integrity, networked privacy, and privacy as breathing room (Cohen, 2013; Marwick & boyd, 2014; Nissenbaum, 2004).

Contextual Integrity Contextual integrity is a popular conceptualization of privacy that centers on norms of information flow, which Nissenbaum (2004) argues permeate social life. These include norms of appropriateness and norms of distribution. Norms of appropriateness “dictate what information about persons is appropriate, or fitting, to reveal in a particular context” (Nissenbaum, 2004: 138). These concern the content of what is shared. Norms of distribution, on the other hand, concern who that content is shared with and whether this respects the norms of a given social context. Privacy as contextual integrity, therefore, “is maintained when both types of norms are upheld, and it is violated when either of the norms is violated” (p. 138). An example of a norm of appropriateness being violated (and therefore privacy being violated) may include a college professor asking about a student’s dating life, whereas a norm of distribution being violated may include that professor sharing a student’s grades with other students. The advantage of contextual integrity is that it has significant explanatory power. For instance, Nissenbaum (2004) notes that when public records are moved online, privacy concerns often arise. Yet, expecting privacy

Disconnection and Reconnection  27

in already-​public records is often difficult to justify. Contextual integrity would suggest that the reason we feel concerned for privacy is because long-​ standing norms of distribution are being disrupted; suddenly information about us is globally connected and can be made accessible to parties that have no such need for those records. The main drawback of contextual integrity is that norms are not always so easily identified or agreed upon, particularly in online contexts (Marwick & boyd, 2014).

Networked Privacy Networked privacy is a conceptualization that acknowledges the fluidity, contingency, and vulnerability of privacy as it relates to social media (Marwick & boyd, 2014). It claims that privacy on social media does not rely on secrecy, but rather on using highly nuanced tactics of informational disclosure and trust. As the authors explain, it “requires that people have an understanding of and influence in shaping the context in which information is being interpreted” (Marwick & boyd, 2014: 1063). Therefore, networked privacy is “an ongoing, active practice” that “cannot be entirely maintained and established by individuals” as it is “determined through a combination of audience, technical mechanisms, and social norms” (Marwick & boyd, 2014: 1062). Unlike most other scholars conceptualizing privacy, Marwick and boyd developed this conceptualization based upon hundreds of hours of interviews and ethnographic research into how teenagers understand and manage their privacy. For instance, the authors describe a participant who deletes old content regularly in fear of old comments being taken out of context. Teens also regularly disclose information in a way that ensures only their close friends would understand the context, a practice the authors call “social steganography” (Marwick & boyd, 2014). What these examples highlight is that a nuanced understanding of a given social media platform as well as skill and precision when interacting on it are integral to maintaining privacy on the network. They also emphasize that privacy does not necessitate disconnection, but rather highly deliberate and skillfully managed connections. Of course, this conceptualization of privacy is highly specific to social media and fails to account for other elements of privacy (nor does it attempt to).

28  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Privacy as Breathing Room Julie Cohen (2013) offers a particularly compelling conceptualization of privacy as it relates to disconnection. She argues that privacy theory itself has long hamstrung the concept, making it appear as a dated artifact of history. More specifically, she takes issue with the liberal notion of an “autonomous self ” that has historically formed a theoretical basis for a right to privacy, noting that a “self ” cannot be so easily disentangled from social forces. She also rejects, however, the opposite extreme that the self is the mere product of social construction. Instead, Cohen accepts a limited account of both selfhood and social construction and places privacy at the center between these two seemingly opposing forces. “Privacy is shorthand for breathing room,” she writes, noting that “in a world characterized by pervasive social shaping of subjectivity, privacy fosters (partial) self-​determination. It enables individuals both to maintain relational ties and to develop critical perspectives on the world around them” (p. 1906). Given the wide array of forces that effect social shaping through careful modulation, such as targeted advertising from political campaigns, Cohen argues that privacy provides shelter from these forces that would otherwise homogenize populations and impede innovation. In other words, “privacy shelters dynamic, emergent subjectivity from the efforts of commercial and government actors to render individuals and communities fixed, transparent, and predictable” (Cohen, 2013: 1905). Indeed, privacy is the space we need to define ourselves free of outside influence, without which society creeps toward stasis. Each of these conceptualizations provides a unique view into privacy and disconnection. Contextual integrity allows us to pinpoint privacy issues that arise from connections that violate norms of information flow. Networked privacy illustrates not just how our privacy is highly contingent on our various connections, but how we can carefully manage our privacy through skillful (dis)connection. Finally, privacy as breathing room offers a powerful explanation of exactly what is at stake when our privacy is eroded. But how exactly does geosurveillance erode our privacy, and what are the technologies at play that we need to disconnect from?

Disconnection and Reconnection  29

Disconnecting from Geosurveillance Wherever we go, it is difficult not to produce a record of that movement. Whether it be through cellphones, biometrics, credit card transactions, or video surveillance, we are constantly dropping breadcrumbs as we travel. Disconnection necessitates a certain degree of understanding of how exactly these breadcrumbs fall. This is of course a somewhat opaque area, clouded by proprietary algorithms, complex data flows, and often impenetrable technical details and legal jargon. It is rather ironic that our ability to understand our own personal privacy is impeded by corporate claims to privacy over their algorithms and databases. Nevertheless, we can sketch out a hologram of geosurveillance that allows us to view its general structure and operation, even if some of its finer contours are missing. A sensible entry point to understanding geosurveillance is geolocation, or in other words, finding where someone (or something) is located. There are many methods for achieving this that range from being spatially explicit to implicit. For instance, GPS is an explicit method of geolocation, where spatial data (coordinates) are produced referring directly to where someone is on the earth’s surface. Credit card transactions, on the other hand, exemplify a more implicit method of geolocation; they may only contain the name of the store where you made your purchase, but simple geocoding can instantly convert that name to coordinates. This differentiation is useful because it illustrates that a large amount of geosurveillance can occur without ever explicitly tracking anyone with GPS, for example. Instead, large datasets where location is implicit can be geocoded to produce those explicit coordinates, including retroactively long after the data was collected. Moreover, the work of McKenzie, Janowicz, and Seidl (2016) clearly demonstrates the immense amount of locational insight that can be generated without geocoding whatsoever, often from seemingly innocuous, aspatial data like tweets. In short, when exploring geosurveillance, we must remain cognizant that location information can easily lurk in unexpected places. Of course, there are many geolocation methods beyond GPS and credit card transactions. An exceedingly common and incredibly precise technique uses Bluetooth beacons. These are devices that are typically installed in indoor environments, such as retail stores, that allow apps installed on customers’ phones to very precisely locate themselves. Depending on the

30  Power Geometrics of Connectivity configuration of the beacons and the version of Bluetooth being used, these beacons can provide location information down to a centimeter. Moreover, when customers install a retailer’s app that utilizes these beacons, the retailers can essentially keep track of which products they look at and the routes they take through the store. Bluetooth beacons (as well as WiFi hotspots) are also used by smartphones to better geolocate themselves when GPS signal is poor. In fact, Android smartphones are known to send information about nearby Bluetooth beacons to Google, enabling widespread collection of incredibly precise geospatial data (Yanofsky, 2018). Perhaps more importantly, this occurs even when users disable Bluetooth, demonstrating just how difficult disconnection can be. Another major trend that significantly impedes disconnection is the rise of biometrics. Whereas the previous techniques require users to connect in some way (such as by carrying a smartphone), biometrics allow governments and corporations to conduct mass geosurveillance of individuals and populations regardless of the technology they carry. Simply existing in an area where facial recognition is being conducted is enough to be entered into a geosurveillance database. Unfortunately, facial recognition is rapidly being deployed into public life: The FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is applying facial recognition to millions of Americans’ driver license photos (Harwell, 2019); churches are using facial recognition technology to track who attends church every Sunday (Hill, 2015); companies like Clearview AI are scraping billions of images from the Internet to create facial recognition databases, with customers that include law enforcement, Best Buy, and the NBA (Heilweil, 2020); even shopping malls are already deploying facial recognition to track their customers (Rieger, 2018). But even if one covers their face, computer vision algorithms can uniquely identify people in video footage just by their clothing and, more insidiously, their gait (how they walk). As a result, biometrics and computer vision algorithms make disconnection from geosurveillance nearly impossible in urban life. While powerful, the above examples are relatively common methods of geolocation. There are, however, more esoteric techniques that prove just how difficult it is not to create location information. One such technique, called PowerSpy, can determine the location of a smartphone based only on the rate at which its battery drains (Michalevsky et al., 2015). Developed by researchers at Stanford, PowerSpy exploits the fact that cell phone batteries

Disconnection and Reconnection  31

drain faster the farther away they are from cell towers. The technique requires a training dataset of battery drain at various locations, but with this in hand the researchers were remarkably able to use machine learning to locate other cell phones using only battery drain (Michalevsky et al., 2015). Another technique allows websites to geolocate users simply based on their web browser’s cache, which saves data from visited pages so that it loads faster the next time the user visits the same page (Jia et al., 2015). For instance, evilwebsite. com might geolocate a user by attempting to load data from different localized web pages, such as the Craigslist pages for Vancouver, New York, and Toronto. If the Vancouver page loads significantly faster than the other cities, it is reasonable to assume that the user lives in Vancouver. evilwebsite.com can then try to load even more precise resources, such as particular Google Maps data, in order to refine that location to a user’s neighborhood. The power of this method is that it can determine a user’s approximate location even if they are attempting to hide behind a VPN (Jia et al., 2015). While there is not any evidence that these two techniques are being used in the real world, they nevertheless illustrate just how susceptible we are to geosurveillance. An oft-​touted solution to data collection is anonymization, which theoretically would allow us to remain connected without sacrificing our privacy. In fact, companies and governments alike often try to alleviate our privacy concerns by advertising that the data they collect is anonymized. Data anonymization refers to the process of manipulating data such that it cannot be used to identify any individual while still providing useful insight. However, although data anonymization is powerful and should be encouraged, it is not the silver bullet for privacy that many would like us to believe. First, anonymization is vague term that encompasses a wide array of techniques, some of which offer very little privacy whatsoever (de Montjoye et al., 2013; de Montjoye et al., 2015). Therefore, promises of anonymization should not provide us any reassurance unless additional detail is provided regarding how the data is actually anonymized. Second, it is increasingly becoming apparent that even properly anonymized data can have undesirable outcomes for classes of people (Mittelstadt, 2017; Taylor et al., 2017). As an introductory and familiar example, an anonymized dataset may show that the class of males between the ages of 20 and 25 who drive Subaru BRZs are a higher insurance risk, and therefore people within that category may face higher auto insurance premiums. This has real-​world effects on these people despite no identifiable data being

32  Power Geometrics of Connectivity involved. Obviously, this is a straightforward example that many may believe is a non-​issue. But these classifications are becoming increasingly complex, automatically generated from moment to moment, and applied across all walks of life; one may never know how they were classified or the effects that classification had on their life outcomes (access to insurance, loans, jobs, etc.) (Mittelstadt, 2017; Taylor et al., 2017). A far more troubling example is provided by Tufekci (2017), who describes how an algorithm could create a classification from anonymized data that includes proxy variables to bipolar disorder, which then could be used to target ads for tickets to Las Vegas. Suddenly, this becomes far more difficult territory as the de-​identified data is now being used to leverage people’s mental health conditions to encourage them to gamble. Again, this is not a malicious decision made by a human, but rather a correlation identified by an algorithm across millions of datapoints that shows that targeting a class of variables that just so happen to be proxies for bipolar disorder results in higher ticket sales to Las Vegas (Tufekci, 2017). Most frighteningly, Tufekci (2017) emphasizes that if this were to occur, it is unlikely anyone would ever know about it. Clearly even anonymized data can have deleterious effects on people’s lives.

Disconnection and Reconnection as Resistance Given the array of technologies that can be used to find our location, the inescapable nature of biometrics that are rapidly being deployed, and the insufficient protection provided by data anonymization, it is clear that disconnection is no simple undertaking. How then might we start to consider resisting and disconnecting from these geosurveillance regimes that often feel ubiquitous and inescapable? What options are available to effect meaningful resistance, even when complete disconnection is impossible? In this section we explore both disconnection and reconnection as forms of resistance to geosurveillance.

Disconnection It can often feel like we are faced with an ultimatum between succumbing to the inevitability of geosurveillance and enacting full-​scale resistance by

Disconnection and Reconnection  33

“going dark” and removing ourselves from social/​networked life. Of course, these are by no means our only two options for achieving privacy. Marwick and boyd’s conceptualization of networked privacy exemplifies how privacy is not a binary state, but rather a continuum that people actively manage on an ongoing basis using a variety of tactics. One simple tactic for managing privacy is minimization. The algorithms that modulate our lives have an insatiable hunger for data and only grow more powerful with every byte. It is for this reason that even minimizing the data we provide them is a meaningful act of resistance. It limits the ability to generate new analytics and predictions used to influence and control populations, and therefore expands our breathing room and potential to self-​determine (Cohen, 2013). There are many ways that we can begin minimizing our digital footprints. For instance, one may employ simple tactics such as closing extraneous online accounts, using cash when making purchases, not providing a zip code or rewards card at the grocery store, opting out of software analytics, and denying unnecessary permissions to smartphone apps. These may seem like overly simple methods, but this simplicity is precisely why they are so vital: They are actions almost anyone can immediately take without needing a deep understanding of geosurveillance. And while the contribution to privacy that each one makes is indeed small, performed together they significantly reduce the size and detail of our data doubles. However, we must also think about disconnection at a larger scale, as we must reject many of the assumptions inherent to geosurveillance (Swanlund & Schuurman, 2018). One of the foremost assumptions is that we can be adequately understood through quantitative data and methods alone. As Amoore (2014) points out, in the world of algorithmic prediction, “calculability is never in question” (p. 425). It is always assumed that the solution to uncertainty is always to simply gather more data and tune models. Yet, humans are not simply reducible to datapoints and regression equations. Moreover, this logic itself is dangerous, as it necessitates and reinforces an endless expansion of geosurveillance regimes; so long as there is any remaining uncertainty (which there always will be), geosurveillance must be amplified and analysis must be refined, or so it goes. It is for these reasons that we must challenge and reject this increasingly pervasive assumption. Another assumption of geosurveillance is that points on a map clearly represent reality. In this sense, spatial data has significant discursive authority

34  Power Geometrics of Connectivity (Elwood & Leszczynski, 2011; Leszczynski, 2015). For instance, when faced with a map of someone’s location history that shows they regularly visit “sketchy” areas on Friday nights, we may often jump to conclusions about their reasons for being there. And yet, they may be delivering groceries to a loved one who is unable to afford them or volunteering at a shelter after work. In other words, geosurveillance often utilizes objective data to justify highly subjective judgements and in doing so forges connections between our data and lived reality, even when those connections do not exist. It is important we resist these types of fallacies and remain cognizant of the disconnect between the representation of data and reality.

Reconnection While disconnection is certainly valuable, it is not always desirable or pragmatic. Indeed, it is imperative that we carve out what privacy we can, but we also cannot afford to lose social agency by pushing back too firmly against the technologies we are forced to engage with. As Cohen (2013) reminds us, privacy should not be seen as a historical artifact, but rather both a condition and opportunity for innovation. Therefore, we need to also consider reconnection: forging, strengthening, and altering connections to favor privacy over geosurveillance. One tactic through which we can work toward this is obfuscation (Brunton & Nissenbaum, 2015). As I write this, protests are raging worldwide over police brutality while social media overflows with images of protests and (ironically) police brutality against the protestors. Unfortunately, these images may put Black lives at further risk as they offer the state evidence of potential crimes (such as broken curfews) that can be easily queried with facial recognition. And yet it is absolutely vital that these moments are documented, both for historical purposes as well as to record evidence of police brutality. Technologists are therefore encouraging users to blur or obfuscate faces and identifiable articles of clothing before posting or sending images online (Joel, 2020). Signal, an encrypted messaging app frequently used by protestors and journalists, went as far as to add this as a default feature (Marlinspike, 2020). Of course, this is only one style of obfuscation, whereas others take more infrastructural and algorithmic approaches. The Tor network, for instance, obfuscates Internet traffic to hide where a user is geographically located (The

Disconnection and Reconnection  35

Tor Project, 2020). AdNauseum on the other hand automatically “clicks” all the ads on web pages to confuse algorithms that would seek to profile users (AdNauseam, 2020). Indeed, such obfuscation technologies allow us to retain the benefits of connection while mitigating the negative impacts of geosurveillance. Another area of opportunity for reconnection is software, which plays an undeniable role in mediating modern everyday life (Kitchin & Dodge, 2011). Navigating urban environments, hailing a ride, and making purchases are now rarely analog activities and are instead controlled by software, likely irreversibly. All too often use of this software is subsidized by the data that it collects, analyzes, and markets. Google Maps, for instance, is a free navigation service designed to sell targeted advertisements (Ting, 2019). Strava is a free exercise tracking platform that sells data to city planners and researchers (Strava, 2020). The explosion of cheap electric scooters and bike shares is partially subsidized by the immense spatial data they collect (BikeBiz, 2017; Woyke, 2020). Recognizing the irreversible role software applications play in shaping daily life but also the privacy costs that are involved, it is important that we seek to code privacy-​preserving alternatives that preserve the contextual integrity of our data (Nissenbaum, 2004). OpenStreetMap is a powerful alternative to Google Maps that not only protects privacy but provides open data and offers a degree of democratization of spatial knowledge, which Mimi Sheller (this volume) explores further in her chapter of this book. By designing privacy-​focused software that provides an alternative to popular applications we are often forced to engage with, we forge new connections that prove geosurveillance need not be inevitable. However, when building private alternatives is not feasible, we must engage also politically by pressuring entrenched firms and policymakers alike to better safeguard our data. This can often seem like a futile effort, but the popularization of Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic is a perfect illustration of what public pressure can achieve (Warren, 2020b). The conference calling company faced a huge uptick in customers as people began to work from home, but with this popularity came scrutiny over security and privacy. Zoom’s software not only had security vulnerabilities and lacked encryption, but designed and marketed features that actively violated user privacy, such as the ability for Zoom call hosts to know if people were looking away from the conference call. From a contextual integrity framework, this violated norms of distribution as users did not realize that this information was

36  Power Geometrics of Connectivity shared with the host (Nissenbaum, 2004). Facing pressure and backlash, Zoom diverted all their developers’ attention to fixing these issues and acquired an entire security company (Beauford, 2020; Warren, 2020a, 2020b). While Zoom is not yet free of scrutiny, the case nevertheless demonstrated what public pressure can achieve with regard to privacy. Of course, each of these acts of resistance can be far more difficult in practice. Designing software alternatives can be an immense effort that takes years and a team of staff to achieve. Forcing political change is a demoralizing battle when policy continues trending toward mass surveillance (Timm, 2020). Even giving up the rewards program at the grocery store is difficult for those already facing poverty. Despite these challenges, it is imperative that we not acquiesce. Privacy is not the all-​or-​nothing battle it is often made out to be, and the inability to resist surveillance over some aspects of our lives should not be reason to forfeit privacy over all aspects of our lives. Despite recent rhetoric, privacy is not dead, nor will it ever be (Preston, 2014). We will always seek out and find breathing room in our lives; the struggle is only over the amount we receive (Cohen, 2013).

Conclusion Privacy is a fundamental right without which society creeps toward stasis. It fosters diversity of thought and innovation, and is a necessary condition for democracy to function (Cohen, 2013). And yet, privacy is rapidly becoming ever more elusive. A multitude of geosurveillance technologies enable the widespread collection of highly precise data that can be used to follow our every move. We now carry highly sophisticated location trackers in our pockets, and even pay for the privilege to do so. Biometrics are finding their way into streets, malls, and churches to keep tabs on our locations even just by the way we walk and the clothes we wear. Meanwhile, companies and governments assuage our surveillant anxiety with hollow promises of “anonymization” (Crawford, 2014). Indeed, there is much at stake as we trend toward what feels like dystopia. Disconnection, however, remains a powerful tool for resisting this dystopic vision and preserving the privacy we have left. By minimizing our digital footprints and rejecting the logics and assumptions that underpin surveillance practices, we can begin to push back. When we cannot disconnect,

Disconnection and Reconnection  37

we can instead reconnect to networked society in new ways that retain both our privacy and social agency. As Marwick and boyd (2014) reveal, a deft touch toward how we manage our connections can help us carve out privacy in new places. And for those of us with the necessary social and technical capital, we can (if not must) obfuscate the data we leave behind, build our own software solutions, and engage politically to demand better privacy protections from corporations and governments. While there is much at stake, there is also much room for resistance.

References AdNauseam (2020). AdNauseam—​Clicking ads so you don’t have to. Available at: http://​adnauseam.io (accessed July 29, 2020). Amoore, L. (2014). Security and the incalculable. Security Dialogue 45(5), 423–​439. Auxier, B., Rainie, L., Anderson, M. et al. (2019). Americans and privacy: Concerned, confused and feeling lack of control over their personal information. In Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. Available at: https://​www.pewresearch. org/​internet/​2019/​11/​15/​americans-​and-​privacy-​concerned-​confused-​and-​ feeling-​lack-​of-​control-​over-​their-​personal-​information/​ (accessed June 6, 2020). Beauford, M. (2020). Zoom acquires Keybase to beef up encryption. Available at: https://​www.uctoday.com/​collaboration/​video-​conferencing/​zoom-​acquires-​ keybase-​to-​beef-​up-​encryption/​ (accessed June 7, 2020). BikeBiz (2017). Data mining is why billions are being pumped into dockless bikes. Available at: https://​www.bikebiz.com/​data-​mining-​is-​why-​billions-​are-​being-​ pumped-​into-​dockless-​bikes/​ (accessed June 7, 2020). Brunton, F., & Nissenbaum, H. (2015). Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cohen, J. E. (2013). What privacy is for. Harvard Law Review 126, 1904–​1933. Crawford, K. (2014). The anxieties of big data. The New Inquiry. Available at: https://​ thenewinquiry.com/​the-​anxieties-​of-​big-​data/​ (accessed November 13, 2018). Curry, M. R. (1997). The digital individual and the private realm. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87(4), 681–​699. Davis, K. (2018). This is what it’s like to not own a smartphone in 2018. Available at: https://​www.fastcompany.com/​40522828/​this-​is-​what-​its-​like-​to-​not-​own-​a-​ smartphone-​in-​2018 (accessed June 6, 2020).

38  Power Geometrics of Connectivity de Montjoye, Y-​A., Hidalgo, C. A., Verleysen, M. et al. (2013). Unique in the crowd: The privacy bounds of human mobility. Scientific Reports 3, 1376. de Montjoye, Y-​A., Radaelli, L., Singh, V. K. et al. (2015). Unique in the shopping mall: On the reidentifiability of credit card metadata. Science 347(6221), 536–​539. Edison Research (2019). The Infinite Dial 2019. Edison Research. Available at: https://​ www.edisonresearch.com/​infinite-​dial-​2019/​ (accessed June 6, 2020). Elwood, S., & Leszczynski, A. (2011). Privacy, reconsidered: New representations, data practices, and the geoweb. Geoforum 42(1), 6–​15. Gutmann, M. P., Armstrong, M. P., O’Neil Green, K. et al. (2007). Putting People on the Map: Protecting Confidentiality with Linked Social-​Spatial Data. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Harwell, D. (2019). FBI, ICE find state driver’s license photos are a gold mine for facial-​recognition searches. Available at: https://​www.washingtonpost.com/​technology/​2019/​07/​07/​fbi-​ice-​f ind-​state-​drivers-​license-​photos-​are-​gold-​mine-​ facial-​recognition-​searches/​ (accessed June 6, 2020). Heilweil, R. (2020). The world’s scariest facial recognition company, explained. Available at: https://​www.vox.com/​recode/​2020/​2/​11/​21131991/​clearview-​ai-​ facial-​recognition-​database-​law-​enforcement (accessed June 6, 2020). Hill, K. (2015). You’re being secretly tracked with facial recognition, even in church. Fusion. Available at: http://​fusion.net/​story/​154199/​facial-​recognition-​no-​rules/​ (accessed November 24, 2016). Jia, Y., Dong, X., Liang, Z. et al. (2015). I know where you’ve been. Geo-​inference attacks via the browser cache. IEEE Internet Computing 19(1), 44–​53. Joel, W. (2020). How to hide faces and scrub metadata when you photograph a protest. Available at: https://​www.theverge.com/​21281897/​how-​to-​hide-​faces-​scrub-​ metadata-​photograph-​video-​protest (accessed June 7, 2020). Kitchin, R., & Dodge, M. (2011). Code/​Space: Software and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Leszczynski, A. (2015). Geoprivacy. In Kitchin, R., Wilson, M., & Lauriualt, T. (eds.), Understanding Spatial Media. Pre-​Publication. SAGE. Available at: http://​ssrn. com/​abstract=2663162. Marlinspike, M. (2020). Blur tools for signal. Available at: https://​signal.org/​ (accessed June 7, 2020). Marwick, A., & boyd, d. (2014). Networked privacy: How teenagers negotiate context in social media. New Media & Society 16(7), 1051–​1067. McKenzie, G., Janowicz, K., & Seidl, D. (2016). Geo-​privacy beyond coordinates. In Sarjakoski, T., Santos, M. Y., & Sarjakoski, L. T. (eds.), Geospatial Data in a Changing World (pp. 157–​175). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Disconnection and Reconnection  39 Michalevsky, Y., Boneh, D., Schulman, A. et al. (2015). PowerSpy: Location tracking using mobile device power analysis. CoRR abs/​1502.0. Available at: http://​arxiv. org/​abs/​1502.03182. Mittelstadt, B. (2017). From individual to group privacy in big data analytics. Philosophy & Technology 30(4), 475–​494. Newton, C. (2020). This is how much Americans trust Facebook, Google, Apple, and other big tech companies. Available at: https://​www.theverge.com/​2020/​3/​ 2/​21144680/​verge-​tech-​survey-​2020-​trust-​privacy-​security-​facebook-​amazon-​ google-​apple (accessed June 6, 2020). Nissenbaum, H. (2004). Privacy as contextual integrity. Washington Law Review 79, 119–​158. O’Donovan, C. (2018). Facebook played a pivotal role in the West Virginia teacher strike. Available at: https://​www.buzzfeednews.com/​article/​carolineodonovan/​ facebook-​group-​west-​virginia-​teachers-​strike (accessed June 7, 2020). Preston, A. (2014). The death of privacy. The Guardian, August 3. Available at: https://​ www.theguardian.com/ ​ world/ ​ 2 014/ ​ aug/ ​ 0 3/ ​ i nternet-​ d eath-​ privacy-​ google-​ facebook-​alex-​preston (accessed June 7, 2020). Rieger, S. (2018). At least two malls are using facial recognition technology to track shoppers’ ages and genders without telling. CBC News. Available at: https://​www. cbc.ca/​news/​canada/​calgary/​calgary-​malls-​1.4760964 (accessed June 6, 2020). Sawers, P. (2019). Bluetooth gains “direction finding” for location accuracy to the centimeter. VentureBeat. Available at: https://​venturebeat.com/​2019/​01/​28/​ bluetooth-​gains-​direction-​finding-​for-​location-​accuracy-​to-​the-​centimeter/​ (accessed June 6, 2020). Sholes, C. (2018). Organizing with Facebook groups. Available at: https://​medium. com/​@colinsholes/​organizing-​with-​facebook-​groups-​114fcdc56b08 (accessed June 7, 2020). Solove, D. J. (2002). Conceptualizing privacy. California Law Review 90, 1087–​1156. Strava (2020). Strava Metro | Creating better cities by using big data. Available at: https://​metro.strava.com/​ (accessed June 7, 2020). Swanlund, D., & Schuurman, N. (2016). Mechanism matters: Data production for geosurveillance. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1–​16. DOI: 10.1080/​24694452.2016.1188680. Swanlund, D., & Schuurman, N. (2018). Resisting geosurveillance: A survey of tactics and strategies for spatial privacy. Progress in Human Geography, 1–​15. DOI: 10.1177/​0309132518772661. Tactical Tech (n.d.). The data detox kit: Learn the essentials. Available at: https://​ datadetox.myshadow.org/​detox (accessed June 6, 2020).

40  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Taylor, L., Floridi, L., & van der Sloot, B. (2017). Introduction: A new perspective on privacy. In Taylor, L., Floridi, L., & van der Sloot, B. (eds.), Group Privacy: New Challenges of Data Technologies. Philosophical Studies Series (pp. 1–​12). Cham: Springer International Publishing. The Tor Project (2020). The Tor Project | Privacy & freedom online. Available at: https://​torproject.org (accessed July 29, 2020). Timm, T. (2020). The US Senate voted to let Trump spy on your search history. But all is not lost | Trevor Timm. The Guardian, May 16. Available at: https://​www. theguardian.com/​commentisfree/​2020/​may/​16/​us-​senate-​congress-​privacy-​bill-​ search-​history (accessed June 7, 2020). Ting, D. (2019). Google Maps is becoming a location-​ad juggernaut. Digiday. Available at: https://​digiday.com/​marketing/​embargoed-​10-​et-​1112-​googles-​ new-​maps-​ad-​features-​signal-​evolution-​location-​based-​ad-​targeting/​ (accessed June 7, 2020). Tufekci, Z. (2017). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. Available at: https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI (accessed June 6, 2020). Warren, S. D., & Brandeis, L. D. (1890). The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review 4(5), 193–​220. Warren, T. (2020a). Zoom announces 90-​day feature freeze to fix privacy and security issues. Available at: https://​www.theverge.com/​2020/​4/​2/​21204018/​zoom-​ security-​privacy-​feature-​freeze-​200-​million-​daily-​users (accessed June 7. 2020). Warren, T. (2020b). Zoom faces a privacy and security backlash as it surges in popularity. Available at: https://​www.theverge.com/​2020/​4/​1/​21202584/​zoom-​ security-​privacy-​issues-​v ideo-​conferencing-​s oftware-​coronavirus-​demand-​ response (accessed June 7, 2020). Woyke, E. (2020). The secret data collected by dockless bikes is helping cities map your movement. Available at: https://​www.technologyreview.com/​2018/​09/​28/​ 139983/​the-​secret-​data-​collected-​by-​dockless-​bikes-​is-​helping-​cities-​map-​your-​ movement/​(accessed June 7, 2020). Yanofsky, D. (2018). Google can still use Bluetooth to track your Android phone when Bluetooth is turned off. Available at: https://​qz.com/​1169760/​phone-​data/​ (accessed June 6, 2020).

2 Locational Technologies in Post-​disaster Infrastructure Space Uneven Access to OpenStreetMap in Post-​earthquake Haiti Mimi Sheller

Introduction The local and international response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti was an important turning point in consolidating the civil, governmental, and nongovernmental organizational use of locational technologies for post-​ disaster recovery. In post-​earthquake Haiti, immediate local recovery efforts crucially depended on cell phone communication to locate friends, family, and aid. The initial international disaster response involved a huge mobilization of mobile locational technologies to track the immediate impacts, construct basic roadmaps, and later in the recovery phase to map key locations such as camps for internally displaced people and temporary hospitals; and to visualize the distribution of aid, the actors involved, and the actions taken. This event became a turning point for the use of OpenStreetMap (OSM) for humanitarian response, and was also one of the first times aerial imaging and satellite imagery were widely released with public licenses for shared use (Chapman, 2015: 45–​46). However, the idealistic hopes for “open” data and open mapping did not always materialize, and this chapter aims to reflect on several aspects of (dis)connection in post-​disaster contexts. By (dis)connection I refer to the ways in which infrastructures of connection may also cause disconnection for those without access to them, such that the geography of connectivity always entails simultaneous disconnectivity. Digital connection requires physical infrastructure such as cell phones, cell towers, satellites, WiFi, underground cables, and so on; it also requires Mimi Sheller, Locational Technologies in Post-​disaster Infrastructure Space In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0003

42  Power Geometrics of Connectivity institutional infrastructure such as a network of services providers, government regulations, legal codes, and engineering protocols; and it requires social infrastructure such as literacy, numeracy, access to services, and know-​ how in the use of technology. When existing infrastructures for transport and communication are disrupted by a disaster, people usually make efforts to reconnect, i.e., by rebuilding roads, or repairing power lines or cell towers; but the installation of new infrastructure after a disruption may also lead to what Graham and Marvin (2001) refer to as “bypassing” and “splintering,” in which some groups or regions are connected over, above, and at the expense of others. Here I want to examine how emergency interventions following disasters such as the Haiti earthquake may bring new kinds of physical connectivity (such as satellite-​based communications systems) that bypass local institutional infrastructure (such as national public provision) and only extend to those empowered with the right social infrastructure (referred to as “network capital”). Elliott and Urry describe network capital as a combination of capacities to be mobile, including appropriate documents, money, and qualifications; access to networks at a distance; physical capacities for movement; location-​free information and contact points; access to communication devices and secure meeting places; access to vehicles and infrastructures; and time and other resources for coordination (Elliott & Urry, 2010: 10–​11). In such situations where those with little network capital are actively disconnected due to infrastructural dispositions that exclude them, they may resort to either efforts at “patching” together a workable infrastructural system by creatively appropriating available technologies, or they may resort to “strategic disconnection” by withdrawing their participation. The analysis here draws on meta-​reflections about research carried out in Haiti from 2010 to 2013, as part of a National Science Foundation funded team working on “participatory engineering” approaches to water and sanitation in Leogane (see Galada et al., 2013, 2014; Sheller et al., 2013a, 2016).1 It must be noted that this research project was not specifically focused on digital connection, and that no data was specifically collected on this issue. The participant observations here are a tangential byproduct of my own location 1 This is a revised version of M. Sheller, “Locating Technologies on the Ground in Post-​ earthquake Haiti” that appears in Locational Technologies in International Context, and also draws in part on the chapter on “Digital Power,” in ed. M. Sheller, Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (Duke University Press, 2020).

Locational Technologies  43

within this post-​disaster infrastructural context, and hence are limited in scope to what might be considered an “auto-​ethnography” of my own access to communication technologies and digital infrastructure in a post-​disaster context where I could observe others without such access. It considers how mobile communication infrastructures and locational technologies can have more or less democratizing effects, and more or less disconnecting effects, depending on how they are deployed, used, and imagined to work. My approach builds on theories of “infrastructuring” as an active practice, along with “materialist” approaches to media that emphasize the material geographies and dispositions of power embedded within communication infrastructures (Star, 1999; Parks, 2014; Parks & Schwoch, 2012). I understand communication infrastructure, following Heather Horst, as “a dynamic process that is simultaneously made and unmade” (Horst, 2013: 151), and we could add, that simultaneously connects and disconnects various users. Communication systems such as the undersea cable network, cell towers, satellite transmission, and more generally the mobile Internet form into what Keller Easterling calls infrastructure space. Easterling describes the “political character of infrastructure space” based on “accidental, covert, or stubborn forms of power” that hide in its folds (Easterling, 2015: 73; and see Starosielski, 2015; Parks & Starosielski, 2015). Uneven (dis)connectivity is a key form that such power takes. Infrastructure space is not mere background but takes active forms, argues Easterling, through the organization of components into dynamic mechanisms. Infrastructure space is an organized set of multipliers, switches, wiring, topology, and governing devices that organize how communication is channeled, who and where it (dis)connects, and therefore what “dispositions” it has on shaping worlds. Locational technologies have significant dispositions in terms of how they enable access and lack of access to various kinds of locational information which is then used to organize people, space, and action. Thus I use the term “(dis)connectivity” to indicate that (dis)connection is always an ongoing active process, an activity of simultaneous connection and disconnection, that occurs within the activation of dispositions within any infrastructure space. This chapter seeks to bring into view the contested material grounding, social embedding, and spatial frictions of uneven (and sometimes competing) global and local locational technology infrastructures by analyzing their dispositions for (dis)connectivity. There is always an ongoing struggle between control “from above” (e.g., for government and military purposes,

44  Power Geometrics of Connectivity or serving wealthy elites) and efforts to make public, appropriate, hack, or game the system “from below” (Horst, 2013). There is a process of “patching” going on, i.e., to make the patchwork of mended infrastructure work. And there is sometimes strategic disconnection to counter the power of those with high network capital who may take control of infrastructure space away from those with low network capital. It matters, therefore, who designs, deploys, and benefits from digital infrastructures, and in what ways infrastructural spaces are appropriated and incorporated by others who may have been excluded. Infrastructuring involves the daily struggle for patching together missed connections or creatively appropriating that which is available (De Souza e Silva et al., 2011). While many of us seek to recognize international humanitarian aid as an effort, however flawed, to promote recovery, health, and well-​being, it is also necessary to understand the limitations of such aid and the possibilities for its improvement. Developing a better understanding of the geographies of disconnection implicit in such efforts is the first necessary step to improving its outcomes. Additionally, understanding the active appropriations of technology that redirect infrastructure into everyday social practices, we might also better understand how otherwise disconnected users may create fissures and new possibilities for connection, which may have important political implications (McFarlane et al., 2014; Horst & Miller, 2006; Baptiste et al., 2011). While infrastructure may have dispositions, its users also have agency to actively shape it.

Geomapping Haiti After the 2010 Earthquake Locatability is a crucial challenge in the aftermath of any natural disaster. Normal roadways and communication infrastructures are disrupted. Buildings have disappeared. Phone networks are knocked out. So, identifying one’s location becomes a sudden challenge, as does finding the location of others. Humanitarian responders, engineers, and armed forces arrived in Haiti equipped with various kinds of mobile locational technologies for communicating as well as gathering, geotagging, and mapping information. They carried with them not only “smart phones” with international data plans, but also hand-​held geomapping devices, satellite phones, and other mobile field equipment such as solar chargers for those devices. This linked them to

Locational Technologies  45

an entire field known as “crisis informatics” involving “digital humanitarian organizations,” crowdsourced information, open-​source mapping, and the emergence of “collective intelligence” (Büscher et al., 2014: 243). Because Haiti’s National Mapping Agency building collapsed in the earthquake, OSM quickly became the most up-​to-​date map of Port-​au-​Prince. Kate Chapman, who was one of the early organizers of the OSM effort for post-​earthquake Haiti, notes in an interview that at first “it was primarily just used as a base map for having road information,” while Ushahidi was collecting incident reports to pin on the map. About 600 people contributed over the first month, with about 40 people who were already experienced with OSM making the majority of edits (Chapman, 2015: 45). Sean Gorman notes that it was primarily used by foreign responders: you also had an influx of a huge number of non-​residents. the number of NGOs that deployed into Haiti, the number of U.S. government support personnel that came, United Nations folks that came was enormous. None of these people knew where anything was and there weren’t any street maps. Plus, the landscape was fluid and changing. They needed a baseline and they also needed change sets on top of that baseline. OpenStreetMap was explicitly built to do that, so it was just a really great fit. (Coast, 2015: 161)

Locational technology, however, is not evenly distributed or accessed, and local practices may differ from those of highly mobile and connected humanitarian responders. Doctors, engineers, armed forces, and eventually humanitarian mappers and researchers, arrived equipped with powerful mobile informational technologies for communicating as well as gathering, geotagging, and mapping information. For example, while I was able to navigate the back roads of Leogane by downloading highly detailed local maps using a free iPhone app called Gaia Earth (coupled with a relatively costly AT&T international data plan), very few Haitians had broadband access, “smart” phones, or easy access to disrupted electricity. These tools were far more available to a connected “kinetic elite” of foreign travelers than to local communities and actors (Sheller, 2013a, 2016, 2018). In cases of disaster where one group’s mobilities have been severely disrupted while others seek to bring aid from outside the affected area, there can be strange effects of uneven physical and communicational connectivity and disconnectivity, which

46  Power Geometrics of Connectivity in some cases may enact and make visible forms of domination and conflict (Cook & Butz, 2016). In addition, the United Nations peacekeeping force already stationed in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, had bases with strong communications infrastructure, including satellite dishes and radio or cell towers (see Figure 2.1). The humanitarian responders held meetings on the UN bases and used mobile phones and laptop computers with Internet connections to communicate and share information. Groups like OSM created crowdsourced maps, which became crucial to the emergency response and were integrated into official channels. In parallel, the organization Ushahidi (haiti.ushahidi.com) worked to aggregate, verify, and curate situation reports into these open-​source GIS mapping platforms. Ushahidi was celebrated at the time of its deployment in Haiti. This kind of open mapping project potentially makes micro-​level disaster news and information accessible and searchable by location, so that interested parties can zero in on specific sites or types of information. Such

Figure 2.1  Communications Tower at fortified UN Base, Haiti, 2012. (Credit: M. Sheller)

Locational Technologies  47

networking tools are now considered crucial for crisis mapping and global humanitarian organization in response to disasters, and indeed have been described as a kind of bottom-​up “social collective intelligence” that can complement more top-​down orchestration (Büscher et al., 2014). Yet a number of infrastructural dispositions make such nominally “open” projects closed in many ways, especially to local actors. The first aspect of the topology of this infrastructure space is its direct connection to U.S. military power in the Caribbean region. Not only do the satellite systems and undersea cables that enable locational technologies to operate depend on military research and deployment of communication technologies, but they also connect directly into military logistical command structures. Chapman notes that about three weeks after the earthquake she was “sent to Miami, to the Southern Command—​one of the command centers for the U.S. Military. And the reason we were sent there is partially because of OpenStreetMap but it was also partially the spontaneous volunteering of thousands of people around the world, both doing stuff with data but also writing software to try to help with the response” (Chapmen, 2015: 44). Ultimately, Southern Command is the political infrastructure space in which OSM topologies are organized. Second, humanitarian aid appears to be about the arrival of a flow of assistance into a disaster zone, but is equally about immobility and fixity: the staging of a series of camps, fenced warehouses, containment areas, secured ports, and secure servers. We could see this as another kind of locational technology: securing locations. The logistical flow of aid during humanitarian relief operations simultaneously concerns a logistics of immobility, securitization, and privileged mobility within insecure zones of action. Locational technologies became crucial to organizing and securing remote humanitarian locations, moving personnel and supplies in and out, and connecting the humanitarian networks. This was part of what contributed to the feeling (described by anthropologists who were deeply embedded in post-​earthquake communities in Haiti) that the aid itself “left behind a disaster” because it functioned as a “big truck that went by” (Katz, 2013), exacerbating what anthropologist Mark Schuller called “humanitarian aftershocks” without actually helping many people (Schuller, 2016). The feelings described by these enthnographers of the humanitarian wave going by like a big truck or like an aftershock are empirical descriptions of the geography of disconnectivity as an active practice.

48  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Third, therefore, when armed forces (and accompanying nongovernmental organizations) mobilize to secure roads, airports, ports, warehouses, and cell towers, they also have access to different infrastructures of Hertzian space (cell phones, radio waves, satellite communications, mobile GIS platforms, Google Earth maps, etc.). Hertzian space refers to the interface for the physical interactivity between electronic devices and people, which enables locational communication technologies to work (Dunne, 2001). Post-​ disaster processes of im/​mobilities and in/​securities leverage and recombine these uneven material and digital spaces into a hybrid space of differential landscapes of locatability. The combined use of aerial views, mobile GIS, open mapping, crowdsourcing, and data visualization technologies thus reproduces uneven spaces and differential network capital, creating exclusions which become especially problematic in the process of post-​disaster decision-​making, planning, and rebuilding. Fourth, aerial surveillance and information gathering were rapidly deployed immediately after the earthquake by external institutions such as the World Bank (as well as the U.S. military) including visioning technologies such as GeoEye satellite imaging coupled with Google Earth. After the earthquake a community known as the Global Earth Observation Catastrophe Assessment Network (GEO-​CAN) formed in order to use crowdsourcing techniques to have engineers and scientists around the world compare “before and after” satellite images and later aerial photographs of building damage. This allowed the technologically empowered a virtual mobility to zoom in and out of topographical satellite maps of Haiti geotagged with information, photographs, and other GIS data, as humble as the placement of latrines. But the capacity to “zero in” and access communication networks or aerial vision is unevenly distributed. Fifth, humanitarian crisis response such as OSM had noble aims to make maps and data freely available, but there were many exclusionary mechanisms that prevented this. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is a nonprofit incorporated in Washington, D.C., which had a nomination process and vote for members to join; it had $1 million of revenue a year in this period, which had to be carefully managed and reported on; and it was constrained by 501c rules for tax-​exempt organizations that prohibit political lobbying of any kind. Its offshoot in Haiti, Communautaire OpenStreetMap Haiti (COSMA), also required people “to become a member to vote for the board of directors” and “you somehow had to be

Locational Technologies  49

invited in . . . one of the difficulties is they were making it very difficult for any new people to join the association” (Chapman, 2015: 49). Thus there were political limits on who could join these organizations, and what kinds of political activities or lobbying they could engage in. The short time frames of project-​based interventions and the limitations on political lobbying preempt more critical engagements with locational technologies and exclude local activists. Through these examples we can see how assemblages of people, devices, networks, laws, regulations, and everyday practices together enable any communication to take place, but always in ways that perform and reproduce uneven spatialities, unequal social relations, and incomplete connections. Cultural knowledges and social relations also inform human infrastructures of connection, as Brian Larkin suggests in his study of Nigeria: “soft infrastructures” such as language and religious practices become as crucial to maintaining connectivity as any specific communication technology (Larkin, 2008: 6). In the following section I will examine how Haitians tried to appropriate the locational technologies that had been built in ways that largely excluded them.

Appropriating Locational Technology: Patchwork Connections In addition to outside digital humanitarian efforts, there were also crucial on-​the-​ground innovations taking place around the use of locational technologies within Haiti, which suggests other forms of disaster response. It is important to understand the local context in which people purchase cell phones, charge them, share their location, and stay connected with distant locations, especially after a disaster. Even Haitians in small rural villages had on hand relatively sophisticated mobile communications technology, which served many important purposes including organizing financial remittances from abroad through the innovation of “mobile money” (Baptiste et al., 2011). These remittances, as well as the circulation of various other kinds of locational information across the Haitian diaspora, were hugely significant elements of the recovery effort. Mobile money is itself an important appropriation of cell phone networks for remote banking and person-​to-​person money transfer purposes—​which depends on the locatability of the recipient

50  Power Geometrics of Connectivity and the conversion of data into money via digital connections at specific physical locations. In contrast to the international responders with their high-​tech equipment, this kind of locational technology was in the hands of very few Haitians in their everyday practices, and especially lacking was mapping technology and know-​how. In June of 2010, for example, Chapman went to Haiti for two weeks, and a small group of OSM people held workshops teaching people how to do mapping. They taught workshops with eventually up to “20 to 30 people who had really varying technical knowledge” showing them “how to use a GPS and how to do a survey, to write information down on paper and then how to enter it into OpenStreetMap.” HOT even developed a mobile mapping kit including “a waterproof case with a laptop, a printer, cameras, mobile phones and GPS and all the bits to put it together,” although these were only available on a project basis under specific contracts and could not be distributed more widely to local communities (Chapman, 2015: 46, 57). The OSM team also began to create maps to place on bulletin boards in internally displaced person (IDP) camps “so people in these displaced person camps could see what the resources were, know more about their space. And also, work with the mappers we were working with, engage with them and map things that were important to them . . . and that’s also the point where OpenStreetMap Haiti began to form” (Chapman, 2015: 46, 57). Here it emerges that local needs and perspectives on what is important are crucial to making maps work. OSM is not just a technical infrastructure, but is also a cultural one. This is suggestive of a crucial kind of “patching” not only between digital and analog media, but also between different representational and cultural systems, although it leaves unasked the question of how the maps were understood and used locally. Building connectivity, in other words, requires both technical and cultural performativity. As wireless broadband becomes more accessible and affordable, growing numbers of people across the world have access to location-​based mobile interfaces; and increasingly the Internet is being accessed by mobile smartphone, not by computer. Being able to consistently and persistently locate ourselves and be located (or perhaps cloak one’s location) within this mobile digital network through location-​ aware technologies fundamentally changes how we understand both the Internet and the physical space around us. As De Souza e Silva argues, location becomes an entry point to

Locational Technologies  51

the Web (Gordon & De Souza e Silva, 2011; De Souza e Silva & Sheller, 2014), meaning that if one is not digitally locatable, one is by default disconnected. Yet few have studied how such locational technologies are leveraged by people in the Global South. How might locational technology, for example, remediate the entrepreneurial practices that Clapperton Mavhunga (2014) has described in the African context as “transient workspaces”? Mavhunga shows how forms of everyday innovation in Zimbabwe deepen our idea of technologies of mobility and communication. How can locational technology be patched together out of existing practices, involving not only cell phones, but also word of mouth, transient workspaces, and shared modes of transport to create new forms of hybrid, indigenous, or subaltern connectivity? Likewise, Lisa Parks (2014) describes the “walking phone workers” who provide access to mobile communication in Mongolia, thereby converting their own physical mobility on foot into a new access point for mobile digital connectivity. The use of cellular communication technology may require new organizations of service work that allow small-​scale customers to access phones a few minutes at a time, or find charging locations accessible from the streets where they work, in order to overcome everyday disconnections. How are new technologies such as cell phones or mobile money being creatively incorporated into the existing cultural practices of such transient workspaces and urban infrastructural improvisation? And what can we learn from this about the potential disposition of locational mapping as an open resource for making new connections for the disconnected? Most Haitians were still using basic feature phones in 2010–​2013, which were often charged at small shops. Figure 2.2, for example, shows a tiny barbershop that offers to recharge telephones for 15 gourdes, while Figure 2.3 shows another typical “Shop Electronique” that offers to repair inverters and televisions, sells DVD’s and CD’s, and probably also offers phone charging. The wooden gingerbread building next to it suggests the patching together of old and new technologies, and the way that things are repaired and kept functioning. On the road beside it are two typical forms of small-​scale affordable transportation: a motorcycle for carrying people, and a wheelbarrow for moving goods. Technology is downscaled, in a sense, to fit the location and the small circuits of current and currency in the local economy. The global communications company Digicel also appears on umbrellas that are ubiquitous throughout Haitian outdoor markets, shading

52  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Figure 2.2  Di-​m Sa-​w we (Tell Me What You Want) Barber Shop, Leogane, Haiti, with painted sign offering Recharge Téléphone, 15 gourdes. (Credit: M. Sheller, 2013)

sellers while advertising the main cell phone service provider in Haiti (Figure 2.4). Digicel is a major presence in Haiti—​and in many other small island developing nations—​and was noted for its contributions to recovery efforts after the 2010 earthquake. It also serves as a locational technology because it allows users in other countries to send “top ups” of prepaid minutes to particular phone numbers in Haiti, a form of remote location-​to-​location money transfer. Top-​up methods include online, fingertip (entered via personal code numbers), and automatic scheduled payments. There are many ways to extract value from such unevenly distributed infrastructures. Anthropologist Jovan Scott Lewis, for example, has shown how young Black Jamaicans striving to make a living in a neoliberal economy use international call centers and cellphone access to “scam” white North Americans, and thereby extract “reparations” (Lewis, 2020).

Locational Technologies  53

Figure 2.3  Shop Electronique, Leogane, Haiti. (Credit: M. Sheller, 2013)

The fact that the Digicel umbrella appears here behind a large pile of bags of charcoal, used for cooking, underlines the lack of “clean” power in Haiti and the ways in which the energy system is very underdeveloped, even as the communication system leaps into the mobile era. The red umbrellas are found ubiquitously at markets across Haiti, where very small-​scale trade takes place at urban gathering places such as plazas, corners, or simply along streets. Again, there is a kind of patching together of functioning systems from pieces of different technology, some high tech and some rather low tech. In sum, this section has sought to depict some of the “on the ground” technological practices involved in the everyday appropriation of locational communication technologies by groups who may experience various kinds of infrastructural disconnection in Haiti. These patchwork connections are quite far removed from the kinds of high-​tech access found at UN bases, and among international nongovernmental organizations. There was a large gap between imported locational technologies and those actually available to most Haitians. However, these everyday practices of innovation in making

54  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Figure 2.4  Digicel umbrella, used to shade a market seller, next to sacks of charcoal sold for cooking, Leogane, Haiti. (Credit: M. Sheller, 2013)

infrastructural connections also begin to hint at the potential for local appropriations that are outside of, or exceed, the neoliberal infrastructure space of MINUSTAH, Southern Command, and the World Bank.

Democratizing Connections to Locational Technologies Insofar as digital humanitarians believe that they are widening participation and promoting progressive cultures of inclusion, they may be missing the point of such materialized power relations that are folded into local infrastructural assemblages. As we have seen, digital tools that are promoted as being “open” may in fact be experienced as closed, and infrastructures of connection may function also as hidden assemblages of disconnection. Digital technologies and flexible communication infrastructures may be

Locational Technologies  55

disconnected from local technological practices and forms of “appropriate technology” appropriation. The participants may be the already-​connected foreigners who fly from disaster to disaster, rather than those actually experiencing the disaster on the ground. Local actors are more likely to become sources of data for outside users, rather than controlling the production of and access to such data; except insofar as they seize the means of communication from below whether by appropriating, patching, or scamming. There is a long-​standing movement promoting participatory approaches to disaster preparedness and risk reduction, and even making claims for their emancipatory potential. However, such participatory logics have been heavily criticized for their implicit individualism, biopolitical governance, and neoliberal governmentalities (Cooke & Kothari, 2001; Sharma, 2008; Pugh, 2013). Kevin Grove’s work on community-​based disaster risk management in Jamaica, for example, makes the point that such an approach “dehumanizes and depoliticizes vulnerability” to disaster by drawing attention away from power relations and structural inequality. “The empowerment offered by participatory techniques,” he suggests, “becomes the empowerment to defend neoliberal order against socioecological emergence” (Grove, 2013: 584–​585). The Jamaican scammers described by Jovan Scott Lewis (2020) mobilize a more complex reparative relationship to neoliberalism, technology, and vulnerability. We can see the problems with digital humanitarianism not only through its practical failings in reaching the communities it seeks to serve, but more deeply in its structural implications and epistemological assumptions as an “adaptation machine” (Grove, 2014). Grove and Pugh argue that “participation involves a variety of techniques that bring people, things, and knowledge together in ways that can consolidate existing ways of life, or create entirely new possibilities.” Yet there are alternatives to “modernist participation” with its “will to truth” and objectification—​which underlies crowdsourced technological solutions and open data idealism. Instead they try to imagine forms of “performative participation” as a practice that “recognizes that participatory activities, while still entangled in power relations, may develop in ways that might challenge existing power relations, and [even] the designs of the project organizer” (Grove & Pugh, 2015: 1–​2). The challenge they propose for researchers and humanitarian responders is to “become resources” within a participatory assemblage that can perform other possibilities. What if Haitians envisioned and operationalized other ways of using mapping

56  Power Geometrics of Connectivity technologies, outside of the project-​driven timetables and initiatives of nonprofit crisis mapping or for that matter military logistical delivery? This is especially pertinent to rethinking digital projects and the uses of locational data, open mapping, and GIS. How can the makers of such communication infrastructures become sources of and resources for more performative modes of participation that might democratize digital connectivity? Using communication technology to respond to disasters or to build grassroots development networks only works if there are communities organized to appropriate technology and adapt it to their needs, rather than the imposition of imported high-​tech solutions from outside. Democratizing digital access is not simply about creating open maps and crowdsourced data. It requires joining up connected locations where people bridge the capacities of mobile phones to serve their everyday needs such as access to energy, transportation, goods, and information not to mention mobile money. It requires the creation of new assemblages that can evade depoliticization and generate new forms of community-​based power and possibilities for reparations. Locational technologies must be emplaced within material locations to become localized. And this may require strategically disconnecting from global structures of power that actively prevent such creole connections by always routing infrastructural power through a strategic center. Such localization and local connectivity might need to be networked in other ways. There is a lively scene of Haitian social media, in which those located in the Haitian diaspora communicate with those in Haiti. Physical and virtual locational practices in such networks becomes a kind of currency for establishing authenticity or at least showing a presence in Haiti by sharing local information, photographs, and news. Social media itself can function as a kind of locational technology, establishing a virtual presence for Haiti in the geography of place-​based media space. From this map of creolized infrastructure and diasporic connections we can begin to imagine alternative Haitian futures.

Conclusion In this chapter I have built on work that highlights the politics of infrastructure space. Systems of domination and inequality are often built into

Locational Technologies  57

such infrastructure spaces even when advocating participation and open data. After disaster, physical and informational mobility systems are tightly coupled into complex new configurations. In this analysis of the use of locational technologies in post-​earthquake Haiti, therefore, I have shown how digital humanitarianism (and longer-​term development projects) might be improved by first recognizing the uneven topologies of post-​ disaster connectivity within rapidly remade communication infrastructures; second, investigating what kinds of locational technology are also being used “on the ground” as it were (and through the airwaves) by those whose connections have been disrupted or were never meant to be connected; and third by reflecting on more ethical models for connectivity that might patch together places and create more reflexive and critical “performative participation” processes across entangled communication platforms located within uneven global infrastructure space (Grove & Pugh, 2015; Lewis, 2020). The reconfiguration of complex mobility, communication, and information systems via the mobile phone and locational technologies, therefore, is not simply about infrastructures of “connection,” but is about reconfiguring connection itself and the form that connected publics take, which may require both improvised connection and strategic disconnection. I have described these dynamic constellations of digital infrastructure as innovative patchworks of (dis)connectivity. Overall, rather than simply celebrating humanitarian uses of locational technologies in disaster response and recovery, we need to offer more serious critiques of the kinds of social and material practices that allow some to remain highly connected even in the midst of general disconnection—​moving through the same physical topographies but connected to different Hertzian topologies. We need to pay more attention to the kinds of participation that such locational technologies make possible, and whom they exclude. Finally, if subaltern publics have already appropriated infrastructural possibilities, then there is hope that such patchwork practices might be built on to strengthen and democratize existing modes of post-​disaster social and political action via new performative practices of locational technology and creative connection. Democratizing the hybrid spaces of locational technology, especially in the Global South, will require paying closer attention to the unrealized capabilities that people already have for potential connection, protecting these forms of insurgent connectivity from below, and asking how

58  Power Geometrics of Connectivity local appropriations of technology might be built on in ways that strengthen local actors’ network capital and that support modes of located action.

Acknowledgments I thank the editors of this volume and the earlier volume in which a version of this chapter appeared, edited by Rowan Wilken, Gerard Goggin, and Heather Horst. I also thank editors at Duke University Press for permission to re-​print.

References Baptiste, E., Horst, H., & Taylor, E. (2011). Earthquake aftermath in Haiti: The rise of mobile money adoption and adaptation. Lydian Journal (7) n.p. Büscher, M., Liegl, M., & Thomas, V. (2014). Collective intelligence in crises. In Miorandi, D., Maltese, V., Rovatsos, M., Nijholt, A., & Stewart, J. (Eds.), Social Collective Intelligence Computational Social Sciences (pp. 243–​ 265). Zurich: Springer. Chapman, K. (2015). Interview in S. Coast (Ed.), The Book of OSM (self-​published). Cook, N., & Butz, D. (2016). Mobility justice in the context of disaster. Mobilities, 11(3), 414–​419. Cooke, B., & Kothari, U. (eds.) (2001). Participation: The New Tyranny? New York: Zed Books. De Souza e Silva, A., Sutko, D. M., Salis, F. A., & de Souza e Silva, C. (2011). Mobile phone appropriation in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. New Media & Society, 13(3), 411–​423. De Souza e Silva, A., & Sheller, M. (eds.) (2014). Mobilities and Locative Media: Mobile Communication in Hybrid Spaces. New York: Routledge. Dunne, A. (2001). Hertzian Tales: Electronic Products, Aesthetic Experience, and Critical Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Easterling, K. (2015). Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space. London and New York: Verso. Elliott, A., & Urry, J. (2010). Mobile Lives. New York: Routledge. Farman, J. (2015). The materiality of locative media: On the invisible infrastructure of mobile networks. In Herman, A., Hadlaw, J., & Swiss, T. (Eds.), Theories

Locational Technologies  59 of the Mobile Internet: Materialities and Imaginaries (pp. 45–​59). New York and London: Routledge. Galada, H. C., Montalto, F. A., Gurian, P., Piasecki, M., Sheller, M., Ayalew, T., & O’Connor, S. (2013). Attitudes toward post-​ earthquake water and sanitation management and payment options in Leogane, Haiti. Water International, 38(6), 744–​757. Galada, H. C., Montalto, F. A., Gurian, P., Piasecki, M., Sheller, M., Ayalew, T., & O’Connor, S. (2014). Assessing preferences regarding centralized and decentralized water infrastructure in post-​ earthquake Leogane, Haiti. Earth Perspectives: Transdisciplinarity Enabled, 1(5) (February 12). Gordon, E., & De Souza e Silva, A. (2011). Net–​Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World. Malden and Oxford: Wiley–​Blackwell. Gorman, S. (2015). Interview in Coast, S. (Ed.), The Book of OSM (self-​published). Graham, S., & Marvin, S. (2001). Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge. Grove, K. (2013). From emergency management to managing emergence: A genealogy of disaster management in Jamaica. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103(3), 570–​588. Grove, K. (2014). Adaptation machines and the parasitic politics of life in Jamaican disaster resilience. Antipode, 46(3), 611–​628. Grove, K., & Pugh, J. (2015). Assemblage thinking and participatory development: Potentiality, ethics, biopolitics. Geography Compass, 9(1), 1–​13. Horst, H. (2013). The infrastructures of mobile media: Towards a future research agenda. Mobile Media and Communication, 1(1), 147–​152. Horst, H., & Miller, D. (2006). The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication. Oxford: Berg. Katz, J. (2013). The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Larkin, B. (2008). Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Lewis. J. S. (2020). Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mavhunga, C. C. (2014). Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McCormack, D. P. (2014). Pipes and cables. In Adey, P., Bissell, D., Hannam, K., Merriman, P., & Sheller, M. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. London: Routledge.

60  Power Geometrics of Connectivity McFarlane, C., Desai, R., & Graham, S. (2014). Informal urban sanitation: Everyday life, poverty, and comparison. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104(5), 989–​1011. Packer, J., & Wiley, S. Crofts (eds.) (2012). Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks. New York: Routledge. Parks, L. (2014). Walking phone workers. In Adey, P., Bissell, D., Hannam, K., Merriman, P., & Sheller, M. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities. London: Routledge. Parks, L., & Schwoch, J. (Eds.) (2012). Down to Earth: Satellite Technologies Industries and Cultures. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Parks, L., & Starosielski, N. (eds.) (2015). Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Pugh, J. (2013). Speaking without voice: Participatory planning, acknowledgment, and latent subjectivity in Barbados. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103(5), 1266–​1281. Sharma, A. (2008). Logics of Empowerment: Development, Gender, and Governance in Neoliberal India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sheller, M. (2013a). The islanding effect: Post-​disaster mobility systems and humanitarian logistics in Haiti. Cultural Geographies, 20(2), 185–​204. Sheller, M. (2013b). Mobile mediality: Location, dislocation, augmentation. In Witzgall, S., Vogl, G., & Kesselring, S. (Eds.), New Mobilities Regimes in Arts and Social Sciences (pp. 309–​326). London: Routledge. Sheller, M. (2016). Connected mobility in a disconnected world: Contested infrastructure in post-​disaster contexts. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 106(1), 330–​39. Sheller, M., Galada, H. C., Montalto, F. A., Gurian, P. L., Piasecki, M., O’Connor, S., & Ayalew, T. (2013). Gender, disaster and resilience: Assessing women’s water and sanitation needs in Leogane, Haiti, before and after the 2010 earthquake. wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water, 2(1), n.p. (May). Sheller, M., O’Connor, S., Galada, H. C., Montalto, F. A., Gurian, P. L., & Piasecki, M. (2014). Participatory engineering for recovery in post-​ earthquake Haiti. Engineering Studies, Doi: 10.1080/​19378629.2014.964250. Star, S. L. (1999). The ethnography of infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, 43(3), 377–​391. Starsioleski, N. (2015). The Undersea Network: Sign, Storage Transmission. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

3 Disconnection as Distinction A Bourdieusian Study of Where People Withdraw from Digital Media Karin Fast, Johan Lindell, and André Jansson

Introduction In 1994, The Swedish Trade Organization dubbed the mobile phone the “Christmas Gift of the Year.” Fifteen years later, in 2019, the title went to the “mobile phone box”; a box for storing your smartphone when needing a break from social media updates, news alerts, job emails, personal messages, or when just wanting to stay off-​screen for a while. Aside from being novel and carrying high sales potentials, the product dubbed “Christmas Gift of the Year” should “represent the time we live in” (Hui Research, 2019). The decision to make the mobile phone box “Gift of the Year” was motivated by Emma Hernell, vice president of the company whose analytics the decision was based on: “The mobile phone has become an integrated part of our lives, which is positive in many ways. But 2019 represents the year when many people began to reflect on the negative consequences. We see a growing need to reduce our own as well as our children’s screen time” (SVT, 2019). Indeed, the “Christmas Gift of the Year” products can be read as symbols of the times we live in. In 1994, when the mobile phone was awarded the title, discourses on the “Information Society” tended to promote digital connectivity as the solution to a range of social problems (Webster, 1995; Selwyn, 2003). Concerns, at that time, were with the unequal distribution of digital technology and connectivity across the population, or with what became known as the “digital divide” (cf. van Dijk & Hacker, 2003). The “have-​ nots” or “information poor” were seen as deviant, and non-​use of media was regarded “an irrational and ultimately disadvantageous position to adopt” (Selwyn, 2003: 106; cf. Kaun & Schwarzenegger, 2014). Arguably, the mobile Karin Fast, Johan Lindell, and André Jansson, Disconnection as Distinction In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0004

62  Power Geometrics of Connectivity phone box represents a complete reversal of thinking. Although praises of the “digital revolution” have by no means gone quiet (cf. Fast, 2018), the mobile phone box arrives at a time when many actors raise concerns not with the lack of connectivity, but with the abundance thereof. Today, digital disconnection is framed as the solution to a partly different set of problems, linked to what is oftentimes referred to as “media (over)dependency,” “digital stress,” or “screen addiction” (cf. Light, 2014; Syvertsen, 2017; Karppi, 2018; Kaun & Treré, 2018; Velkova & Kaun, 2019; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). Digital disconnection sentiments have grown so strong lately that even media and technology companies feel required to respond to them. As a case in point, Google recently launched its own “digital wellbeing” project, which, among other things, instructs us about “healthy” smartphone user practices (Google, 2019). In a growing spectrum of contexts then, digital disconnection is recognized as an empowering asset rather than a flaw to be fixed (cf. Hesselberth, 2018). As media become ubiquitous in public as well as private places (Peil & Röser, 2014; McQuire, 2016), people are encouraged to (re)take control of their lives and create temporal and spatial zones void of (certain forms) of media—​be it in the shape of, for example, mobile phone-​free dinners, “digital detox” vacationing, or screen-​free bedrooms. While such norms of everyday discipline and self-​realization could be crucial for fighting dependence and addiction, they also represent socially shaped value structures and notions of “good taste.” There are, we argue, good reasons to assume that disconnection practices—​like media practices at large—​are socially stratified and hence might serve as means of distinction. Over the years, many studies have identified linkages between (digital) media use and social class (e.g., Jansson, 2002, 2015, 2018; Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003; Bengtsson & Lundgren, 2005; Danielsson, 2011, 2014; Bengtsson, 2015; Yates, Kirby & Lockley, 2015; Lindell & Hovden, 2018; Lindell, 2018). However, the focus in existing studies on media and social class has rested rather heavily on the correlations between class and media connection (who uses what and for what reasons?) rather than deliberate disconnection and non-​use (cf. Mannell, 2017). Conversely, while a growing body of research literature does deal with deliberate disconnection (e.g., Selwyn, 2003; Kaun & Schwarzenegger, 2014; Ribak & Rosenthal, 2015; Casemajor et al., 2015; Syvertsen, 2017; Hardey & Atkinson, 2018; Hesselberth, 2018; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019; Russo et al., 2019; Verhulsdonck et al., 2019), very few studies

Disconnection as Distinction  63

in this area analyze these themes in relation to social stratification (though see, e.g., Portwood-​Stacer, 2012). Furthermore, the disconnection literature is still largely dominated by studies on social network platforms, notably Facebook (e.g., Light, 2014; Light & Cassidy, 2014; Akter, 2014; John & Dvir-​ Gvirsman, 2015; Karppi, 2018; Portwood-​Stacer, 2012; Brody, 2018; Stieger & Lewetz, 2018; Jorge, 2019; see also Kuntsman & Miyake, 2019), which means that we know less about how people manage digital (dis)connectivity more generally, in different realms of life. Our opening example also actualizes another overlooked aspect of digital media use, namely the relations between digital (dis)connection and people’s everyday management of place; that is, human territoriality (Sack, 1986; see also Adams & Jansson, this volume). The mobile phone box can be seen as a miniaturized spatial device that imposes a boundary between the outer world and the more predictable “here and now” of human affairs. As such, it resembles other territorializing measures that many people today must take to prevent such things as digital stress and reclaim a more direct and non-​mediated sense of place—​a sense of being here (cf. Lagerkvist, 2017). However, just like we still know little about which social groups actually buy and use the mobile phone box, there is a lack of research on who prefers to disconnect where. A presumption behind the present study is that places of disconnection—​just like (dis)connection practices per se—​are both classified and classifying, in relation to individuals and groups. They demand a certain degree of discipline and articulate certain formations of taste. Therefore, we set out to interrogate questions such as the following: Who are (not) at ease with digital media? Who finds value in disconnection? And, what kinds of places do certain people want to elevate as disconnected places? Based on data from a national Swedish survey (2019), this chapter applies correspondence analysis and a Bourdieusian theoretical framework to chart (1) smartphone attitudes and manifestations of “digital unease” connected to these, and (2) to what extent different social groups prioritize the act of disconnecting in different places. In following a key methodological rationale of Bourdieu’s (1984) Distinction, such preferences and attitudes are mapped onto a social space constructed around the distribution of economic, cultural, and social capital in Swedish society. Ultimately, this chapter illuminates how the handling of digital (dis)connection, in different places, plays into overarching patterns of taste and cultural distinction and, as such, constitutes an emerging moral-​symbolic battleground in affluent societies.

64  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Disconnection and the Revisibilization of Media in Everyday Places Empirically grounded research suggests that everyday lives are becoming increasingly dependent on or “molded” by the media (Jansson, 2018; Deuze, 2014; Hjarvard, 2013; Hepp & Krotz, 2014)—​be it, for example, love life (Storey & McDonald, 2014), family life (Schofield Clark, 2013), or work life (Chan & Humphreys, 2018; Schaefer et al., 2018). Many scholars go as far as to argue that the intense mediatization of everyday life has gotten us to a stage where media and life have become inseparable (cf. Couldry & Hepp, 2017; Couldry & Meijas, 2019). Deuze (2014) suggests that not only have media become essential in everyday “media lives,” but because of their increasing naturalness they also tend to become invisible to us and, thereby, increasingly powerful (see also Meyrowitz, 1998; Miller, 2005). The “disappearance of media thesis” rests on the phenomenological presumption that the taken-​for-​granted lifeworld becomes visible to us only when something extraordinary happens (e.g., Schütz, 1972). In times when digital connection has become “ordinary” (Jansson, 2018), practices of disconnection serve to revisibilize the media (Kaun & Schwarzenegger, 2014). In the public debate as well as in the emergent scholarly literature, the term “disconnection” appears next to a range of adjacent concepts, such as “digital detox,” “media disengagement,” “media abstention,” “media avoidance,” “media non-​use,” “media refusal,” and “media non-​participation.” In this chapter, we use disconnection to refer to a condition of intentional withdrawal from connective digital media. To “disconnect,” then, is to create a delimited time-​space that makes an exception to how life is normally lived. The mobile phone box, to return to our initial example, constitutes a material manifestation of disconnection and supposedly rips “media” and “life” apart again, as do digitally “detoxified” tourist resorts, schoolyards, workplaces, and homes. This is not the place to account for the wide spectrum of “media resistance” into which disconnection practices can be inserted, ranging as it does from political collectivist endeavors, like civic protests or activist campaigns, to voluntary forms of everyday non-​use (Kaun & Treré, 2018; Hesselberth, 2018). Nor do we have the space here to write its long history, which can be traced back, at least, to Socrates’s critique of writing in ancient Greece (Syvertsen, 2017). More relevant to our study is research on the quotidian

Disconnection as Distinction  65

expressions of media withdrawal. Such research has demonstrated the kinds of tactics that individuals may employ to manage everyday media life. In a qualitative interview-​study of Swedish media users, Bengtsson (2018) found that tactics such as silencing one’s mobile phone, uninstalling smartphone apps, removing aural notifications from connected devices, or placing media devices out of sight, were employed to create a “good life” with media. These tactics resonate with findings from the 1980s and 1990s concerning electronic media, especially television, whose captivating force (and declassifying cultural status) led certain groups to take measures to delimit their viewing time. Notably, these measures included not only temporal restrictions but also territorializing tactics, such as, resisting the use of a video-​recorder in the household (Hirsch, 1992), storing away the TV set in a wardrobe, or, arranging the TV room in a way that was “not too comfortable” (Jansson, 2001). While media resistance, thus, is not new, and while individual media tactics may provide shields from media intrusiveness, contemporary “media life” in the age of “deep mediatization” entails new social tensions that might affect our possibilities to disconnect. Beyond the “digital divide,” there is now a gap between those permanently entangled with media and those who can afford to “opt out.” Work-​life studies have recognized “availability”—​which in digitalized contexts is principally translatable to mediated connectivity—​ as an indispensable asset for many professionals. A study by Bergman and Gustafson (2008), for example, suggests that availability—​like mobility per se—​is a resource and competitive advantage in career development, especially in white-​collar sectors. Fast and Jansson (2019) present similar results from their studies of mobile business workers, expatriate workers, and cultural workers, whose (trans)mediated connectivity is acknowledged as an essential source of status and recognition. Conversely, disconnection imposes certain social and economic costs. A key argument proposed by Fast and Jansson, however, is that certain categories of workers can meet or counteract the expenses of disconnectivity more easily than can others. More precarious workers, including platformed labor or “gig-​workers” but also independent workers more generally, cannot afford to miss out on the self-​promotion opportunities that digital media provide (cf. Ollier-​Malaterre et al., 2019). These findings indicate that the ability to manage (dis)connection does not escape the logics of social stratification, particularly those regarding discrepancies in the new, flexible, labor market. It is increasingly a sign of status to

66  Power Geometrics of Connectivity be able to render or keep certain time-​spaces “digital free”—​whether at work or through purposeful leisure. Yet, here we need to move beyond the question of professional demands and assets. We need to learn more about how the interplay between disconnection and (re)territorialization—​that is, how various measures of digital regulation are implemented to (re)claim place, and how places are managed and (re)arranged to achieve disconnection—​ is shaped by, and reproduces, underlying social and moral structures in everyday life. What might people’s striving for (different types of) disconnected places tell us about class relations in digital modernity?

Bourdieu’s Social Space, Lifestyles, and (Dis) connection as Distinction In order to get at the structural, class-​related dimensions of voluntary disconnection, as described earlier, we draw on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). For our purposes, the Bourdieusian framework has two merits. First, it conceptualizes class as social positions that are set by individuals’ access to relatively scarce resources, or capital. The approach identifies various material resources (such as income and assets) and symbolic resources (such as university degrees) that affect people’s chances in life. As such, the Bourdieusian framework moves beyond a “categorical approach to class,” found for instance in the focus upon occupational classifications, “towards a view of stratification as a continuous hierarchy” (Flemmen, 2013: 326). By accounting for people’s economic, social, and cultural capital, we can study disconnection throughout social space. Second, Bourdieu’s framework is inherently sensitive to how cultural practices (including disconnection and connection) play out within relations between people in different class positions (Bourdieu, 1984). People’s upbringing and movements on various social fields accumulate into an embodied social history—​habitus—​that functions as a frame of reference for how people maneuver in the social world. Consequently, people with similar conditions of existence, that is, similar volumes and composition of capital, are likely to share orientations and lifestyles, which is manifested, not least, in repertoires of taste and cultural practices (Bourdieu, 1984).

Disconnection as Distinction  67

When Bourdieu and his followers have studied how people occupying different positions in social space approach and make sense of media, they have been preoccupied with inequalities in people’s ability to use media to stay connected to the world, not least to politics (see, e.g., Bengtsson, 2015; Hovden & Moe, 2017; Lindell, 2018). In this vein, Bourdieu analyzed newspaper readership to understand inequality in terms of access to public connection (see also Hovden & Moe, 2017; Lindell, 2018). Prieur et al.’s (2008) analyses of the Danish social space suggest that cultural capital today entails less of traditional “high-​brow” repertoires and more of a mediated capacity to be connected to the wider world. Similarly, Lindell and Danielsson (2017) show that individuals rich in cultural capital convert this capital into a cosmopolitan capital as fields undergo structural changes such as globalization and digitalization. Ragnedda and colleagues (2019), furthermore, argue that ability to access and use digital technology—​what they call “digital capital”—​is a key social resource in our digitized world. An analogous argument is presented by Ollier-​Malaterre and colleagues (2019), who hold that “digital cultural capital” (“awareness, motivation, and skill required for technology management”) (p. 437) constitutes an increasingly significant source of class privilege. Taken together, the existing body of Bourdieusian sociology suggests that various forms of mediated connectivity constitute key contemporary dividing lines that cut across social space. However, if the capacity to connect, and to stay connected to many people and places via media, is either an asset or a relatively distinct practice among middle and upper class segments of society, how can we explain the parallel rise of voluntary disconnection as a social trend? Digital detox tourism, for example, is obviously not a business targeting underprivileged groups in society, but is rather aimed at those who benefit the most from digital connectivity (see Enli & Syvertsen, this volume). From a Bourdieusian perspective, there are at least two ways of interpreting this contradiction. First, if a certain type of practice, such as being constantly connected to the Internet, turns into the normal state across social strata, then those with more capital must find new ways of demarcating their status. They “change so as to conserve [their social status]” (Bourdieu, 1984: 157). If not everyone can “afford” to disconnect, this will turn disconnection into a mark of distinction. If connected places are the norm, then certain disconnected places—​those appropriated by the privileged—​will be defined

68  Power Geometrics of Connectivity as exclusive. Second, social distinction is typically grounded in embodied forms of reflexivity that express the individual’s ability to master social, cultural, logistical, and other forms of complexity. Then, under conditions where people spend more and more time and energy on managing digital devices, infrastructures and flows, the ability to disentangle from this very regime of connectivity—​if only for a delimited time and/​or at certain designated places—​might stand out as a sign of mastery and individual achievement (see Adams & Jansson, this volume). Staying in control of connectivity in a hyperconnected world is a bit like keeping a fit body in a society of oversized meals. Still, given these general logics, there is much to gain from a thorough empirical analysis that also accounts for different types of capital. The symbolic power of deliberate disconnection and the distinctiveness of disconnecting at particular places might play out differently depending upon whether cultural or economic capital, high or low capital volumes, are at stake. In what follows, we adopt the Bourdieusian approach to provide a systematic account of these matters.

Data and Method This study sets out to chart where different groups prefer to disconnect and how such preferences reproduce social and symbolic power structures in society. We explore this issue through the lens of Bourdieusian sociology, applying multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) on survey data collected in Sweden in spring 2019. MCA was Bourdieu’s preferred way to study the correspondences between a system of class relations and cultural practices (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Duval, 2018; Lebaron & Le Roux, 2018). In accordance with the Bourdieusian approach to statistics for the study of class relations, we used MCA to empirically delineate the structure of the Swedish social space and, in a second step, to project attitudes related to digital disconnection onto that structure (Rosenlund, 2015). This maneuver revealed the class-​specific coordinates of various forms of disconnection in social space. The survey was distributed to 12,481 Swedes via the research institute Kantar-​Sifo’s web panel and retained a response rate of 31%, implying that the final dataset included 3,902 individuals. The survey was constructed to

Disconnection as Distinction  69

measure individuals’ access to various material and symbolic capitals. Nine variables were used as active variables to construct the Swedish space of social positions (cf. Rosenlund, 2015). Economic capital was measured with (1) monthly income, (2) savings/​assets, and (3) ownership of a country/​ summer house. Cultural capital was measured with (1) respondents’ educational levels, (2) number of books at home, (3) type of education (e.g., humanities/​arts, social care, or transportation), (4) parents’ educational levels, and (5) levels of exposure to various cultural artifacts at home when growing up. Social capital was measured by asking respondents if they were (1) members on any board. Additionally, the survey included questions on where and when respondents found it important to “disconnect from digital media,” as well as their attitudes on their uses of their smartphones. The smartphone makes a particularly interesting case because of its status as “the poster boy or girl” of the kind of mobile technologies that enable “ubiquitous” connectivity (Fast et al., 2019: 91; cf. McQuire, 2016). Smartphone resistance, as pointed out by Ribak and Rosenthal (2015), “is uniquely positioned to shed light on contemporary media ambivalence” because it is today “practically less and less feasible” to not use a smartphone (n.p.). Again, it is the very “difficulty and scarcity of non-​consumption” in our media-​saturated society that makes smartphone non-​use an act of distinction (Portwood-​Stacer, 2012: 1049). First, we asked to what extent respondents agreed to the following statements regarding their smartphone use: “I check my smartphone too often,” “I have routines for when I’m not supposed to use my smartphone,” “I feel stressed because of my smartphone,” “I get happy when I receive messages,” “My smartphone increases my freedom,” “I need my smartphone to stay connected with friends and family,” “I feel surveilled by my smartphone,” “I prefer to have my smartphone muted,” “I’m well-​versed with the different functions of my smartphone,” “Without my smartphone I would miss out on exciting things,” “I get interrupted by my smartphone when at work.” These variables were measured along a four-​point scale ranging from “I do not agree at all” to “I fully agree.” Second, we asked how important it was for respondents to disconnect from digital media when dining out, in the bedroom, on vacation, being in nature, attending sports events, visiting friends, and when on public transport. The variables measuring place-​specific disconnection practices and

70  Power Geometrics of Connectivity smartphone attitudes were used as supplementary variables that were projected onto the space of social positions. Taken together, these variables capture both how different localities of disconnection express and legitimize different sorts of capital and how such disconnection practices embody certain moral attitudes to digital connectivity (operationalized as smartphone attitudes). While this study design allowed us to understand practices of digital disconnection in relation to social space in its entirety, it is not without its limitations. The MCA produces imperfect, statistical representations of social fields (Duval, 2018). In our case, the sample was slightly skewed toward older people and people with high educational qualifications. It is also important to keep in mind that we can only measure people’s own statements on where it is important to disconnect, and thus not the actual nature of their disconnection practices. Still, these statements are important markers of tastes and preferences and thus valid measures of the social distinctions we aim to grasp in this study.

Results The Swedish Social Space Anno 2019 In order to study how various practices of disconnection relate to class in Sweden, we must first empirically delineate the class structure. To this end, we used nine active variables measuring access to various forms of capital in an MCA. The MCA inductively extracts the most prevalent structures from the data and presents them in a multidimensional space. It produces a “cloud of individuals” revealing the coordinates of all respondents in relation to the extracted structures and a “cloud of modalities” showing the coordinates of the values pertaining to the active variables included in the analysis (Hjellbrekke, 2019). Figure 3.1 presents the coordinates of the respondents (the cloud of individuals), and Figure 3.2 presents the modalities pertaining to the active variables (the cloud of modalities). The MCA identified two main axes of differentiation in terms of class relations. Together they explain 73% of the variation among the variables and, as such, we have chosen not to focus upon the other dimensions (cf. Hjellbrekke, 2019).

Disconnection as Distinction  71

1

Economic capital +, cultural capital –

Cultural capital +, economic capital –

1.5

Axis 1 (49,1%)

Volume of capital +

0.5

0

–0.5

–1

–1.5

Axis 2 (23,7%) –1.5

–1

–0.5

0

0.5

1

0.5

Volume of capital –

Figure 3.1  The Swedish social space anno 2019. The cloud of individuals. MCA, axis 1 (volume of capital) and 2 (capital composition). Missing values have been omitted (n = 3693).

The first, vertical, axis (λ=49 %) describes respondents’ volumes of capital (Figure 3.2). In the upper half of the space, we find respondents with high volumes of cultural, economic, and social capital. Unlike those in the lower half of the space, these respondents have grown up in homes rich in various cultural artifacts, with highly educated parents. They have, furthermore, higher salaries, more assets and higher levels of education than others, more books at home, more likely to own a country house and to be members of a board. Respondents located in the lower half of the space have overall less capital. The second, horizontal, axis (λ=24 %) describes respondents’ capital composition (Figure 3.2). In the left side of the space respondents’ cultural capital

72  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Cultural capital +, economic capital –

1

Economic capital +, cultural capital –

1,5

Axis 1 (49,1%)

Volume of capital +

0,5

0

−0,5

−1

−1,5

Axis 2 (23,7%)

−1

−0,5

0

0,5

1

1,5

Volume of capital − Board member Number of books at home Assets/savings

Country house Culture growing up Education type

Level of education Income Parents’ education

Figure 3.2  The Swedish social space anno 2019. The cloud of modalities. MCA, axis 1 (volume of capital) and 2 (capital composition). Missing values have been omitted (n = 3693).

outweighs their economic capital. The reverse pattern is found among respondents located in the right side of the space—​here is where the highest salaries and assets are found. This implies that the structure of the Swedish space of social position aligns with the Bourdieusian model (Bourdieu, 1984; Rosenlund, 2015). Volume and composition of capital have emerged as the most important forces of

Disconnection as Distinction  73

differentiation in regard to class relations. As such, our study confirms the body of previous research that has attempted to adopt the Bourdieusian perspective on Scandinavian societies (Rosenlund, 2015, 2019; Hjellbrekke et al., 2015; Flemmen et al., 2018; Lindell & Hovden, 2018; Lindell, 2018). This first step in our analysis allows us to use a simplified, four-​part, class schema in analyzing various practices of disconnection in the following section (cf. Lindell, 2018). The cultural middle class inhabits the upper-​left part of the space.1 They have relatively high volumes of capital but they are first and foremost endowed with cultural capital. They have been raised by well-​educated parents, in homes rich in various cultural artifacts. They have university degrees in pedagogy, humanities and the arts, social sciences, medicine or science. Typically, these persons hold higher white-​collar jobs in the public sector, such as teachers and university faculty (Enelo, 2013). The economic middle class, found in the upper right of the space, primarily wields economic capital. They are high-​ salaried individuals with large assets. They are typically entrepreneurs or white-​collar workers in the private sector (Enelo, 2013). In the bottom-​ right corner of the space we find individuals with low amounts of capital overall and with a particular lack of cultural capital. It is reasonable that this segment is primarily constituted by the traditional working class as well as older, uneducated persons. They have non-​tertiary educational levels in fields such as transportation, logistics, farming, administration, or service. In the bottom left, we find people lacking economic means but possessing some cultural capital. This segment consists primarily of newcomers in various fields of cultural production, students, and young people currently pursuing an education.

1 Our use of the term ‘middle class’ in this chapter merits some explanation, since it denotes different things in different national contexts. Although in the United States, for example, the middle class reaches down to the second quartile of the income range, in Sweden the same term refers to more privileged fractions of the population. The way we use the term ‘middle class’ is consistent with how it has been used by other scholars using Bourdieu where it is treated as an empirical and relational concept describing groups with relatively high volumes of not only economic capital, but also social and cultural capital (see, e.g., Stewart, 2016). It follows that the ‘cultural middle class’ consists of relatively privileged groups whose cultural capital outweighs their economic capital. The ‘economic middle class’, in turn, also have relatively high volumes of capital, but their economic capital outweighs their cultural capital (cf. Lindell, 2018; Lindell & Hovden, 2018).

74  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Smartphone Attitudes in Social Space Having established that the Swedish class structure resembles the one proposed by both Bourdieu (1984) and contemporary Scandinavian researchers (e.g., Rosenlund, 2015, 2019; Flemmen et al., 2018; Lindell & Hovden, 2018) in that volume of capital and capital composition constitute the primary forces of division, we now turn to the distribution of a range of attitudes toward the smartphone in the class structure. In Figure 3.3, various attitudes toward the smartphone have been projected onto the Swedish class structure. As such, the space shown in Figure 3.3 retains the structure explored in the previous section. The supplementary variables have been projected onto it without affecting its structure. We should begin by noting that the modalities pertaining to smartphone attitudes cluster rather close to the center of social space. No modality is found more than .4 deviations from the center of the space, meaning that we are dealing with overall weak associations between social positions and smartphone attitudes (Hjellbrekke, 2019). Also, the differences in smartphone attitudes are better explained by the types, rather than the volumes, of capital possessed by individuals, indicating a differentiation within the middle classes. First, in line with previous research (cf. Jansson, 2012; Fast & Jansson, 2019), we find support for the observation that a sense of digital unease corresponds with high volumes of cultural capital. When we move from right to left in social space, from the economic pole toward the cultural pole, we find that people more often get stressed by their smartphones, feel surveilled, disrupted in their work, and feel that they are using their smartphones too much. Such unease is reinforced by the fact that people in this fraction also feel excited when they receive messages and by their “Fear of Missing Out” (cf. Reer et al., 2019). In dealing with their digital unease, this fraction is more prone than others to put their smartphones on mute; this goes especially for the more established segment of the cultural class fraction—​the cultural middle class. Altogether, this ambivalent pattern points to an emotionally charged relationship with smartphones (and probably with digital technology at large) (cf. Ribak & Rosenthal, 2015). The opposite is true for those in the economic pole; they do not feel as stressed, surveilled, and disrupted by their smartphones. These findings resonate with, for example, Jansson’s (2012) observation that people in cultural or educational professions with progressive ideals are particularly concerned with online surveillance (cf.

Disconnection as Distinction  75 0,5 0,4

Axis 1 (6,23%)

Volume of capital +

0,2

Economic capital +, cultural capital −

Cultural capital +, economic capital −

0,3

0,1 0 −0,1 −0,2 −0,3 −0,4 −0,5

Axis 3 (5,52%) −0,5

−0,4

−0,3

−0,2

−0,1

0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

Volume of capital − Addicted

Happy getting messages

Well-versed with functions

Disrupting work

Miss out without smartphone

Smartphone stress

Gives freedom

Muted smartphone

Feel surveilled

Smartphone too often

Smartphone routines

Figure 3.3  Smartphone attitudes in the social space. The cloud of modalities. MCA, axis 1 (volume of capital) and 2 (capital composition). Missing values and non-​smartphone users have been omitted (n = 3483). “+ +” indicates a strong, positive response; “+” indicates a modest positive response; “-​” indicates a modest negative response; “-​-​” indicates a strong negative response.

also Fuchs, 2010), as well as with Lindell and Hovden’s (2018) and Fast and Jansson’s (2019) finding that economically affluent business workers seem less worried about intrusive media than professionals relatively richer in cultural capital.

76  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Second, the establishing of routines for non-​use of the smartphone corresponds quite noticeably with a higher general capital volume, as does the sense that the smartphone enhances personal freedom. The former statement scores particularly high on the volume axis, which makes for interesting interpretations in light of our findings on digital unease, presented before. It seems, in short, that routines for media non-​use are important especially among people in higher social positions, even though these groups do not experience high levels of digital unease. While this might seem contradictory, previous research on “busyness” can provide us with clues as to why routines for non-​use seem to be important even for those who seem relatively comfortable with media intrusion. Such research suggests that “busyness” constitutes an increasingly significant source of social status and distinction in today’s society (Gershuny, 2005; Sullivan & Gershuny, 2008; Prieur & Savage, 2015; Bellezza et al., 2017). Gershuny (2005) summarizes the reversed Veblenian thesis developed in this strand of research when he concludes that “the assertion of ‘busyness’ now reflects an aspiration to high social status” (n.p.). Against the backdrop of empirical studies on busyness as a new marker of status, we might hypothesize that socially privileged people, and especially those from the economic middle class, find value in, rather than problems with, intrusive media. There is in this class fraction, according to previous research, a growing awareness that a “busy” smartphone might be read by others as a token of successful “work hard and play hard” lifestyles (Bellezza et al., 2019: 135). However, in order for a “busy” lifestyle to be (perceived as) successful, it needs to be manageable. Time management is a virtue and what prevents a “busy” lifestyle from becoming chaotic. Hence the need for routines of non-​ use in the “busy” economic middle class. Since the smartphone, in turn, can be used for time management (e.g., Gregg, 2018), it also makes sense that the middle classes experience the smartphone as emancipatory. As argued by Johnson (2019), “[r]‌egardless of what the user is doing on their smartphone or device, the use of technologies can provide a temporal autonomous space of digital control” (p. 2). In contrast to the capital poor, the middle and upper classes might have (been “forced”) to learn to make use of the smartphone affordances that correspond with their needs, preferences and interests. Such a conclusion corresponds with, for example, Gui and Büchi’s (2019) observations that there is a correspondence between social status and “digital

Disconnection as Distinction  77

tolerance,” and that high-​status populations also are “better able to counter” the negative consequences of digital media (p. 12). We should also keep in mind that those leading a materially secured life (e.g., not being dependent on their smartphones to find their next “gig” job or grow their social capital) can better afford to engage in “conspicuous” media non-​use (cf. Portwood-​ Stacer, 2012; Fast & Jansson, 2019). The described patterns of smartphone attitudes might also reflect variations pertaining to age. Those rich in economic capital tend to be older than those rich in cultural capital. From previous survey research, we learn that older people are generally more uneasy with mediated surveillance that younger people (Jansson, 2012). It is therefore interesting to find, in our study, that age corresponds negatively with digital unease; supplementary regression analyses (not shown here, for lack of space) suggest that older people are relatively less concerned with intrusive media. To the extent that older people are more socially isolated, or lonely, we should not, however, be surprised to find that older people are generally happier to receive text messages than younger people.

Place-​Related Disconnection in Social Space Our second focus is on the places of digital disconnection. As a long tradition of media geography research demonstrates, the presence and use of media technologies in a certain place impacts on the construction of that place (and vice versa); how it is perceived and what its purpose is (Hirsch & Silverstone, 1992; Bengtsson, 2018; Fast et al., 2018). By a reverse logic, so does the absence or non-​use of media technology in a particular place. Here, the variables capturing places of disconnection have been projected as supplementary variables onto the space of social positions to get at their class-​ specific coordinates. Figure 3.4 shows the outcome of this maneuver. Again, the modalities of our supplementary variables are found relatively close to the center of the space, indicating that the associations between disconnection practices and class positions are rather weak. This per se is an important result. Yet, it is also important to analyze weak patterns since they can be indicative of trends that might grow stronger as practices of disconnection become more normalized. Therefore, let us again “zoom in” on some of the most noteworthy tendencies in our data.

78  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

0,3 0,25

Axis 1 (49,1%)

Volume of capital +

Economic capital +, cultural capital −

Cultural capital +, economic capital −

0,2 0,15 0,1 0,05 0 −0,05 −0,1 −0,15 −0,2 −0,25

Axis 2 (23,7%) −0,25 −0,2 −0,15 −0,1 −0,05

0

0,05

0,1

0,15

0,2

0,25

0,3

Volume of capital − Sports events Visiting friends Nature Restaurant Public transport Bedroom Vacation

Figure 3.4  Place-​related disconnection in social space. The cloud of modalities. MCA, axis 1 (volume of capital) and 2 (capital composition). Missing values have been omitted (n = 3693). “+ +” indicates a strong, positive response; “+” indicates a modest positive response; “-​” indicates a modest negative response; “-​-​” indicates a strong negative response.

In line with the tendency of the cultural class fraction, particularly the cultural middle class, to experience digital unease, we note that this fraction is more prone to disconnect in various places and situations. It seems especially important for this fraction to withdraw from digital media when visiting friends, when in nature, and when on vacation. The economic middle

Disconnection as Distinction  79

class, on the contrary, does not seem to think that it is as important to disconnect in these situations, nor do they feel as inclined to disconnect when at a restaurant. The only contexts where members of the economic middle class deem it as important to disconnect are when in the bedroom and when on public transport. Overall, sentiments regarding disconnection are not as strong in the lower half of social space, with the exception of when visiting sports events. To disconnect at sport events seems to be particularly important for those in the lower-​right part of social space; which in part is made up of the industrial working class. Those who inhabit the lower-​left part of social space believe that it is somewhat important to disconnect when in nature and when on vacation, but for these two contexts the disconnection sentiment clearly grows stronger with capital volume (cf. Doerr, this volume). We can conclude from these observations that the capital poor—​and the working class especially—​are less inclined than the capital rich—​and the cultural middle class in particular—​to differentiate between places by way of disconnection. We can also conclude that the cultural fraction—​and the cultural middle class especially—​finds it more important than the economic fraction—​and the economic middle class in particular—​to keep certain contexts (more or less) free from digital media. What our findings represent, we suggest, are “moral geographies” of disconnection (cf. Cresswell, 2006); that is, socially normalized—​structured and structuring—​ideas of where (and when) it is appropriate, expected, or desirable to disconnect. Due to the lack of existing research on places of disconnection, it is rather difficult to further contextualize our findings. Perhaps the places in which people want to disconnect are simply the places that are of special value to them. Yet potential explanations might also be discerned in light of previous studies on media use and morality. How can we, for instance, explain that the economic middle class finds it relatively important to disconnect when traveling by public transport? In fact, this finding speaks against previous empirical research that identify public transports, including airports, planes, and trains, as “third spaces,” which, due to ubiquitous media are appropriated as workplaces—​especially by the “busy” middle classes (cf. Axtell et al., 2008; Cousins & Robey, 2015; Fast & Lindell, 2016). Possibly, this is precisely why also disconnection might be sought after from time to time, meaning that “transit spaces” are actively accommodated to certain work-​related needs whether this calls for connection or (temporary) disconnection.

80  Power Geometrics of Connectivity There is perhaps a more clear-​cut logic behind the moral sentiment, identified even in the most digitally connected fraction, to see the bedroom as a zone of disconnection (cf. Nansen et al., this volume). The bedroom might represent the kind of sedentarist family values that have traditionally been of particular importance to the more conservative fractions of the population (cf. Cresswell, 2006). To disconnect in this place could thus be a way of “protecting” the family hearth—​whether consciously or not—​from the potentially disruptive force of digital flows. As also shown in previous research on media moralities, the bedroom holds a special status in relation to media technology (Bovill & Livingstone, 2001). While it can be a place of excessive media use (e.g., where media are used for entertainment, sexual, or information purposes), it is also a place of media ambivalence where disconnection sentiments and visions of fixity materialize (e.g., in acts of removing or silencing one’s smartphone) (Salmela et al., 2019). Notably, screen-​free bedrooms are oftentimes advocated in the contemporary public debate on media dependency, which might make the ‘anxious middle class’ more inclined to follow suit and adjust their media uses and moralities accordingly. As a final, overarching reflection, we should note that the neutral, or more modest, working-​class stances on these attitudinal questions correspond with Bourdieu’s (1984) observation that answering polls and questionnaires presupposes a certain sense of entitlement and ability to “produce an opinion,” which oftentimes correlates with both cultural capital and overall volumes of capital (cf. Enelo, 2013).

Discussion: Disconnection as an Emerging Symbolic Battlefield This study suggests that disconnection is not yet a prominent marker of status and distinction; our statistical relations appear rather weak. At present, practices related to digital connectivity and digital literacy seem more dispersed, and stratified, in social space than digital disconnection (cf. Prieur et al., 2008; Lindell & Hovden, 2018; Ragnedda et al., 2019). Given the overall thrust of digitalization, and in light of current research, however, we might profess that disconnection as a mark of distinction will become more important in the future. In this sense, our study represents an early exploration of an emerging symbolic battlefield, whose moral geographical implications

Disconnection as Distinction  81

are likely to multiply as digital media become more immersive, and more intrusive, through things like artificial intelligence, machine-​learning and location-​based services/​surveillance. What we witness is an ongoing negotiation of how various places should be coded. Disconnection, from such a viewpoint, becomes for certain people a means of opposing tendencies of spatial homogenization, or, to speak with Kitchin and Dodge (2011), stopping certain places from turning into digitally coded spaces, or, “code/​ spaces.” In our study, media-​space relations play out on three levels. First, on a micro level, disconnection relates to human territoriality (Sack, 1986), which concerns the concrete management of places and their boundaries. A territory is a “bounded space” that is secured against “infringements by others who are perceived to not belong” (Cowen & Gilbert, 2008: 16). In the context studied here, boundaries are set up against intrusive media (which, in turn, may exclude other unwanted “others”). As much as media use can be a (de-​)territorializing practice, so can non-​media use. Territories of disconnection are created when we, for example, do not bring our connected devices into our bedroom, to a family dinner, or to a sports event. In times of media ubiquity and constant connectivity, place-​making “boundary work” arguably becomes increasingly difficult and demanding of resources (cf. Sayah, 2013; Ollier-​Malaterre et al., 2019). The powers to raise and defend boundaries are unequally distributed across social space, as are, or so our study suggests, incentives to create territories of disconnection in the first place. Chiefly, this seems to be of concern to the cultural middle class. Second, on a meso level, disconnection relates to moral geographies; that is, to meaning-​making practices through which certain places are coded as places where media use ought to be avoided or minimized. Self-​help literature on how to do “digital minimalism” (cf. Newport, 2019), “digital detox” promotions, “mindfulness” apps, “mobile phone boxes,” and other norm-​ setting goods from the burgeoning market of “non-​consumption consumer products” are likely to shape moral geographies of disconnection, as is, or so our results indicate, socioeconomic background. To the extent that exposure to and consumption of symbolic goods and products are unevenly distributed across social space, we might hypothesize that distinct and distinction-​making moral geographies of disconnection will form among the population.

82  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Third, on a macro level and following from the first two relations, disconnection relates to social space. Previous research on disconnection and media non-​use reminds us of the fact that “intellectually inspiring modes of resistance [...] are only practiced or put in place by a small minority of users in society” (Steinmaurer & Atteneder, 2019: 100; cf. also Woodstock, 2014). Our study suggests that territorialization sentiments and morals of disconnection correspond positively with capital volume and (albeit less clearly so) with cultural capital; that is, with affluent rather than deprived habitus. In the light of Bourdieusian theory, we might read this as a token of the dominant class fractions’ general desire to symbolically distance themselves from the dominated class fractions. As media non-​use gradually translates from a sign of deviance and poverty to “a positive state that includes a higher and more cultured set of social expectations” (Hardey & Atkinson, 2018: 566), and in times when the mobile phone box is more fashionable than the mobile phone per se, digital disconnection gains distinctive power (cf. Portwood-​Stacer, 2012). By all means, it is not necessarily just exclusive “digital detox” camps or expensive “mindfulness” workshops that award disconnection its status. If we accept the “new dynamics of social status and distinction” proposed by Eckhardt and Bardhi (2019), it might just be enough for a disconnection experience to be “authentic” in order to be distinction-​making (p. 95). The relatively cheap mobile phone box or the entirely free-​of-​charge (yet “authentic”) offline forest walk can, according to this reasoning, be conspicuous status-​markers as good as any—​especially among the class fractions hungry for and in possession of “hipster” or “indie” cultural capital (Eckhardt & Bardhi, 2019: 95). The social space of disconnection calls us to rethink the notion of the “digital divide”. Even within highly digitalized, prospering economies, fundamental demarcation lines still exist between the “haves” and the “have-​ nots”. Yet, next to these, new boundaries get established between those who have “too much” and those who not only have too much but also want to demonstrate their ability to escape from that excess—​if only for a moment. The social power of disconnection merits further research, including longitudinal studies that can trace changes over time. We should emphasize that what we have measured are values and attitudes pertaining to digital disconnection; future studies should inquire to which extent people actually disconnect, in which places. Does, for instance, the digitally “uneasy”

Disconnection as Distinction  83

cultural middle class manage to disconnect to the extent they would prefer to, or do they resign under the pressures of the “culture of connectivity” (van Dijck, 2013)? Does digital unease make people want to disconnect, or could it be that failure to disconnect, and hence “digital resignation” (Draper & Turow, 2019), is what spurs feelings of digital unease? Along these lines, we would also welcome qualitative studies that scrutinized in which places people find it most difficult—​culturally and morally—​to withdraw from media. In a culture where the so-​called connectivity imperative is gradually supplemented by its opposite, a disconnection imperative attainable only among certain groups and at certain times and places, there is reason to expect increasingly fine-​grained social distinctions and ambivalent experiences to emerge.

References Akter, T. (2014). Social media addiction, resistance, and influence of awareness: Measurement of psychology students’ resistance to Facebook addiction. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(8), 456. Axtell, C., Hislop, D., & Whittaker, S. (2008). Mobile technologies in mobile spaces: Findings from the context of train travel. International Journal of Human-​ Computer Studies, 66(12), 902–​915. Bellezza, S., Paharia, N., & Keinan, A. (2017). Conspicuous consumption of time: When busyness and lack of leisure time become a status symbol. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(1), 118–​138. Bengtsson, S. (2015). Digital distinctions: Mechanisms of difference in digital media use. MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research, 31(58), 30–​48. Bengtsson, S. (2018). Sensorial organization as an ethics of space: Digital media in everyday life. Media and Communication, 6(2), 39–​45. Bengtsson, S., & Lundgren, L. (2005). The Don Quixote of youth culture: Media use and cultural preferences among students in Estonia and Sweden. Södertörn University. Bergman, A., & Gustafson, P. (2008). Travel, availability and work–​life balance. Mobility and Technology in the Workplace, 9, 192. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

84  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Bovill, M., & Livingstone, S. (2001). Bedroom culture and the privatization of media use. In Livingstone, S., & Bovill, M. (Eds.), Children and Their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study (pp. 179–​ 200). LEA’s Communication Series. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Brody, N. (2018). Opting out of social media: Online communication attitudes mediate the relationship between personality factors and Facebook non-​use. Southern Communication Journal, 83(2), 75–​88. Casemajor, N., Couture, S., Delfin, M., Goerzen, M., & Delfanti, A. (2015). Non-​ participation in digital media: Toward a framework of mediated political action. Media, Culture & Society, 37(6), 850–​866. Chan, N. K., & Humphreys, L. (2018). Mediatization of social space and the case of Uber drivers. Media and Communication, 6(2), 29–​38. Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2017). The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity Press. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cousins, K., & Robey, D. (2015). Managing work-​life boundaries with mobile technologies: An interpretive study of mobile work practices. Information Technology & People, 28(1), 34–​71. Cowen, D., & Gilbert, E. (2008). The politics of war, citizenship, territory. In Cowen, D., & Gilbert, E. (Eds.), War, Citizenship, Territory (pp. 1–​30). London: Routledge. Cresswell, T. (2006). On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World. London: Routledge. Danielsson, M. (2011). Digital media as classified and classifying: The case of young men in Sweden. PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication, 57–​71. Danielsson, M. (2014). Digitala distinktioner: Klass och kontinuitet i unga mäns vardagliga mediepraktiker. Doctoral dissertation. School of Education and Communication. Jönköping: Jönköping University. Deuze, M. (2014). Media life and the mediatization of the lifeworld. In Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (Eds.), Mediatized Worlds (pp. 207–​220). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Draper, N. A., & Turow, J. (2019). The corporate cultivation of digital resignation. New Media & Society, 21(8), 1824–​1839. Duval, J. (2018). Correspondence analysis and Bourdieu’s approach to statistics. In Medvetz, T., & Sallaz, J. J. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Pierre Bourdieu (pp. 512–​ 527). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Disconnection as Distinction  85 Eckhardt, G. M., & Bardhi, F. (2020). New dynamics of social status and distinction. Marketing Theory, 20(1), 85–​102. Enelo, J. M. (2013). Klass, åsikt och partisympati: Det svenska konsumtionsfältet för politiska åsikter. Doctoral dissertation. Örebro University. Fast, K. (2018). A discursive approach to mediatisation: Corporate technology discourse and the trope of media indispensability. Media and Communication, 6(2), 15–​28. Fast, K., & Jansson, A. (2019). Transmedia Work: Privilege and Precariousness in Digital Modernity. London: Routledge. Fast, K., & Lindell, J. (2016). The elastic mobility of business elites: Negotiating the “home” and “away” continuum. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(5), 435–​449. Fast, K., Ljungberg, E., & Braunerhielm, L. (2019). On the social construction of geomedia technologies. Communication and the Public, 4(2), 89–​99. Flemmen, M. (2013). Putting Bourdieu to work for class analysis: Reflections on some recent contributions. The British Journal of Sociology, 64(2), 325–​343. Flemmen, M., Jarness, V., & Rosenlund, L. (2018). Social space and cultural class divisions: The forms of capital and contemporary lifestyle differentiation. The British Journal of Sociology, 69(1), 124–​153. Fuchs, C. (2010). StudiVZ: Social networking in the surveillance society. Ethics and Information Technology, 12(2), 171–​185. Gershuny, J. (2005). Busyness as the badge of honor for the new superordinate working class. Social Research, 287–​314. Google (2019). Find a balance with technology that feels right for you. Last accessed on April 28, 2020, via: wellbeing. google. Gregg, M. (2018). Counterproductive: Time Management in the Knowledge Economy. London: Duke University Press. Gui, M., & Büchi, M. (2019). From use to overuse: Digital inequality in the age of communication abundance. Social Science Computer Review, DOI: 0894439319851163. Hardey, M., & Atkinson, R. (2018). Disconnected: Non-​users of information communication technologies. Sociological Research Online, 23(3), 553–​571. Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (2014). Mediatized worlds: Understanding everyday mediatization. In Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (Eds.), Mediatized Worlds (pp. 1–​ 15). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hesselberth, P. (2018). Discourses on disconnectivity and the right to disconnect. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1994–​2010.

86  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Hirsch, E. (1992). The long term and the short term of domestic consumption: An ethnographic case study. In Silverstone, R., & Hirsch, E. (Eds.), Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. London: Routledge. Hirsch, E., & Silverstone, R. (1992). Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. London: Routledge. Hjarvard, S. P. (2013). The Mediatization of Culture and Society. Routledge. Hjellbrekke, J., Jarness, V., & Korsnes, O. (2015). Cultural distinctions in an “egalitarian” society. In Coulangeon, P., & Duval, J. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Bourdieu’s Distinction (pp. 187–​206). New York: Routledge. Hjellbrekke, J. (2019). Multiple Correspondence Analysis for the Social Sciences. London: Routledge. Hovden, J. F., & Moe, H. (2017). A sociocultural approach to study public connection across and beyond media: The example of Norway. Convergence, 23(4), 391–​408. Hui Research (2019). Årets julklapp presenteras den 20 november. Last accessed on November 29, 2019, via: http://​www.hui.se/​arets-​julkla Jansson, A. (2001). Image Culture: Media, Consumption and Everyday Life in Reflexive Modernity. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Gothenburg. Jansson, A. (2002). Spatial phantasmagoria: The mediatization of tourism experience. European Journal of Communication, 17(4), 429–​443. Jansson, A. (2012). Perceptions of surveillance: Reflexivity and trust in a mediatized world (the case of Sweden). European Journal of Communication, 27(4), 410–​427. Jansson, A. (2015). Polymedia distinctions: The sociocultural stratification of interpersonal media practices in couple relationships. Nordicom Review, 36(2), 33–​50. Jansson, A. (2018). Mediatization and Mobile Lives: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge. John, N., & Dvir-​Gvirsman, S. (2015). I don’t like you anymore: Political Facebook unfriending during the Gaza conflict in summer 2014. Journal of Communication, 65(6), 953–​974. Johnson, N. F. (2019). Temporal digital control: Theorizing the use of digital technologies to provide a temporal autonomous space. Time & Society, 0961463X19886739. Jorge, A. (2019). Social media, interrupted: Users recounting temporary disconnection on Instagram. Social Media+ Society, 5(4), 2056305119881691. Karppi, T. (2018). Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Disconnection as Distinction  87 Kaun, A., & Schwarzenegger, C. (2014). “No media, less life?”: Online disconnection in mediatized worlds. First Monday, 19(11). Kaun, A., & Treré, E. (2018). Repression, resistance and lifestyle: Charting (dis) connection and activism in times of accelerated capitalism. Social Movement Studies, 1–​19. Kitchin, R., & Dodge, M. (2011). Code/​Space: Software and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kuntsman, A., & Miyake, E. (2019). The paradox and continuum of digital disengagement: Denaturalising digital sociality and technological connectivity. Media, Culture & Society, 41(6), 901–​913. Lagerkvist, A. (2017). Existential media: Toward a theorization of digital thrownness. New Media & Society, 19(1), 96–​110. Lebaron, F., & Le Roux, B. (2018). Bourdieu and geometric data analysis. In Medvetz, T., & Sallaz, J. J. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Pierre Bourdieu (pp. 503–​511). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Light, B. (2014). Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Light, B., & Cassidy, E. (2014). Strategies for the suspension and prevention of connection: Rendering disconnection as socioeconomic lubricant with Facebook. New Media & Society, 16(7), 1169–​1184. Lindell, J. (2018). Distinction recapped: Digital news repertoires in the class structure. New Media & Society, 20(8), 3029–​3049. Lindell, J., & Danielsson, M. (2017). Moulding cultural capital into cosmopolitan capital: Media practices as reconversion work in a globalising world. Nordicom-​ Review, 38(2), 51–​64. Lindell, J., & Hovden, J. F. (2018). Distinctions in the media welfare state: Audience fragmentation in post-​ egalitarian Sweden. Media, Culture & Society, 40(5), 639–​655. Mannell, K. (2017). Technology resistance and de Certeau: Deceptive texting as a tactic of everyday life. PLATFORM: Journal of Media & Communication, 8(1). McQuire, S. (2016). Geomedia: Networked Cities and the Future of Public Space. Cambridge: John Wiley & Sons. Meyrowitz, J. (1998). Multiple media literacies. Journal of Communication, 48, 96–​108. Miller, D. (2005). Materiality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Newport, C. (2019). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. New York: Portfolio/​Penguin.

88  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Ollier-​Malaterre, A., Jacobs, J. A., & Rothbard, N. P. (2019). Technology, work, and family: Digital cultural capital and boundary management. Annual Review of Sociology, 45. Peil, C., & Röser, J. (2014). The meaning of home in the context of digitization, mobilization and mediatization. In Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (Eds.), Mediatized Worlds (pp. 233–​249). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Portwood-​Stacer, L. (2012). Media refusal and conspicuous non-​consumption: The performative and political dimensions of Facebook abstention. New Media & Society, 15(7), 1041–​1057. Prieur, A., Rosenlund, L., & Skjott-​Larsen, J. (2008). Cultural capital today: A case study from Denmark. Poetics, 36(1), 45–​71. Prieur, A., & Savage, M. (2015). On “knowingness,” cosmopolitanism and busyness as emerging forms of cultural capital. In Coulangeon, P., & Duval, J. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Bourdieu’s Distinction (pp. 307–​ 318). New York: Routledge. Ragnedda, M., Ruiu, M. L., & Addeo, F. (2019). Measuring digital capital: An empirical investigation. New Media & Society, 1461444819869604. Reer, F., Tang, W. Y., & Quandt, T. (2019). Psychosocial well-​being and social media engagement: The mediating roles of social comparison orientation and fear of missing out. New Media & Society, 21(7), 1486–​1505. Ribak, R., & Rosenthal, M. (2015). Smartphone resistance as media ambivalence. First Monday, 20(11), n.p. Rosenlund, L. (2015). Working with distinction: Scandinavian experiences. In Coulangeon, P., & Duval, J. (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Bourdieu’s Distinction (pp. 157–​186). London: Routledge. Rosenlund, L. (2019). The persistence of inequalities in an era of rapid social change: Comparisons in time of social spaces in Norway. Poetics, 74. Russo, M., Ollier-​Malaterre, A., & Morandin, G. (2019). Breaking out from constant connectivity: Agentic regulation of smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 98, 11–​19. Sack, R. D. (1986). Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salmela, T., Colley, A., & Häkkilä, J. (2019, May). Together in bed?: Couples’ mobile technology use in bed. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–​12. Last accessed on April 29, 2020, via: https://​ dl.acm.org/​doi/​pdf/​10.1145/​3290605.3300732.

Disconnection as Distinction  89 Sayah, S. (2013). Managing work–​life boundaries with information and communication technologies: The case of independent contractors. New Technology, Work and Employment, 28(3), 179–​196. Schaefer, S., Andersson, M., Bjarnason, E., & Hansson, K. (2018). Working and Organizing in the Digital Age. The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Schofield Clark, L. (2013). The Parent App: Understanding Families in the Digital Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schutz, A. (1972). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Selwyn, N. (2003). Apart from technology: Understanding people’s non-​use of information and communication technologies in everyday life. Technology in Society, 25(1), 99–​116. Steinmaurer, T., & Atteneder, H. (2019). Permanent connectivity: From modes of restrictions to strategies of resistance. In Responsibility and Resistance (pp. 91–​110). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Stewart, S. (2016). Culture and the Middle Classes. London: Routledge. Stieger, S., & Lewetz, D. (2018). A week without using social media: Results from an ecological momentary intervention study using smartphones. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21(10), 618–​624. Storey, J., & McDonald, K. (2014). Media love: Intimacy in mediatized worlds. In Hepp, A., & Krotz, F. (Eds.), Mediatized Worlds (pp. 221–​232). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sullivan, O., & Gershuny, J. (2018). Speed-​up society? Evidence from the UK 2000 and 2015 time use diary surveys. Sociology, 52(1), 20–​38. SVT (2019). Skärmfritt tema på årets julklapp. Last accessed on November 29, 2019, via:  https://​w ww.svt.se/​nyheter/​inrikes/​skarmfritt-​temat-​p a-​arets-​julklapp​mobilladan. Syvertsen, T. (2017). Media Resistance: Protest, Dislike, Abstention. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Syvertsen, T., & Enli, G. (2019). Digital detox: Media resistance and the promise of authenticity. Convergence, DOI: 1354856519847325. van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. New York: Oxford University Press. van Dijk, J., & Hacker, K. (2003). The digital divide as a complex and dynamic phenomenon. The Information Society, 19(4), 315–​326.

90  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Velkova, J., & Kaun, A. (2019). Algorithmic resistance: Media practices and the politics of repair. Information, Communication & Society, 1–​18. DOI: 10.1080/​ 1369118X.2019.1657162. Verhulsdonck, G., Melton, J., & Shah, V. (2019). Disconnecting to connect: Developing postconnectivist tactics for mobile and networked technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 152–​164. Woodstock, L. (2014). Media resistance. Opportunities for practice theory and new media research. International Journal of Communication, 8, 1983–​2001. Yates, S., Kirby, J., & Lockley, E. (2015). Digital media use: Differences and inequalities in relation to class and age. Sociological Research Online, 20(4), 1–​21.

4 Digital Disconnection as Othering Immersion, “Authenticity” and the Politics of Experience Neriko Musha Doerr

Introduction Digital connectivity figures prominently in the celebration of globalization. “Global citizens” are valorized as people who understand, negotiate, and work with diverse people around the world (Lewin, 2009). Paradoxically, this same globalist discourse encourages digital disconnection in nurturing global citizens, viewing it as an important way to engage “authentically” with diverse Others by avoiding distractions and focusing on the here and now. This chapter examines teaching strategies and discourses of “authenticity” that involve digital disconnection, which lead to othering rather than a deeper understanding of the complexity of cultural and economic differences. Through text analyses and ethnographic research projects, this chapter argues that the linkage between digital disconnection and “authentic” experience results in such ironic othering in two ways: othering those whose lives students seek to understand and connect to; and othering those who do not see digital disconnection as necessary for an “authentic” experience. This chapter ultimately argues that, as we encourage students to understand, engage in, and collaborate with people with diverse backgrounds, we need to carefully investigate the effects of the discourses and conditions in which such endeavors occur. The first case is the discourse of immersion in study abroad that posits digital disconnection as the ideal form of learning experience, which will be examined through a text analysis. The second case involves an alternative spring break trip to Massachusetts, supplemented by research I also did on a similar trip to Arkansas, where students engaged in a simulation of life in Neriko Musha Doerr, Digital Disconnection as Othering In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0005

92  Power Geometrics of Connectivity poverty to nurture empathy for those in poverty. The simulation required digital disconnection, creating a playful challenge that ultimately, despite thoughtful lectures throughout the trip, resulted in trivializing life in poverty as a fantasy world of playacting. In the third case, from another alternative break trip, to New Mexico, some students wanted digital disconnection to enjoy nature in serenity, while others did not. The resulting tension highlighted how digital disconnection othered those who disagree in how to experience nature “authentically”. In short, this chapter argues that the discourse of digital disconnection others both those whose lives are to be “authentically” experienced through digital disconnection and those who do not share this sensibility. Based on these arguments, the chapter explores alternative ways to learn about, understand, negotiate, and live with difference without such othering effects, engaging instead in rigorous analyses of digital connectivity. The chapter draws on my previous works (Doerr, 2015a, 2016, 2017, 2019) but reframes and reanalyzes them, focusing specifically on the role of digital disconnection.

Globalism and Digital Disconnection Researchers inspired by Harvey’s (1990) analyses of the post-​Fordist development of time-​space compression have theorized “globalization” variously. Appadurai (1990) depicted the breakdown of the nation-​state ideology as disjunctive flows in the ethno-​, techno-​, finance-​, media-​, and ideo-​scapes. Others theorized how these flows are channeled, interrupted, or resisted, causing friction (Tsing, 2005). Some construed globalization as homogenization via the spread of “Western” ideas and things; still others spoke of differential indigenization of things Western (Howes, 1996) into a local ecology of configurations (Philips, 2004). Some researchers focused on individuals’ sensibilities toward the global connectivity that allows people to feel that distant places are routinely accessible (Tomlinson, 1999), or on a globally shared frame of reference against which cultural difference becomes accentuated (Hannerz, 1996), forming “global structures of common difference” (Wilk, 1995). Others examined assemblages of the global distribution of capital and technological expertise and its regulation by various political institutions (Ong & Collier, 2005).

Digital Disconnection as Othering  93

Tsing (2000), however, argued that the discussion of globalization itself is guided by globalism—​an ideology that is characterized by a futurism that calls the present a new era, conflates various (e.g., populist, corporate) globalist projects, and promotes linkage and circulation. This promotion of global linkage has the effect of rendering as “backward” those who are perceived to be “not linked globally.” This is where the linkage of digital (and hence global) disconnection and “authenticity” of digitally disconnected experience becomes problematic. Digital connectivity has been celebrated for its ability to connect people around the world. As this volume illustrates, however, in some arenas this disconnection is instead valued. This chapter argues that digital disconnection is valorized as a way of having an “authentic” experience in a context of various kinds of border-​crossing: cultural borders in study abroad, cultural/​class borders in simulations of life in poverty, and the border between ordinary life and nature on a hike. This chapter further shows how celebration of digital disconnection worked as an othering mechanism, distancing not only those who led digitally connected lives yet whose lives were to be “authentically” experienced through digital disconnection (rendering them always digitally disconnected hence backward), but also those who were unwilling to embrace the idea that an “authentic” experience only happens through digital disconnection. In this chapter, the notion of “authenticity” is used to show the perception of an experience. What is investigated then is what makes some people consider an experience “authentic.” Wang (1999) suggests that the perception of “authenticity” of an experience derives not only from the perception of the experienced objects themselves which are often “staged” but also from the context in which the experience occurred—​non-​ordinary activity free from the constraints of the daily life: what he calls “existential authenticity.” Then, for students who lead digitally connected lives, digital disconnection itself sets up whatever they experience to seem “authentic” just because it is different from their daily life. What this chapter focuses on, however, is not the context that differs from their daily life but the discourse that explicitly links digital disconnection to “authenticity” of the experience, in the context of globalism, and renders those who are not digitally connected globally as “backward”.

94  Power Geometrics of Connectivity

Digital Connectivity Versus “Authentic” Immersion Immersion, the key concept of study abroad, is said to allow for a holistic learning experience in a “living laboratory” that encourages intellectual, psychological, and emotional learning experiences. It is even said to make study abroad “uniquely suited to promoting an appreciation for cultural differences in today’s interdependent global community” (Laubscher, 1994, p. xiv), as it enables study abroad students to experience the “authentic” life of the destination by “living like a local”. Immersion involves proactive participation in the local life. In the portrayal of “good” immersion, students “become part of the culture by staying with local families . . . attend classes and participate in activities with local students and are taught by local staff who . . . offer an inside view of the culture.” “Bad” immersion happens when “students make minimal effort to learn local languages or customs, travel in large groups, and are taught in American-​only classrooms. They live and go to bars with other Americans” (Hovey & Weinberg, 2009: 36–​37). In an assumed zero-​sum game of students’ interest and commitment, a comfort zone can deprive students of time and energy that might otherwise be poured into their immersive experience. Digital connectivity does this in two ways. First, digital connectivity is seen as allowing students to linger in their ultimate comfort zone, home. They can spend time on platforms like Skype or FaceTime, staying in touch with family and friends in their home country rather than immersing themselves in the life of the study abroad destination. A guidebook for students suggests that “by cutting ties with home for the short time you are overseas, you will free up more time to make native friends, giving yourself the mental energy to redirect your focus and priorities” (Loflin, 2007: 134). Second, the digital world itself is said to serve as a comfort zone, taking time away from immersing themselves in the destination: “Successfully immersed students report that life was totally different overseas, with much less Internet, phone, or TV. By not doing as much of these things, their time was freed up to step out into their new world” (Loflin, 2007: 131). Here, the discourse of immersion situates digital connectivity as antithetical to immersion in the “authentic” life of the destination. This binary of digital connectivity vs. “authentic” life leaves digital connectivity out of

Digital Disconnection as Othering  95

“authentic” life experience, creating problematic effects. For example, if locals do live in a digitally connected world, then digitally disconnected activities will not qualify as “authentic” because digital connectivity is to “live like a local.” By that token, if locals spend copious time watching TV, posting on Facebook, emailing, and texting, then a study abroad experience that involves watching TV for hours every night (with or without a host family), constantly texting local friends, commenting on and tagging each other on social media, and playing computer games together, just as locals do, can be successful immersion. Not calling it immersion creates the impression that these behaviors are not integral to the host society, and therefore “living like a local” means living without TV and the Internet. For example, if a student abroad in France or Ghana is constantly connected digitally (a possibility in either country), their experience will appear less “authentic.” In effect, this limits the “authentic” experience of France or Ghana to life without digital connection, romanticizing face-​to-​face interaction. If only face-​to-​face experience is celebrated, then people in France or Ghana will be portrayed as people without digital connectivity. In the era of globalism where digital disconnection globally is considered backward (Tsing, 2000), this creates the impression that people in these countries are backward. This is not to say that study abroad students should be on their phones all the time. Rather, it is to modify simplistic arguments that digital connectivity prevents students from experiencing the study abroad destinations. I suggest this not only for its unintended portrayal of the destination as backward but also for effectiveness of learning informed by existing educational theories. Lev Vygotsky suggested that students learn effectively when pushed to do things that are slightly beyond their ability. Although it is important to go out of one’s comfort zone, if the students are invested in digital technology, it may be more effective not to push them to totally abandon it but instead to build on that engagement. This goes with the suggestions by Critical Pedagogy (Giroux, 2007) to follow students’ experience and interests in engaging them to learn how society works. For example, students can investigate how people in the study abroad destination use digital media, what are considered the protocols and appropriate digital behavior there, what is the no-​no place or time to use phones, what kind of things are considered okay to share digitally (e.g., many Japanese parents avoid posting their children’s photos on their social media for the protection of the children’s privacy), and

96  Power Geometrics of Connectivity how these digital protocols are shared or used to denounce others’ behaviors. The assumption that digital connectivity inherently prevents students from experiencing another society is what this chapter challenges; instead, it argues for using digital connectivity itself, if students are most comfortable doing so and “locals” in the destination are digitally connected, to learn about and experience the similarities and differences of the study abroad destination. I write this in May 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps over the world and students return home from abroad. The study abroad industry is being forced to adjust to a new situation: Direct human interaction has come to be deemed unsafe. Going forward, virtual digital experience of study abroad destinations has become an alternative, a backup, or even a new kind of program for those who are reluctant to travel, creating a gradation of experiences with varied degrees of “authenticity” (see Cinti & Doerr, 2020; Doerr & Kumagai, under review; Doerr, under review), though immersion would probably still be seen as the ideal experience. This shift would entail a new perception that people in the study abroad destination are digitally connected because they have to be if they are to interact digitally with students. That is, their experience of “authentic” life could include digital connectivity. This new reality would hopefully challenge the binary of digital connectivity versus “authentic” immersion and create more sophisticated understandings of digital connectivity and disconnection in learning about Cultural Others.

Simulating Life in Poverty Neoliberalism has popularized humanitarian works and educational projects aimed at turning students into humanitarian subjects. Non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) multiplied to fill the social services gap created by the neoliberalist state’s withdrawal from that domain (Conran, 2011) and a political focus on individual morality (Butcher & Smith, 2010) encouraged people to engage in humanitarian works. Alternative break trips, service learning, and voluntourism flourished. Alternative break trips, discussed here and in the next sections, emerged in the 1980s to counter the conventional leisure-​oriented college spring break with trips spent providing community services (Break Away, 2017).

Digital Disconnection as Othering  97

The alternative break trips under discussion were organized by a liberal arts college in the northeastern United States where the author worked. During the trips I did ethnographic research to examine what students experienced and learned from them (see Doerr, 2015a, 2016). All trip participants participated in my research, in which I interviewed each participant before, during, and after the trip, carried out participant observation in pre-​trip and post-​trip meetings as well as during the entire course of the trip, and participated in all trip activities. My position at the time as an adjunct professor was known, and I was a chaperone on the trips to Arkansas and New Mexico. My relationship to students on the trip differed from a professor–​student relationship in the classroom because I was not grading them and we shared rooms and did all the activities together. The trip discussed in this section (and another trip discussed briefly) was unusual in that it involved no service work. Instead it engaged students in an educational program that simulated the experience of life in poverty to prepare them for future humanitarian work. It was run by an NGO called the Transformation (all names in this chapter are aliases), which aims to end hunger and poverty by giving families around the world renewable resources (i.e., livestock) and training. Learning about poverty warrants a careful approach. Witnessing poverty, “and the experience of helping to fix it, has become a commodity itself” (Hickel, 2013: 22). Visitors’ voyeurism can devolve into “poverty porn” that further dehumanizes those being visited. It leads to poverty being depoliticized as just “bad luck” and ignores its causes, such as “anti-​democratic regimes propped up by Western powers, IMF-​imposed structural adjustment programs, austerity conditions attached to World Bank loans, power imbalances at the World Trade Organization, indebtedness to Western banks, corporate tax evasion, land grabs, unfair labor laws, inflation-​targeting, and Wall Street corruption” (Hickel, 2013, p. 28). Students instead need to understand these causes of poverty, explore solutions, and confront their own positions as consumers in global capitalist systems (Doerr & Suarez, 2013; Conran, 2011; Hickel, 2013). Simulation combined with education on structural causes can be an alternative that avoids voyeurism. This approach carries several risks, however, one being the creation of stereotypes, which the Transformation sought to avoid by modeling the simulation on actual communities it had served. It also risks trivializing poverty by making it seem like playacting, an effect my

98  Power Geometrics of Connectivity research suggests is hard to avoid, as will be shown. One of the requirements of simulation—​no cell phones—​ended up creating a light-​hearted challenge in which digital disconnection came to symbolize not only “authentic” experience of a different life but also playful acknowledgement of “First World problems”. The three-​day trip under discussion took place in March 2011 at the Transformation’s farm in Massachusetts. There were eleven of us: nine students (three male, six female); one graduate assistant who served as a chaperone; and myself, a researcher. None of us identified ourselves as having lived in poverty. The program description read: “[participants will] experience the daily struggles people in poverty face every day. Participants are given little—​just some simple ingredients—​and before they can eat, they build a fire and cook their own meal. . . . By living the lessons of poverty firsthand, participants come to understand the complications surrounding hunger and poverty and see their connection in creating change that brings possibility and hope to millions around the world.” The trip featured four kinds of activities: (a) facilitator-​led classroom activities; (b) tours of the farm and its seven model homes named Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Kenya, Poland, Ghana, and Appalachia; (c) feeding of animals; and (d) simulation of life in poverty by cooking lunch in the Guatemala house and cooking dinner and staying overnight at the Poland house. Simulation involved various considerations to make it “real.” We role-​ played. The head of the household made all the decisions, his pregnant wife (holding a water balloon over her abdomen) gave birth, and a lullaby was sung to the toddler. We generally laughed about the role-​playing, as we “got very much into it” (student post-​trip interview). As part of our activities, we were given recipes and then shopped and bargained with sellers at a pretend market with pretend money. Then we made cabbage soup on the wood stove. It took an hour to boil a potful of water and another hour for the soup to be ready to be eaten. We waited, sitting around the table talking, feeling hungry. Finally, we each ate a bowlful of soup—​mostly water with specks of potatoes, cabbage, and onion—​and went to bed very hungry. In the post-​trip interviews, many students mentioned this experience (i.e., “how long it took to cook dinner” and “going to sleep hungry”) as the moment they felt they were experiencing poverty (for details, see Doerr 2015a, 2016).

Digital Disconnection as Othering  99

Cell phones were forbidden throughout the simulation, not only to keep students from being distracted by the outside world, but also to show what life in poverty entails. Books were not allowed either because, the facilitator told us, many poverty-​stricken people in Poland are illiterate. In our setup, though, the head of household was literate, though the only one. For some students, not having a cell phone posed a challenge. In my pre-​ trip interviews, some raised “not having a cell phone” as an issue that worried them. Some considered it an aspect of the experience of poverty, listing “no computer, TV, cell phone” as what had made them feel impoverished (post-​ trip interview). Others took it as a positive experience of an alternative lifestyle. In the post-​simulation debriefing, one student said, “The best part was no cell phone. I talked to everyone.” Another student said in her post-​trip interview that she would advise future students of this program to “take in as much as possible. Don’t use your cell phone. Enjoy time.” This suggests that only in the absence of cell phones, we can experience meaningful, if not “authentic,” social life. During debriefing and in post-​trip interviews, many students remarked that it is hard to know what living in poverty is like by simulating it for just one night. Nevertheless, many reported having had a glimpse into what poverty is like: Besides digital disconnection, they experienced lack of access to enough food at the market, hunger, and a long wait for a meal. Here there emerged parallel binaries of wealth vs. poverty, abundant food vs. little food, cell phone vs. no cell phone, good life vs. challenging life, and no social life vs. social life. These binaries work as othering mechanisms that distance those aligned with the former (i.e., American college students with abundance of money and food, cell phones, and a distracted social life) from those subjected to the latter (i.e., people in poverty who lack material possessions including cell phones but have a rich social life). Such thinking is prone to simplistic stereotypes and binary oppositions of us vs. them. I have argued elsewhere (2015b) that labeling work done for free as volunteering or service work is an othering practice because only work done for people we consider strangers is considered volunteer/​service work—​work for friends and family is not. “Border pedagogy”—​a discourse of volunteer/​service work as learning—​also implies such othering, as it touts its value to volunteers as “crossing borders” to learn to empathize with unfortunate Others (Hayes & Cuban, 1997; Taylor, 2002). This is despite the fact that it can also be framed as civic engagement, a citizen’s duty to fellow citizens in a democratic society

100  Power Geometrics of Connectivity (Barber, 1994; Taylor, 2002). The digital disconnection used in the simulation situation added another layer to this othering process. However, the hardships we experienced—​mainly hunger and absence of cell phones—​exaggerated the differences between the items in the binaries above. The time it took to cook over a weak fire in a wood stove, as opposed to cooking on a gas stove or in a microwave, symbolized life in poverty. However, our cooking process was slowed not just by technology but by unfamiliarity: Polish farmers would have known when to put the water on in time for dinner. Thus, we experienced “Polish life in poverty” with American skills (unused to making fires) and planning (not realizing how long it takes to boil water on a wood stove). We identified with poor Polish farmers when we felt hungry, but we experienced that hunger with American-​sized stomachs; one student observed in the post-​trip interview that, by the last day, his stomach had shrunk. We found digital disconnection difficult because we were accustomed to digital connectivity; it would not have been so difficult if daily life did not rely on it—​indeed, as recently as the 1980s hardly anyone was reliant on digital connectivity, although it is not to put Polish life in poverty in the linear developmental time line. It is worth noting here that digital disconnection was treated as an amusing challenge, in the self-​mocking sense of its being a “First World problem.” In March 2012, on a similar but longer (week-​long) alternative break trip to Arkansas, where the same organization, Transformation, offered a simulation program (for details see Doerr & Suarez, 2018), the digital disconnection aspect stood out because we were better fed, eliminating hunger from the key experiences of poverty. Ten of us (two chaperones including myself, and eight students) were divided into three houses named Mississippi Delta, Tibet, and Mozambique, where we cooked meals, tended livestock, and gardened separately but attended lectures and did activities together. Cell phones were prohibited for the whole stay except for the first night, before the simulation began. The hardship symbolized by this compulsory digital disconnection was a light challenge that we laughed about. In my pre-​trip interviews, one student said her excitement about the trip mainly concerned “telling people that I survived without my cell phone for a week.” Another student, when asked what excited her about the trip, said this: “Simple environment. No cell phones. Cut off for a week. I want to test my limit.” She compared it to her past experience of a 12-​mile mud race and sleeping outside in a box to raise money for a homeless shelter.

Digital Disconnection as Othering  101

During this longer trip, digital disconnection accentuated the problematic construction of people living in poverty as isolated or disconnected from wealthy countries. The program emphasized the effects of wealth inequality by giving the three houses differential access to food and resources (e.g., Mozambican money was worth less at the market), making Mississippi Delta look comparatively “privileged.” Regardless, there was no contact with or mention of wealthier societies. This distorted situations in which people in poverty are often in touch with wealthier people—​humanitarian workers, government officials, tourists—​who remind them of the wealth disparity. In both of these cases, digital disconnection, experienced in short bursts, contributed to the shock effect of the contrast with ordinary life and created the image of an alternative world—​a fantasy playground of poverty with a romanticized meaningful social life, reminiscent of the paternalistic discourses of the “noble savage” and “poor but happy” Third World people (Doerr, under review)—​separate from students’ lives, precluding discussion of their aforementioned global connections in (re)producing poverty. Simulation programs are designed to nurture empathy for people in poverty without resorting to poverty porn, and to teach students to be mindful of structural causes of poverty. Participants in the programs were service work-​ minded, as attested by their choice of these trips instead of the usual “Sun, Sea, and Sand” spring break. Still, the programs’ efforts to make the experience “authentic” via role playing and digital disconnection ended up othering those in poverty as if they inhabited a separate world and disregarding the global connectivity that created the disparity of wealth in the first place (Hickel, 2013), dulling students’ awareness of their complicity and resultant responsibility (also see Doerr & Suarez, 2013). The important thing for students is to learn both that people in poverty may have different experiences and perspectives from them that they need to understand on the one hand, and that lives of people in poverty and student’s lives are connected in the way that what happens there (e.g., their low-​wage labor that brings down the cost of commodity we buy) affect the students’ lives and vice versa (e.g., the students’ preference for cheap clothing encourages corporations to exploit cheap labor there; students demanding corporations for accountability in labor conditions can in turn change it), on the other. Adding into such educational programs deep discussions on these aspects and the effects of the discourse of digital disconnection and

102  Power Geometrics of Connectivity “authenticity” examined here can enhance students’ learning, not only about difference but also what is involved in perceiving that difference.

Digital Disconnection and Ways to Enjoy Nature Digital disconnection became a bone of contention during another week-​ long alternative spring break service trip from the same college to New Mexico in March 2014. I carried out the kinds of ethnographic fieldwork mentioned above while also co-​chaperoning the group. After a three-​night stay in Albuquerque, we moved to a retreat further north for four nights, carrying out service works in both places. This chapter focuses on a hiking excursion in the second location. The program handout described the trip thusly: “Students will . . . engage in sustainability-​oriented service projects . . . Students will get to admire the beauty of the Southwest through hikes and area education, and will have the opportunity to experience practices of personal and group wellness.” The group consisted of eleven students and two chaperones, including myself. Participants reported diverse ethnic self-​identifications: Five said they were “Caucasian/​White”; one was “Mostly Irish, also German and Native American”; three were “African American” (including a chaperone); and one each were “Jamaican,” “Colombian,” “Taiwanese American,” and “Japanese American” (myself). The chaperones were the director of the financial aid program and myself, then an adjunct professor, of Japanese background. Nine of the students were female. Five students received financial aid, a higher number than usual due to the financial aid program director’s involvement in the trip. In the course of this trip, two groups emerged among the students. Students commented on the division casually and in interviews and I observed it (for details see Doerr, 2019). One group was “outdoorsy”: Members actively embraced nature and showed their love of it. The trip design itself, as seen in the trip description, catered to this group’s viewpoint. The other group described itself as “non-​outdoorsy.” Race entered the picture, as the three non-​outdoorsy students were all African American (one identified herself as “Jamaican” during the interview but casually as “African American”) while the eight outdoorsy students identified as white/​Caucasian, Colombian, and

Digital Disconnection as Othering  103

Taiwanese American. All three non-​outdoorsy students and two of the eight outdoorsy students received financial aid, rendering the division more racial than class-​based. Moreover, differing sensibilities regarding digital connectivity overlapped with this outdoorsy/​non-​outdoorsy division. As the default excursion activity, we went on four hikes that ultimately highlighted this division. Especially our second, nighttime hike dedicated to watching a moonrise, activated differential sensibilities toward digital connectivity, accentuating the division. Both during and at the mountaintop, the outdoorsy students asked everyone to turn off their lights and enjoy the pitch darkness. The non-​outdoorsy students did not comply, causing some tension that eventually dissipated when it was explained that one of them suffered from fear of the dark. At the summit, we waited about half an hour for the moon to rise. The mountaintop turned out to have the best cell phone service in the entire area, and the non-​outdoorsy students talked on their phones, calling boyfriends and family members to report their excitement about the hike. One of the outdoorsy students asked them to be quiet so that everyone could enjoy the serenity and spirituality of the moonrise. The non-​outdoorsy students did not comply. The request was repeated two more times, with the tone getting progressively edgier. One non-​outdoorsy student asked why they had to be quiet. “Because it is sacred,” an outdoorsy student answered. “Maybe it’s sacred for you, but not for me,” another non-​outdoorsy student responded. After a tense silence, the original outdoorsy student asked again, a little more nicely. Eventually the talkers lowered their volume, and all watched the moon rise in silence. However, tension lingered in the air. The next morning at breakfast, the student trip leaders told all the students that what had happened the night before was not acceptable: We all had to be courteous to each other, despite our differences. In the post-​trip interview, the outdoorsy student who had called the moonrise sacred said this: I loved the chance to just disconnect [digitally] . . . A lot of people are . . . very attached to the phone. . . . I think it makes in-​person conversation less meaningful. . . . There’s so much research on it . . . There was a group of people that was totally okay without the phone, like me. . . . And there was a group of people . . . that needed their phones. . . . I feel we should be in the moment where you are . . . I did go and use Wi-​Fi once in

104  Power Geometrics of Connectivity a while to FaceTime with my boyfriend . . . and it meant a lot to me . . . But, yeah, I would be fine with no service. And I think that people going into the trip should expect not to use cell phones.

Another outdoorsy student said this: I was annoyed by it personally. That difference in again what we are trying to get out of the hike, between wanting to stop and really appreciate the craziness of the mountain with the moonlight . . . versus . . . making phone calls and making flash photography.

On the other hand, in my during-​trip interview after this incident, one of the non-​outdoorsy students explained: I made it to the top of the mountain and called my dad and I’m like “Oh, dad, guess what I did!” and . . . all of a sudden it was like . . . “Can we all be quiet?” like “This is sacred and the moon’s coming up.” And my first response, it was, “Moon comes up every night. What’s so sacred about it?” . . . I do my regular prayer” cause I’m a Christian . . . There’s cultural difference. . . . It’s the way you ask that question. . . . So when [another student] said it way nicer . . . we were quiet.

In the post-​trip interview, another non-​outdoorsy student said this: The night hike was the only time I got [cell phone] service . . . so I was talking on the phone. And somebody was like it’s disrespectful toward them. And I was like “. . . I was trying to be very quiet on the phone . . . trying to be respectful to you. So I think you should try to respect me.”

Here, we can see two worldviews: one where the stars and moonrise are enjoyed in pitch darkness and total silence (outdoorsy group), and one where excitement is preferably shared with family and friends back home (non-​ outdoorsy group). Fan, Buhalis, and Lin (2019: 13) typologized travelers in terms of their digital connectivity into six types. The outdoorsy group may belong to what they call The Digital Detox Traveler, who consciously disconnect digitally from their home to enjoy the travel especially because they are digitally connected heavily at home. They seek to “explore as much as

Digital Disconnection as Othering  105

they can for the enlightenment, power or communitas that are activated by travel.” The non-​outdoorsy group may belong to the category called The Social Media Addict who are highly committed to their home as the “spiritual center” and thus travel for them is recreational (rather than learning about the destination fully) to “restore physical and mental power for their daily life.” It is important to point out here the value judgment seen in their naming of the categories. The term “detox” in The Digital Detox Traveler suggests digital connectivity is toxic; and the term “addict” in The Social Media Addict suggests undesirability of social media read digital connectivity. They could be named instead, for example, The Digital Escapist Traveler and The Social Connection Maintainer, respectively, if digital connectivity is considered positive. This value-​laden view of digital connectivity by Fan et al (2019) reflects the tension that arose during the alternative break trip. It was not just from the clash of worldviews but also from the default status of the outdoorsy viewpoint, including preference for digital disconnection. A trip design that included nature hikes as the only excursion, along with the outdoorsy student’s reference to existing “research” that discourages digital connectivity, reflected their overlap with mainstream discourse: the great outdoors as a place of universal allure—​as Eden as Henry David Thoreau suggested (Martin, 2004) or as a space for wholesome experiences for inner-​city children (Fresh Air Fund, 2017). This universalization erases other, often non-​ white, viewpoints from which “wilderness places may be tied more to the history of domination, enslavement, and lynching at the hands of Whites” (Martin, 2004: 517; also, see Byrne & Wolch, 2009; Carter, 2008). This hierarchy in viewpoints—​ outdoorsy over non-​ outdoorsy—​ allowed for the former group to request darkness and silence from the latter, a somewhat aggressive move. Here emerge hierarchically positioned parallel binaries of outdoorsy love of nature vs. non-​outdoorsiness, digital disconnection vs. digital connectivity, and mainstream white vs. African American. The outdoorsy students evoked an “authentic” connection to nature that can only be achieved by digital disconnection. The clash over the light and noise arose over the kind of digital connectivity that bothered others—​flash photos, talking on the phone—​as opposed to lower-​key digital connectivity, like texting quietly on low-​lit screens. Regardless, outdoorsy students’ interviews leaned toward a

106  Power Geometrics of Connectivity general denunciation of digital connectivity as undesirable when enjoying nature. Non-​outdoorsy students fought back, however, demanding politeness and later explaining, to me and to the group, that it was important for them to talk with their loved ones because of the alienness the experience held for them (for details, see Doerr, 2017, 2019). This discussion, in our last debriefing session of the trip, turned out to be an engaged learning experience for all, as students candidly shared how they felt, mostly with much humor regarding their shock of finding different perspectives. This incident then became a good opportunity for learning about different experiences of digital connectivity/​disconnection shaped by sociocultural and economic upbringing (for details, see Doerr, 2019) that speaks to the existing literature on geography of race. Researchers suggest that compared to Anglo Americans, African Americans are reluctant to engage in outdoor activities due to what Lee and Scott (2016: 433) call “African American leisure habitus.” The formation of this habitus—​scheme of producing practice and the perception of practice connected to one’s social position (Bourdieu, 1989)—​has been discussed widely as due to limited access to socioeconomic resources, due to their view of outdoor space as a reminder of their aforementioned oppression (Agyeman, 1989; Carter, 2008), and due to the dominant white middle-​class ideological inscription of wilderness space as wholesome place of leisure to escape from urban space and enjoy outdoor activities (Byrne & Wolch, 2009; Lee & Scott, 2016). This ideological inscription alienated non-​whites from wilderness space in subtle ways (beyond the outright ban of non-​whites to enter National Parks in the past): Outdoor activities are constructed by mainstream media as white male activities due to the legacy of non-​whites being seen as part of the “premodern” nature white men sought to explore and the stressful urban space for white men to escape from was also construed as the space crowded by non-​whites, making non-​white outdoor pursuit somewhat oxymoronic (Braun, 2003; Martin, 2004). In the context of this trip, with these ideological and racialized constructions of nature lurking behind, these nature-​centered excursions and a preference for digital disconnection othered the African American students as not sharing that sensibility. However, it was more complex, suggesting regional difference of these students being from the northeastern United States (Dungy, 2011) and economic aspects such as lack of disposable income to

Digital Disconnection as Othering  107

replace clothes freely that created habitus that avoided outdoor activities that are more likely to ruin the clothes (see Doerr, 2018). It was also complicated by the evocation of spirituality. A non-​outdoorsy student positioned spiritual outdoorsy worship of nature as a non-​Christian, pagan New Age standpoint. Suggested parallel binaries are digital disconnection vs. digital connectivity, pagan New Age vs. Christianity, and white mainstream vs. African American minority. Here, the connection between the pagan New Age and white mainstream complicates the common association of admiration of the Great Outdoors with conservative patriotism and Christian religiosity (Martin, 2004). Lastly, all the students, outdoorsy or not, lived digitally connected lives back home. Digital disconnection was celebrated only in the context of experiencing nature, an alternative state different from daily life. The outdoorsy student acknowledged that she had used WiFi during the trip while not hiking. This worked to other nature life, and by extension New Mexico, as different from students’ daily home lives, much as the immersion discourse does in study abroad.

Digital Disconnection as an Othering Technique In the above three cases, digital disconnection was seen as a necessary condition for the “authentic” experience of “another culture,” othering those whose lives are to be experienced through immersion or simulated because immersion is too dehumanizing. Digital disconnection also spurred othering of those who do not share this view of digital disconnection in the case of enjoying nature. In the first case, the discourse of immersion in study abroad suggested that “authentic” experience of life in the study abroad destination required digital disconnection, othering the people there as digitally disconnected, hence backward in this globalizing era, compared to the students who thrive on digital connectivity. In the second case, alternative break trips to educational farms in Massachusetts and Arkansas suggested that digital disconnection was a symbol of poverty, an amusing challenge to overcome a First World problem, or a prop that romanticizes parochial life with meaningful social connections—​all of which contributed to the othering of people who live in

108  Power Geometrics of Connectivity poverty. It also constructed poverty as an isolated problem entirely unconnected to the uneven global distribution of wealth, in which these students are complicit as citizens and consumers (Doerr & Suarez, 2013). Third, the case of an alternative break trip to New Mexico suggested that outdoorsy students required digital disconnection to “authentically” experience nature. This led to the othering of non-​outdoorsy students who did not share the view and the continued dominance of outdoorsy viewpoints, while also othering New Mexico and its nature, which were preferably experienced without digital connection, in distinct contrast to students’ daily lives filled with digital connectivity. In all three cases of educational contexts where students were encouraged to learn about, engage in, and live with differences, the concerns about digital connectivity intervened in the ways that produced unintended, negative effects of othering those whose difference students were to learn from. This chapter, then, suggested alternative ways to see digital connectivity in engaging with difference—​explore difference through digital connectivity (first case) and investigate role of digital connectivity in learning difference (second case) or ways of engaging with difference/​nature (third case)—​so that discussions about digital connectivity/​disconnection themselves can become part of students’ learning about difference.

Conclusion and Departure This chapter has illustrated the cases in which digital disconnection implied “authentic” experience of difference. In the process, people whose lives are to be experienced and understood by students, an important process in itself to promote socially just coexistence, were portrayed inaccurately as well as exoticized and othered as backward without digital technology hence global connections, an aspect of globalism (Tsing, 2000). This chapter thus suggested incorporating analyses of digital connectivity into the process of learning about difference. Those who did not buy into the link between digital disconnection and “authentic” experience were also othered as someone who did not “get” the wholesomeness of nature, a mainstream perspective that was not shared by African American students in the trip. The experience, nonetheless, resulted in discussions among students about different perceptions linked to their

Digital Disconnection as Othering  109

upbringing, resulting in much learning and deeper understanding of each other’s experience. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 changed these dynamics, as many places came to be experienced virtually via digital connection. As students experience the study abroad destination online in some innovative ways, learning about difference continues to transform, although the claim of exclusive “authenticity” in in-​person interactions via digital disconnection may remain in place. The important thing is that we continue to rigorously examine and analyze the assumptions, processes, and effects of such claims as well as the role of digital connectivity, while exploring ways to learn about, from, and through difference.

References Agyeman, J. (1989). Black people, white landscape. Town & Country Planning, 58, 336–​338. Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Public Culture, 2(2), 1–​24. Barber, B. R. (1994). A proposal for mandatory citizen education and community service. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 1, 86–​93. Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological Theory, 7(1), 14–​25. Braun, B. (2003). On the raggedy edge of risk. In Moore, D. S., Kosek, J., & Pandian, A. (Eds.), Race, Nature, and the Politics of Difference (pp. 175–​203). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Break Away. (2017). About. Retrieved from: http://​alternativebreaks.org/​about/​. Butcher, J., & Smith, P. (2010). “Making a difference”: Volunteer tourism and development. Tourism Recreation Research, 35, 27–​36. Byrne, J., & Wolch, J. (2009). Nature, race, and parks. Progress in Human Geography, 33, 743–​765. Carter, P. L. (2008). Coloured places and pigmented holidays: Racialized leisure travel. Tourism Geographies, 10, 265–​284. Cinti, J., & Doerr, N. M. (2020). Designing High Impact Short-​Term Study Abroad Programs. For IDEAS (Increase and Diversify Education Abroad for U.S. Students) program supported by The Capacity Building Program for U.S. Study Abroad, the U.S. Department of State and World Learning (July 16).

110  Power Geometrics of Connectivity Conran, M. (2011). They really love me! Intimacy in volunteer tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 38, 1454–​1473. Doerr, N. M. (2015a). Reproduction of difference through learning about a “different culture”: The paradox of double subject positions and the pedagogy of the privileged. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, & Cultural Studies, 37(1), 71–​89. Doerr, N. M. (2015b). Volunteering as othering: Understanding a paradox of social distance, obligation, and reciprocity. Partnerships: A Journal of Service-​Learning and Civic Engagement, 6(2), 36–​57. Doerr, N. M. (2016). Space of pedagogic imaginary: Interstice of teacher’s intent and students’ learning in experiential learning of different cultures. Education and Society, 34(1), 23–​37. Doerr, N. M. (2017). Moon, mud, and cell phones: Geographies of race and construction of difference through normalization. Journal of Cultural Geography, 35(3), 315–​333. Doerr, N. M. (2019). Sleepless in Albuquerque: Diversity, learning through service, and pedagogy of exploration. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 14(2), 109–​125. Doerr, N. M., & Suarez, R. J. (2013). The allegory of cold showers and the politics of empathy: Production of diverse humanitarian subjects. American Ethnological Society, Chicago, April 11–​13. Doerr, N. M., & Suarez, R. J. (2018). Immersion, immigration, immutability: Regimes of learning and politics of labeling in study abroad. Educational Studies, 54(2), 183–​197. Dungy, C. T. (2011). Tales from a black girl on fire, or why I hate to walk outside and see things burning. In Deming, A. H., & Savoy, L. E. (Eds.), The Colors of Nature (pp. 28–​32). Minneapolis: Milkweed. Fan, D. X., Buhalis, D., & Lin, B. (2019). A tourist typology of online and face-​to-​face social contact: Destination immersion and tourism encapsulation/​decapsulation. Annals of Tourism Research, 78, 102757, 1–​16. Fresh Air Fund. (2017). Resources for host families [online]. Available from: http://​ www.freshair.org/​host-​family-​resources [Accessed December 9, 2017]. Giroux, H. A. (2007). Democracy, education, and the politics of critical pedagogy. In MacLaren, P., & Kincheloe, J. L. (Eds.), Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? (pp. 1–​5). New York: Peter Lang. Hannerz, U. (1996). Transnational Connections. London: Routledge. Harvey, D. (1990). The Condition of Postmodernity. Cambridge: Blackwell. Hayes, E., & Cuban, S. (1997). Border pedagogy. Michigan Journal of Community Service-​Learning, 4, 72–​80.

Digital Disconnection as Othering  111 Hickel, J. (2013). The “real experience” industry. Learning and Teaching, 6(2), 11–​32. Hovey, R., & Weinberg, A. (2009). Global learning and the making of citizen diplomats. In Lewin, R. (Ed.), The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad (pp. 33–​48). New York: Routledge. Howes, D. (ed.) (1996). Cross-​Cultural Consumption. New York: Routledge. Laubscher, M. R. (1994). Encounters with Difference. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Lee, K. J., & Scott, D. (2016). Bourdieu and African Americans’ park visitation: The case of Cedar Hill State Park in Texas. Leisure Sciences, 38, 424–​440. Lewin, R. (2009). Introduction: The quest for global citizenship through study abroad. In Lewin, R. (Ed.), The Handbook of Practice and Research in Study Abroad (pp. xiii–​xxii). New York: Routledge. Loflin, S. E. (2007). Adventures Abroad. New York: Kaplan. Martin, D. C. (2004). Apartheid in the great outdoors. Journal of Leisure Research, 36, 513–​535. Ong, A., & Collier, S.J. (eds.) (2005). Global Assemblages. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Philips, S. U. (2004). The organization of ideological diversity in discourse. American Ethnologist, 31(2), 231–​250. Taylor, J. (2002). Metaphors we serve by. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 9, 45–​57. Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tsing, A. (2000). The global situation. Cultural Anthropology, 15(3), 327–​60. Tsing, A. (2005). Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wang, N. (1999). Rethinking authenticity in tourism experience. Annals of Tourism Research, 26(2), 349–​370. Wilk, R. (1995). Learning to be local in Belize. In Miller, D. (Ed.), Worlds Apart (pp. 110–​133). London: Routledge.

PART II

(DIS)CONNECTED LIVES

5 Automating Digital Afterlives Robbie Fordyce, Bjørn Nansen, Michael Arnold, Tamara Kohn, and Martin Gibbs

Introduction We hope Facebook remains a place where the memory and spirit of our loved ones can be celebrated and live on. (Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer)1

The question of how the dead “live on” by maintaining a presence and connecting to the living within social networks has garnered the attention of users, entrepreneurs, platforms, and researchers alike. Digital traces of personal communication, accumulated over many years and enclosed within corporate-​owned social media platforms, servers, and databases, have informed a range of responses about the persistence, bequeathment, ownership, and potential repurposing of personal data following biological death. Efforts to preserve the dead are not unique to digital media, and can be traced through historical examples of storage and communication media, from phonographs to photographs to facsimiles (Gumpert, 1987; Peters, 2000; Sterne, 2003). Nevertheless, studies in the area of death and digital media have shown that increasingly users seek to maintain a mediated connection to the deceased by posting messages, while platforms like Facebook have responded to such desires by enabling profiles to be placed into a memorialized state (Arnold et al., 2018). Thorny issues have also emerged, including the legal management of digital assets (van der Nagel et al., 2017), the technical design of online memorialization and posthumous communication services (Brubaker & Callison-​Burch, 2016), the hype of Silicon Valley digital



1

See Sandberg, 2019.

Robbie Fordyce, Bjørn Nansen, Michael Arnold, Tamara Kohn, and Martin Gibbs, Automating Digital Afterlives In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0006

116  (Dis)Connected Lives immortality start-​ups (Kneese, 2019), and social and ethical questions about the rights and responsibilities surrounding posthumous data and the political economy of digital entities inherited by the living (Meese et al., 2015; Öhman & Floridi, 2018; Stokes, 2012). Attempts to maintain connections with the dead on social media do not always run smoothly. Examples of contested presence include the human generation of prank death reports that lock users out of their accounts (Notopoulos, 2013); automated notifications nudging users to connect or communicate with a dead friend (Kohn et al., 2018); social media that falsely announce the death of celebrities (Nansen et al., 2019); and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and disable accounts that are not memorialized but are suspected of belonging to someone who has died (Sandberg, 2019). In this chapter we seek to extend this area of research based on case study analysis examining various online services that explicitly engage in the promise or performance of posthumous digital presence. We investigate the ambiguous terrain of posthumous connection and disconnection by focusing on a diverse set of practices implemented by users and offered by commercial services to plan for and manage their social media communication, connection, and presence after life. In particular, we consider the increasing use of algorithms and AI to fashion posthumous bots that continue to communicate through social networks. We identify four categories of posthumous digital presence that have been developed in these contexts: • the surrogate, a human agent who manages social media on behalf of the absent deceased, thus representing the deceased (e.g., @ChazEbert); • the automated, a set of one or many preplanned messages that are released on social media triggered by a date or by an event, thus re-​ presencing the deceased (e.g., If I Die); • the algorithmic, a semi-​automated digital-​social hybrid mechanism that reposts remixes of past content as if it were new again, thus re-​ personifying the deceased (e.g., LivesOn); • and, finally, the artificially intelligent, a chatbot system that relies on a corpus of existing user data from the deceased to engage in new conversations and produce new content that re-​animates the absent deceased (e.g., Roman bot as detailed in Newton, 2016; the Bina 48 bot detailed by Lifenaut, 2014, and Eterni.me).

Automating Digital Afterlives  117

Our typology and analysis are informed by the work of Erving Goffman and Scott Lash. Goffman’s (1959) work on self-​presentation and a binary between frontstage and backstage in everyday social life has become an influential framework for understanding people’s online behavior. The prevailing interpretation is that users have a public frontstage where they perform their identity, and this performance is coordinated and planned in a private backstage. Yet, we suggest this application of identity construction is problematized by automated forms of social media communication, connection, and presence that persist after the end of life. Extending Goffman’s theory of self-​presentation through the concept of “technological forms of life” (Lash, 2002), we argue that such moderated and automated performances of posthumous digital existence cannot be understood simply as a continuation of personal identity or self-​presentation. Instead, as forms of computer-​ mediated human (after)life, they reassemble the self and its social connection through what Lash describes as the conditions of technological cultures and digital forms of life. These conditions collapse a range of binaries operating across spatial, temporal, and ontological dimensions, complicating digital connection beyond death. A machine learning program informed by a database of an individual’s digital communication, has, as Lash’s ideas suggest, re-​created a posthumous entity that is disjointed, decontextualized, and discontinuous from the life it seeks to represent. Automated social presence is then not easily aligned with notions of self-​presentation, a frontstage identity performance, or a continuity of self. As forms of mediated human (after) life, we argue that these performances should be understood by the way they materialize ambiguities of connection/​disconnection and self/​identity. They are performances that are enabled and constrained by technological possibilities and imperatives to maintain digital connection beyond death, offered by a range of automated afterlife services discussed in this chapter.

The Afterlife of Self-​Presentation Goffman’s seminal work from 60 years ago is often invoked in contemporary studies of interpersonal communication, and especially in the study of social media interaction. Goffman (1959) argued that an individual’s social identity is a product of a series of conscious and unconscious presentations of self, which he described through a dramaturgical model based on a frontstage

118  (Dis)Connected Lives (the place of a public form of the self which is performed and represented in different contexts) and a backstage (the pre-​public space of intimacy and self-​reflection that precedes and prepares one for the frontstage). Goffman’s focus on a frontstage and a backstage provides a framework to understand the relationship between social media (a type of frontstage) and the offline lives that feed into it (the backstage). A person conceptualizes an impression of themselves in the backstage, and then presents this impression to specific publics in a targeted way in the frontstage. Because this relationship involves a component of reflection and curation of impressions prior to public dissemination, the presentation of self can be understood as an attempt to performatively construct an idealized version of self, a packet of information bundled up for particular specific uses. The application of Goffman’s theatrical framing to online identity has, in turn, highlighted how the performance of identity is increasingly shaped through more distributed and co-​constructed networks of friends, acquaintances, and strangers, who are in turn embedded within the curatorial functions and corporate logics of social media platforms (Belk, 2013; Hogan, 2010; van Dijck, 2013). For research into death and social media, Goffman’s work is relevant for a number of reasons. Firstly, the notion of the self that is being preserved is a self that has already been curated in some manner by conscious and unconscious decisions that an individual makes in the course of their life about how they act in online publics. Secondly, the process of performing some kind of posthumous self involves accessing databases of archived social media account—​accounts that once upon a time constituted aspects of the deceased person’s frontstage presentation of self—​and using them as a backstage resource to re-​create and/​or continue the deceased’s frontstage identity work posthumously. These posthumous performances of self become the social performances of a person engaged with others—​ precisely what posthumous social media services seek to represent, re-​ presence, re-​personify, or reanimate. Such social curation practices are, however, complicated in the contexts of automated afterlives in which impressions and audiences are collapsed. The concept of online context collapse emerged out of readings of Goffman by scholars danah boyd, Alice Marwick, and Michael Wesch.2 Context collapse

2 As boyd notes, the development was simultaneous, as these different scholars were not aware of each other’s research; see boyd, 2013.

Automating Digital Afterlives  119

refers to the situation where specific personal impressions that have been directed to specific audiences break out of their contextual silo and are encountered by wider groups or in other contexts. For Marwick and boyd, the complication in social media is that it involves multiple contexts that arrive already pre-​collapsed: The Twitter platform does not segment easily, so myriad social contexts are available at any one moment (2011: 116–​117). Equally, as users we are generally nonexperts in compartmentalizing social contexts; we are not as adept at managing our social media lives as we might be, and consequentially, we “leak” information between contexts that we otherwise would not intend (Marwick & boyd, 2011: 123–​124). Crucial to the construction of the archive are the questions of who or what is included or excluded, and how the information is disciplined and ordered through the archiving processes of data that may be unstructured or “wild” (Poster,1990). As Featherstone (2006) notes, there are questions of power, privilege, and control enrolled in the creation of the archive, which raises new questions in the context of who is capable of pursuing—​however quixotic—​a digital afterlife. We see the process of constructing a personal record of utterances in a digital context as a curatorial process involving the development of an archive of personal representations involving the posting of words, images, videos, links, and more, and also the development of a personal social community through practices of friending, liking, and following. It is the curation of this archive that builds the corpus that will become the basis for posthumous social media. Clearly, these issues are important when we consider how various posthumous digital archiving techniques might record things about us that are intended only for specific individuals or contexts. Further issues arise through the logics that inform curation and aggregation—​logics which are performed algorithmically. For example, what “rules” do algorithms use to curate and aggregate and thus moderate frontstage performance and backstage functions? Wesch suggests that the ultimate result of context collapse is a disrupted order: “Like a building collapse, context collapse does not create a total void but a chaotic version of its once-​ordered self ” (2009: 23). Context collapse can create enough difficulties when it is accidental or unintended, but the prospect of a chaotic, disordered, contextually murky record of our utterances, operating past our lifetimes, complicates the take-​up of these services. Accordingly, researchers have suggested a need for impression management features extending to the profiles of the deceased (Brubaker &

120  (Dis)Connected Lives Callison-​Burch, 2016; Marwick & Ellison, 2012). Notions of self and identity online have become further challenged by the growth in AI software, and especially web bots, that not only assist, moderate, and transform online communication, but unsettle notions of presence, agency, and personhood (e.g., Baron, 2015; Gehl & Bakardijeva, 2016). The use of media that are managed through automated services to represent deceased “selves,” when framed by Goffman’s dramaturgical model of social interaction, invites us to consider the different performances that posthumous digital presences might conduct. Our analysis focuses on the role of algorithms and AI in shaping posthumous persistence, informed by Lash’s theories of “technological forms of life” (Lash, 2002). We suggest automated forms of afterlife complicate approaches based on Goffman’s emphasis on the self and selfhood. Posthumous social presence—​however partial or crude—​reveals forms of agency that exceed the individual construction (or even social co-​construction) of the self. Indeed, posthumous presence is remediated by commercial digital platforms, protocols, and processes in ways that complicate Goffmanian binaries of front-​and backstage, or of embodied and social selves, by remediating technological afterlives that collapse context as well as temporalities, spatialities, and ontologies. Scott Lash’s work (2002) is valuable because he demonstrates how our online lives have been shaped by digital technology in ways that extend and elaborate upon Goffman’s social categories of identity performance, through dynamics of separation, speed, compression, and discontinuity. The premise of Goffman’s idea of self-​presentation relies on the description of conscious and subconscious acts and utterances that are put into public view. In the context of social media, acts and utterances are not just expressed, but archived. It is this archive that is used as a reference point by algorithms and AI as the basis for creating posthumous acts and utterances. Following Lash, by their nature as technological social events, these digital acts and utterances are shaped by their mediation in digital technology. Lash identifies eight traits that constitute social interactions in technological cultures (Lash, 2002: 15–​24): Interactions are experienced at the interface and have a strange surface quality to them; they are experienced at a distance, rather than immediately at an intimate level; some differences are flattened out while others are heightened; content appears in a nonlinear

Automating Digital Afterlives  121

fashion; large time differences are compressed to the point where years might have passed between adjacent utterances; rates of content are sped up while remaining discontinuous and disconnected; and, finally, all utterances and experiences are geographically lifted out from any particular space into a global digital non-​space. There are myriad consequences for these disruptions when applied to the idea of the self that is remediated through automated afterlife services. This is a significant observation for posthumous identity, as these automated and algorithmic processes rely on archives of online utterances to create representations of the deceased. Lash points to the way that these archives of utterances are not neutrally created, but are subject to a particular mediation of the way that the deceased lived. In particular, the order of events in their life can be represented in a disjointed, stochastic, and disruptive manner. Technological forms of life simultaneously experience a temporal flattening such that all moments appear immediately within one singular context; equally, technological forms of life are geographically disconnected from any one place, or even place altogether. More prosaically, our lives are different because of digital media inasmuch as we would behave differently if we did not have social media; for Lash, this leads to a degree of self-​conscious commentary about using technology. The consequence is a disconnected representation of the deceased, which comes from no particular time and no particular space, with a tendency toward self-​referentiality, rather than identity development. And yet it is precisely these complex arrays of dislocated, deracinated, and dehistoricized individual utterances that get folded into the different types of digital posthumous identities that emerge from the distinct solutions that people can take to retain their existence online.

Curating Technological Forms of Afterlife The development of affordable cloud computing services in combination with big data personal information has facilitated the development of bots and other automated tools for creating and managing posthumous digital identities. These tools range from automated message delivery services through to curated personal profiles that will continue operating after death. We have identified four primary categories of bots and tools within this

122  (Dis)Connected Lives purview: the surrogate, the automated, the algorithmic, and the artificially intelligent.

The Surrogate The surrogate is the least technical (and most likely the cheapest) solution for maintaining an online postmortem existence, in which the deceased person has provided their account access information to a third party. This third party is asked to maintain the account on behalf of the deceased, and operate it indefinitely. One of the most well-​known accounts to operate in this way is the Twitter account for the late Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago), whose will stipulated that his wife, Chaz Ebert (who operates @ChazEbert), was to continue operating his account after his death in April 2013, and thus represent him and represent him. While more recently the account has shifted to predominantly retweeting @ChazEbert, the initial operation of the account after Ebert’s death was conducted in his voice. The role of the surrogate has a fuzzy legal status. Some social platforms do not allow users to bequest their accounts. For instance, the videogame distribution platform Steam has a persistent social component to its operation, however, accounts are tied to purchases and Steam’s terms and conditions specify that such accounts are not transferrable. What the surrogate option questions in our analysis is the performance of the role of the deceased. Within Goffman’s (1959) self-​presentation framework, the performance of the self in public spaces is a process of context-​specific curation of a personal life. The extent to which individual moments of personal and private life are made public, and the extent to which these moments are true or false (Goffman, 1959: 37–​44), are based on decisions that are made in an individual’s backstage. The person who is given the role of the surrogate is making a second-​order approximation of the backstage of the person who has since passed away. As a result, subjective forms of knowledge, perceptions, emotional cues, and so on have disappeared, to be replaced by a performance of a self based on interpretation and approximation. Ultimately, the verisimilitude of the posthumous presence remains ambiguous as the backstage is no longer accessible, replaced instead solely by a performative and interpretive frontstage.

Automating Digital Afterlives  123

The Automated The Automated is a non-​persistent use of digital media after death. Instead of a user stipulating continued use of accounts in their will, they set up a digital version of the “dead man’s switch”—​a device used in trains to cause the train to stop if the driver dies or is incapacitated. In this instance, instead of having their accounts used persistently, the accounts operate to send out preplanned messages from the deceased. In some cases, this is built into existing social media systems, while in other cases it comes in the form of a message sent through email from the site’s server. The sites If I Die (2008), If I Die App (2011), If I Die 1st (2012), and Dead Man’s Switch (2007) are typical of this format. These sites advertise themselves as systems for automating one-​time message delivery after death and function in similar ways: An individual signs up to the service, writes a series of messages, and stipulates email addresses for each message. These emails are held in a cryptographic escrow system, and are inaccessible to the site owners. The system periodically sends confirmation messages to the owner’s nominated email address, and the owner must acknowledge receipt in some manner to prove they are alive. As long as proof of life is indicated to the site, then the messages will be indefinitely delayed. However, if proof of life confirmation fails multiple times in a row, then the messages will be sent from escrow. In the case of If I Die, proof of life failure is not sufficient, and an additional set of checks and balances exists: Users nominate specific trusted parties to confirm their death. With these systems the communication model is a unidirectional broadcast model; the non-​reply design obviously lacks any capacity for dialogue or meaningful response. This leads to these sites advertising themselves as a means for disclosure. If I Die App (2011) has—​in a now-​deleted video—​ suggested that the service could be used to pass on messages of undeclared or unrequited love after death; to disclose personal or family secrets about adoption or history; or to pass on messages of abuse, disgust, or hatred. These systems propose the use of disclosure specifically for saying things that the author wants to communicate to particular people, but, crucially, were not able or prepared to disclose during their lifetime. Within a Goffmanesque framework, we can look to this method of posthumous digital communication as being a sort of represencing of the self, in which the person is able to insert their presence into the future, and in doing so manage information disclosure beyond death. These services operate on an expectation that

124  (Dis)Connected Lives the author wants to disclose sentiments, views, or information from their backstage while avoiding awkward or difficult communications during their lifetime.

The Algorithmic The algorithmic identity is a semi-​automated digital media profile that is built from a corpus of user data. This produces what Wendy Moncur calls the “post-​self ”—​an identity which exists as a digital/​social hybrid that “operates from beyond the grave” (Moncur, 2016: 111). This post-​self-​identity is developed by applying a chatbot system to a database of existing user behavior drawn from various sources. The generic method involves taking users’ social media data as a set of pre-​generated phrases for the bot to produce or recombine in various circumstances and in response to various cues. In a recent survey, more than 10% of people aged under 65 thought existing as a chatbot algorithmic personification of themselves after death would be appealing (Death.io, 2018). Dadbot is a recent example of an algorithmic identity. Dadbot is a project by James Vlahos to record conversations and interactions with his father, motivated by his father’s diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer. Vlahos writes in Wired about his experience under the title “A Son’s Race to Give His Dying Father Artificial Immortality” (Vlahos, 2017): In all, I have recorded 91,970 words. When I have the recordings professionally transcribed, they will fill 203 single-​spaced pages with 12-​point Palatino type. . . . But by the time I put that tome on the shelf, my ambitions have already moved beyond it. A bigger plan has been taking shape in my head. I think I have found a better way to keep my father alive. (Vlahos, 2017)

Vlahos had his conversations with his father transcribed, then fed into a chatbot creation program called PullString. The result, Dadbot, is capable of simulating dialogue with a predilection toward a wealth of personal family history. Vlahos engaged in some structuring of the dataset in order to make it more streamlined for functioning as a chatbot, and the overall method itself suggests new techniques for archiving family history.

Automating Digital Afterlives  125

Other forms of algorithmically generated identities inhabit Twitter. Twitter is widely populated with the accounts of dead notables, periodically tweeting out quotes from their works; Spinoza (@BenedictSpinoza), and Kierkegaard (@SorenKQuotes), for example, are bots that quote directly from the works of these famous academic historical figures. It is notable, in the context of legal personhood, that accounts quoting directly from the works of the living, or indeed the recently deceased, are few and far between; the legal status of accounts that tweet material protected by copyright or intellectual property law is likely to constrict the creation of such bots. While the algorithmic is a form of digital presence and posthumous communication, it builds on automated forms of messaging by re-​presenting the front stage of the deceased in a chatbot or social media form. These entities both repost and remix past content in ways that do not just represent the deceased person in living communication, but re-​personify them through posthumously engaging in the creation of new posts or scripted responses that mimic interactive conversations. In doing so, the algorithmic performance of self is one that deploys databases and algorithmic curation to create the impression of a backstage through a novel or interactive frontstage interface and performance. As these presentations are directed by algorithmically programmed instructions the impressions may be effective but fail Turing’s well-​known test of verisimilitude. For the algorithmic, we should ask ourselves what might be achieved through using this service? Dadbot presents an idea of a system that could act as a unique lens into family history, while erudite Twitter bots present an idea of serendipitous encounters with quotes from philosophy, science, and theory.

The Artificially Intelligent What distinguishes the artificially intelligent from the other categories of posthumous digital presence is the implication of persistence and reanimation in the branding. The presentation of technology that “intelligently” repurposes the data trail of a deceased person into grammatically and contextually accurate material is core to the artificially intelligent digital presence. These platforms offer services that are similar to but extend algorithmic forms of posthumous identity, insofar as they use AI software and machine learning on a corpus of data built from the user’s online accounts.

126  (Dis)Connected Lives The artificially intelligent identity is the most speculative of the identities associated with posthumous computer-​mediated communication. Rather than representing the state of the field, it represents a speculative outlier for posthumous digital presence. Eterni.me operates as a well-​known paradigmatic example of the artificially intelligent. While still—​and seemingly perpetually—​in beta development, their privacy policy indicates the array of services that they are willing to draw from to develop a profile (Eterni.me Privacy Policy, 2015). While the document has not been updated since 2015, the service would require authorized access to all aspects of a user’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as all relevant data from Google Analytics, personal cookie, and usage data, with a footnote indicating that Eterni.me will also require credit card information and all appropriate login and access codes. While this material is clearly necessary for the service to work, the volume of personal data is far from negligible. Indeed, because this data is collected, collated, and aggregated within the one, single system, it far exceeds what any of the individual companies could access and represents an enormous volume of data about the individual with unparalleled value in today’s data-​economies. Eterni.me and other similar services draw on powerful science fiction and futurist fantasies of immortality, which have accompanied the emergence and development of computing technology. Ray Kurzweil’s early writing, for example, suggested varying stances on the possibility of immortality through computers (1990). His later writing, however, suggested that the problem of death was a matter of our human “meaty” hardware failing while our mental software merely required an appropriate site to sustain itself (1999: 128–​ 129). Moravec (1988) stands out as having one of the most haunting utopic visions of them all, describing the process of being transformed from meat to machine. Moravec’s description speaks of a grueling dissection of the brain by a digital lathe, which analyzes each layer of gray matter and replicates it in digital space; what is human to Moravec is mere “neural architecture” to be replaced by a simulation (1988: 109–​110). A more recent vision of this concept was presented in the 2020 Amazon Prime series Upload, which depicts the head and brain of the protagonist being disintegrated in a flash of light and energy to capture his neural architecture to great comic effect. The message is clear: This is a one-​way journey. The idea of digital immortality is baked into these platforms through public advertising that echoes transhumanist narratives: “Simply Become

Automating Digital Afterlives  127

Immortal” has been advertised on the Eterni.me website (2014) in the past, while more recently the site suggests that one can instead “become virtually immortal” (2017). The variation between the branding over three years is slight, but significant. The ambiguity of virtual in this context suggests both the prospect of a digital immortality, as well as its fictitious unreality. The dream of technical immortality is present in fictional books and films such as Frankenstein (Shelley, 1818) and Metropolis (1927), which suggest some prospect of inhuman or nonhuman life after death. In more recent years, Moravec (1988), Kurzweil (1990, 1999), and Geraci (2010) have located discussions around the prospect of an immortality available through the computer, while fiction works such as Black Mirror’s “Be Right Back” (2013) and “San Junipero” (2016), DeLillo’s Zero K (2016), and the recent Amazon series Upload (2020) also present digitally mediated forms of life after death. The emphasis on posthumous life being virtual or fictional has not stopped projects from materializing that seek to implement this in the real world, such as with the Lifenauts projects3 (see Lifenaut, 2020). A similar promise of posthumous persistence is found in the service ETER9. ETER9 promises a system with a “unique ability to convert users into eternal beings” (ETER9, 2017a). While less specific about the ideas of immortality itself, ETER9 instead offers a capacity to forget: “ETER9 will attenuate the awareness of life’s transience” (ETER9, 2017a). ETER9 is also different in terms of its manner of function; it does not require access to a corpus of personal data. Rather, ETER9 (2015) has its own social media system that the user commits to in order to train a bot, known as a “counterpart.” The goal of this process is to generate an entity that is capable of mimicking their respective human user. The counterpart takes on a name that is a version of the original user’s name, transliterated into so-​called leet speak (an online typography derived from the visual similarity between some numbers and letters). Users of ETER9 can set their counterpart’s autonomy on a scale from 0 to 100%, which will dictate to what extent the automated service will operate in their absence. The site also promises the prospect of “Niners” (ETER9, 2017b). Niners are digital entities that will periodically awaken out of the algorithmic soup of interactions across the platform as semi-​functioning 3 The LifeNaut project is an endeavor to create autonomous robots that house a digital posthumous presence. In practice this is the creation of robotic heads with the external appearance of a person. The robot uses a digital synthesizer and a set of audio files to re-​create speech and allow dialogues with a simulated person.

128  (Dis)Connected Lives entities, but are not based on any one individual on the site. Niners are born and can be adopted by users, and “they may die if they are not adopted or if they have no purpose within the ETER9 universe” (ETER9, 2017a). While statistics are not readily available about the number of users or interest in either ETER9 or Eterni.me, the numbers are likely low with the service acting more as an indicator of where posthumous media might head. In this sense, these services are speculative, rather than practical, but in this speculation, they act as provocations for thinking on how posthumous social media might introduce complications for civil society. ETER9’s implementation of technology also speaks to the narratives drawn up by Moravec and others, partly in terms of the idea of digital/​synthetic lives, but also in terms of the metaphor by which they operate. As Moravec also notes in Mind Children, we can think of replacing ourselves not just through a meat-​to-​machine process, but also through a system of computational mimicry. Moravec describes a suitable method: A kind of portable computer (perhaps worn like magic glasses) is programmed with the universals of human mentality, your genetic makeup, and whatever details of your life are conveniently available. It carries a program that makes it an excellent mimic. You carry this computer with you through the prime of your life; it diligently listens and watches; perhaps it monitors your brain and learns to anticipate your every move and response. Soon it can fool your friends on the phone with its convincing imitation of you. When you die, this program is installed in a mechanical body that then smoothly and seamlessly takes over your life and responsibilities. (Moravec, 1988: 110–​111)

Socially interacting within this system generates user data and trains a bot to operate after the user has passed away. Consequently, the longer the bot operates after the user’s death using the system’s AI machine learning software, the more the bot diverges from that user’s originally archived personality. In this sense, the original ambition of a posthumous persistence is eclipsed by an entity that moves beyond re-​presenting the frontstage provided by personal digital datasets to reanimate the self-​presentation of the deceased. Paradoxically, this reanimation is most like the original self in successfully imitating but also displaying the capacity to evolve and thus diverging from that verisimilitude to become a separate entity.

Automating Digital Afterlives  129

The types of posthumous digital presence described here enact and solicit the possibility of maintaining a digital connection that persists beyond death. While the surrogate identity allows for a continuity of connection, and the automated facilitates scripted one-​way communicative acts of connection, it is the idea of the algorithmic identity that suggests an attempt to maintain some degree of independent, if programmed, presence of a self after death. The artificially intelligent framework goes even further and posits an idea of adaptive persistence and performance in reanimating a self after death, yet such entities are not just detached from their biological substrata but also increasingly disconnected from the selves they originally imitate. As such, the proposition of a machine-​based presentation of self poses complications for social scientists who grapple with the interrelationships of self, identity, and personhood in digital platforms. Automated performances of posthumous digital existence extend forms of self-​presentation through communicative media like email or programmed technologies like robots as forms of mediated human (after)life. Posthumous social media presences materialize ambiguities of connection/​disconnection and self/​identity, by enacting new “technological forms of life” (Lash) offered by a range of automated afterlife services discussed earlier. These revolve around technological possibilities and imperatives to maintain digital connection beyond death by privileging an automated curation of social presence over a more consistent performance of self.

Reconceptualizing the Self in an Automated Afterlife The thought that we might successfully circumvent mourning or live forever through a digital persona is an idea that is more fantastic than the realities of technology allow. A posthumous digital presence is likely to be doubly shaped by technology. If the method of animating the presence is through a digital service then its methods will draw on a corpus of statements, utterances, or textual data in order to animate its simulation. This corpus is the functional equivalent of Goffman’s backstage—​it is a set of statements curated by an individual for the purpose of forming a public identity. Yet within Goffman’s framing, the backstage for a posthumous digital presence is merely the record of a frontstage of a deceased individual. The intent and context of

130  (Dis)Connected Lives any utterances is inferred by a digital service that, unlike the deceased, does not draw in new information and experiences from an individual’s life that continues to be lived; rather any new data is sourced from a general approximation drawn from data that is only partially derived from the deceased in the first case, or from reflected data drawn from machine learning and ongoing interactions with individuals and other machines that go beyond the context of the original life-​as-​lived. The original intent of the deceased is not and cannot be captured in these moments, only its tracings. As such, posthumous digital personas are remediated by commercial digital platforms, protocols, and processes in ways that complicate Goffman’s binaries of front and backstage, or of identity and social selves. The complication to the backstage for the posthumous presence is more than just doubly removed from the intent of the deceased. Each step, from the living backstage to the living front stage, then from the deceased backstage to the posthumous front stage, also involves as Lash demonstrates, a complicating mediation of life. Computers afford, shape, limit, and corral different kinds of online interaction, thus shaping the corpus that is key to reanimating a representation of the deceased. Accordingly, the infrastructure of Internet technologies both compress the distances between users, while often pushing the interactions from a sense of immediate space into a diffuse space of out there—​present, but also distant. The forms of separated intimacy that emerge from this type of communication are not dissimilar to the separation between dead and alive (Peters, 2000). The sense of separation, speed, compression, and discontinuity that Lash identifies is found in the way that discrete blocks of information about wholly different contexts are piled one on top of another within random access databases, giving a sense of a mise en abyme of personal disclosure. In parallel to this, Lash suggests, any sense of transcendental movements or relations is completely eclipsed by the flattening effects of media, while a transcendental separation between ontology and epistemology almost entirely disappears as technological forms of life privilege curated performance over consistent or past self-​presentation. A consequence of the overlapping of Goffman’s and Lash’s work in our conceptualization of posthumous social media is that the categories of person, self, and identity are maintained yet lose their singular reference point of a living, breathing person. These three categories—​a legal person, an organizing self, and a represented identity—​are coordinated from a common

Automating Digital Afterlives  131

locus, that of the individual. Yet after death, these categories separate, and become managed by different systems. Goffman (1959) describes the self as a method for understanding personal comportment in public and the relationship that this public self has to a private self. In contexts of social media, Papacharissi suggests the self is a constantly evolving abstract reference point that a being uses to understand its relationship to the world around it (2011: 304). The self is a projection that changes, but remains grounded in an individual, and responds to its experiences in the world. In contrast to the self, Anthony Giddens describes “identity” as a phenomenon contingent on social relationships, framed by a set of appearance codes, and enacted in relationship to other people. Manuel Castells (2010: 6–​ 7) takes the proposition further, and notes that collectively or individually, an identity may be thought of as a singular state or as a combination of plural identities. What is important about this is that identity is not merely an individual human quality, but is something that nonhuman and fictional things may possess. Corporations possess identity through their brands, which shifted from being mere marks of ownership and production to being tied to a personality and social role in the mid-​20th century (Lury, 2004: 20–​21). Identity, thus, is a set of aesthetics and socially coded meanings that infer attributes or community about an entity, and the dead, or their avatars, are not excluded from possessing or expressing an identity. Unlike selfhood and identity that are generated from individuals and their relationships, personhood may be designated by others—​it can be understood as an ascribed status that can be granted or removed. Personhood is a legal category that stipulates the rights and responsibilities of identified human beings (Arnold et al., 2017: 12–​14). But personhood can also be denied to people, as with African slaves in the United States prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, or Jewish people during the Shoah, or Indigenous Australians who were legally classified as “fauna” until much-​ needed law and constitutional reform in the late 1960s. Just as personhood can be denied to people, so too can it be granted to nonhuman things. The corporation is a legal category whereby the rights and responsibilities of personhood is given to a business entity, with the main function being that the responsibility for acts within the corporation not being passed on to owners. A radical development in Aotearoa New Zealand has seen the Whanganui River granted with legal personhood under the custodianship of the Nga Tūhoe Iwi and the New Zealand government; the consequence of this is that

132  (Dis)Connected Lives custodians may engage in legal action on behalf of the river against pollution or despoliation (Haunui-​Thompson, 2017). So why not extend this category to posthumously curated automated persons? A posthumous social media presence is not yet ascribed personhood, and yet debate has emerged in the European parliament about the creation of a category of electronic personhood to regulate the actions of robots more generally (European parliament draft report, 2016). Consider, however, ETER9 generating a random sentence from past comments; if the entity had legal personhood, should its utterances be given legal weight in determining the outcome of a will? Should indications of consumer desire be sufficient to instigate purchases or the retention of debts? Accordingly, how is this complicated by privately owned algorithms that have not yet been publicly audited? Can it be held accountable for slanderous, objectionable, and/​or harassing comments? The question of identity too remains fraught. Identity is a mutable thing (Castells, 2010) which changes over time. How might personhood, identity, and the self change in response to shifting social mores and changes in language? There are, then, many social, economic, and ethical questions raised by automated afterlives, where lifetimes of distributed data are collected and collapsed within a single commercial platform. Technological afterlives not only collapse contexts, but also temporalities, spatialities, and ontologies of presence. In doing so, automated afterlives complicate notions of self and identity by entangling entities with social, ethical, and political questions of persons. Lash’s work shows how the impacts of digital mediation shape not just forms of communication, but also forms of life that are communicated. Social media not only expose us to the problem of an online context collapse, but also produce traces in digital interaction. When these interactions and traces form the basis for automated afterlife software programs, we are left with a situation where the artifacts of production are replicated upon themselves. If one takes a photocopy and copies it again, the output will start to expose the grit, scratches, dust, and errors on the page. So too when Photoshop is used to repeatedly filter an image—​the algorithm starts to stand out from the image. When reinserting lived social media content back through an algorithmic afterlife, the residual social spatiotemporal contexts will stand out in stark relief in the new postings. Like an image that has been modified too many times, the posthumous remediation of social media data serves to expose the pixilation of parsing an online self after life has passed.

Automating Digital Afterlives  133

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the Australian Research Council (ARC), for funding through the Discovery Projects Scheme (DP180103148), and the Linkage Funding Scheme (LP180100757), and the Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust (GMCT) for their support as a Linkage research partner.

References Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Kohn, T., Meese, J., & Nansen, B. (2018). Death and Digital Media. London: Routledge. Baron, N. S. (2015). Shall we talk? Conversing with humans and robots. The Information Society 31(3), 257–​264. Belk, R. (2013). Extended self in a digital world. Journal of Consumer Research 40(3), 477–​500. @BenedictSpinoza (2011). Spinoza Quotes. Twitter.com/​BenedictSpinoza. boyd, d. (2013). “how ‘context collapse’ was coined: my recollection.” danah boyd | apophenia. December 8. http://​www.zephoria.org/​thoughts/​archives/​2013/​12/​08/​ coining-​context-​collapse.html. Brooker, C. (2013). “Be Right Back.” Black Mirror TV episode. Harris, O. (Dir.). Brooker, C. (2016). “San Junipero.” Black Mirror TV episode. Harris, O. (Dir.). Brubaker, J. R., & Callison-​ Burch, V. (2016). Legacy Contact: Designing and Implementing Post-​Mortem Stewardship at Facebook. Paper presented at CHI Workshop on Human Factors in Computer Systems, San Jose California. Castells, M. (2010). The Power of Identity. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell. @ChazEbert. (2012). Chaz. Twitter.com/​ChazEbert. Daniels, G. (2020). Upload TV [Series] Amazon Studios. Dead Man’s Switch (2007). Home. https://​www.deadmansswitch.net/​. Death.io (2018). The Changing Attitudes to Death 2018. Commissioned by Death. io: YouGov. DeLillo, D. (2016). Zero K. Scribner. @ebertchicago (2009). Robert Ebert. Twitter.com/​ebertchicago. ETER9 (2015) “R0bb13 F0rdyc3” www.eter9.com. Accessed August 11, 2015. ETER9 (2017a). “About” www.eter9.com. Accessed September 26, 2017. ETER9 (2017b). “FAQ” www.eter9.com. Accessed September 24, 2017. Eterni.me (2014). Eterni.me. Accessed June 23, 2014. (Note: this reference is included to refer to site elements that have subsequently changed.)

134  (Dis)Connected Lives Eterni.me Privacy Policy (2015). Accessed July 17, 2017. Eterni.me (2017). Eterni.me. Accessed July 17, 2017. European Parliament Draft Report (2016): www.europarl.europa.eu/​ sides/ ​ g etDoc.do?pubRef=-​ / /​ E P//​ N ONSGML%2B COMPARL%2BPE-​ 582.443%2B01%2BDOC%2BPDF%2BV0//​EN. Featherstone, M. (2006). Archive. Theory, Culture and Society 23(2–​3), 591–​596. Gehl, R. W., & Bakardjieva, M. (Eds.). (2016). Socialbots and Their Friends: Digital Media and the Automation of Sociality. New York: Routledge. Geraci, R. (2010). Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and Self-​Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday. Gumpert, G. (1987). Talking Tombstones and Other Tales of the Media Age. New York: Oxford University Press. Haunui-​Thompson, S. (2017). “Whanganui River to gain legal personhood” Radio New Zealand. March 16. http://​www.radionz.co.nz/​news/​te-​manu-​korihi/​326689/​ whanganui-​river-​to-​gain-​legal-​personhood. Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: Distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society 30(6), 377–​386. If I Die (2008). http://​www.IfIDie.org/​. If I Die App (2011). http://​www.ifidie.net/​. If I Die 1st (2012). http://​www.ifidie1st.com/​. Kneese, T. (2019). Death, disrupted. Continent 8(1–​2), 70–​75. Kohn, T., Arnold, M., Gibbs, M., Meese, J., & Nansen, B. (2018). The social life of the dead and the leisured life of the living online. In Kaul, A., & Skinner, J. (Eds.), Leisure and Death: An Anthropological Tour of Risk, Death, and Dying (pp. 227–​ 245). Louisville: University Press of Colorado. Kurzweil, R. (1990). The Age of Intelligent Machines. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kurzweil, R. (1999). The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Lang, F. (1927). Metropolis. [Film recording]. Lash, S. (2002). Critique of Information. London: SAGE Publications. Lifenaut (2014). “Bina 48 Meets Bina Rothblatt -​Part One.” Youtube.com https://​ www.youtube.com/​watch?v=KYshJRYCArE.

Automating Digital Afterlives  135 Lifenaut (2020). “What Are MindClones?” Lifenaut.com. Accessed May 5, 2020. Lury, C. (2004). Brands: The Logos of the Global Economy. London: Routledge. Marwick, A., & boyd, d. (2011). I Tweet honestly, I Tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media and Society 13(1), 114–​133. Marwick, A., & Ellison, N. (2012). “There isn’t Wifi in heaven!” Negotiating visibility on Facebook Memorial Pages. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 56(3), 378–​400. Meese J., Nansen, B., Kohn, T., Arnold, M., & Gibbs, M. (2015). Posthumous personhood and the affordances of digital media. Mortality 20(4), 408–​420. Moncur, W. (2016). Living digitally. In Groes, S. (Ed.), Memory in the Twenty-​First Century: New Critical Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences (pp. 108–​112). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Moravec, H. (1988). Mind Children. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nansen, B., O’Donnell, D., Arnold, M., Kohn, T., & Gibbs M. (2019). “Death by Twitter”: Understanding false death announcements on social media and the performance of platform cultural capital. First Monday 24(12). Newton, C. (2016). “Speak, Memory.” The Verge. October 6. http://​www.theverge. com/​a/​luka-​artificial-​intelligence-​memorial-​roman-​mazurenko-​bot. Notopoulos, K. (2013). “How Almost Anyone Can Take You Off Facebook (and Lock You Out).” Buzzfeed, January 4. https://​www.buzzfeednews.com/​article/​ katienotopoulos/​how-​to-​murder-​your-​friends-​on-​facebook-​in-​2-​easy-​s. Öhman, C., & Floridi, L. (2018). An ethical framework for the digital afterlife industry. Nature Human Behaviour 2, 318–​320. Papacharissi, Z. (2011). A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. New York and London: Routledge. Peters, J. D. (2000). Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Poster, M. (1990). The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sandberg, S. (2019). “Making It Easier to Honor a Loved One on Facebook After They Pass Away.” Facebook, April 9, https://​about.fb.com/​news/​2019/​04/​updates-​to-​ memorialization/​. Shelley, M. (1818/​ 2018). “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.” Project Gutenberg. https://​www.gutenberg.org/​files/​84/​84-​h/​84-​h.htm. @SorenKQuotes (2012). Soren Kierkegaard. Twitter.com/​SorenKQuotes. Sterne, J. (2003). The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

136  (Dis)Connected Lives Stokes, P. (2012). Ghosts in the machine: Do the dead live on in Facebook? Philosophy and Technology 25(3), 363–​379. van der Nagel, E., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., Gibbs, M., Kohn, T., Bellamy, C., & Clark, N. (2017). Death and the Internet: Consumer Issues for Planning and Managing Digital Legacies, 2nd ed., Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Sydney. Van Dijck, J. (2013). “You have one identity”: Performing the self on Facebook and LinkedIn. Media, Culture and Society 35(2), 199–​215. Vlahos, J. (2017). “A Son’s Race to Give His Dying Father Artificial Immortality.” Wired. July 18. https://​www.wired.com/​story/​a-​so ns-​race-​to-​give-​his-​dying-​ father-​artificial-​immortality//​. Wesch, M. (2009). YouTube and you: Experiences of self-​awareness in the context collapse of the recording webcam. Explorations in Media Ecology 8(2), 19–​34.

6 Senses and Sensors of Sleep Digital Mediation and Disconnection in Sleep Architectures Bjørn Nansen, Kate Mannell, and Christopher O’Neill

Introduction There are now very few significant interludes of human existence (with the colossal exception of sleep) that have not been penetrated and taken over as work time, consumption time, or marketing time . . . One seemingly inconsequential but prevalent linguistic figure is the machine-​based designation of “sleep mode.” The notion of an apparatus in a state of low-​ power readiness remakes the larger sense of sleep into simply a deferred or diminished condition of operationality and access. It supersedes an off/​on logic, so that nothing is ever fundamentally “off” and there is never an actual state of rest. (Crary, 2013: 13, 15)

Jonathan Crary’s machinic “sleep-​mode” analogy for human rest highlights how contemporary arrangements of capitalism, together with the digital mediation of daily life, recast sleep as a state of continual readiness. He notes that, for many, these conditions negate the possibility of complete disconnection. This chapter extends the broad critique of digital encroachment into everyday life through an analysis of sleep technology product designs. The chapter locates sleep media—​technologies designed to mediate and modulate patterns of sleep—​within a larger field of digital life that highlights ambiguities and power relations around disconnection. Focusing on product and marketing materials, the sites of analysis include personal sleep architectures, in which sleep media are used to manage or optimize the spatiotemporalities Bjørn Nansen, Kate Mannell, and Christopher O’Neill, Senses and Sensors of Sleep In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0007

138  (Dis)Connected Lives of sleep architectures, such as using sleep tracking and analytics to customize sleep phases in the pursuit of personal productivity; and household sleep architectures, in which bedroom Internet of Things (IoT) systems use sensors and Internet connectivity to monitor and automate sensory environments, including temperature, sound, and luminosity, in order to optimize the architectural spaces of sleep. The chapter deploys the term architecture to engage with the volume’s theme of geographies of disconnection in the contexts of sleeping geographies. Architecture has a dual meaning in context of sleep. For one, it is used in scientific literature to characterize the phases of sleep in which the body cycles through varying behavioral and neurophysiological features in transitioning between wakefulness and sleep. These phases or rhythms of sleep architecture are divided into two broad categories: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-​rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Secondly, the term architecture is used to describe the environments of sleeping, and in particular bedroom spaces which are characterized by multiple sensory registers to induce sleep or waking, and thus to modulate somnolescence, including sound, light, and touch. Both of these architectures are increasingly subject to sleep tracking and sensory modulating technologies, from apps and wearables to sensor-​based and Internet-​connected technologies designed to optimize and automate sleeping architectures—​in terms of both sleep phases and environments. Further, by drawing on theories of digital disconnection (Karppi, 2011; Light, 2014; Mejias, 2013; Portwood-​Stacer, 2013), this chapter highlights how historical and theoretical notions of sleep as a site of subjective, social, and technological disconnection are being reworked by contemporary media technologies. In a manner that reflects broader discussions about technological (dis)connections, media technologies function to both disrupt and facilitate possibilities for sleep. In contrast to human geography literature, which identifies notions of comfort, attachment, and relaxation in traditional domestic “geographies of rest” (e.g., Seamon, 2015), our analysis highlights much more contested cultural and biopolitical terrains of contemporary sleeping architectures. The processes of datafication and automation involved in sleep media analyzed here reproduce normative ideas about sleep architectures, both personal and environmental, as something to be improved and optimized. On the one hand, the now ubiquitous use of smartphones in bed reflects ongoing demands for digital participation and

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  139

productivity, and the increasing use of sleep-​tracking applications maintains connected practices of self-​management even when asleep. Yet, on the other hand, the sites of sleep mediation examined in this chapter signify how such arrangements are unevenly distributed, with disconnective sleep technologies operating as a form of privilege and distinction for those who have the resources (knowledge, time, money, access) to reshape their architectural spaces and rhythms of sleep.

Sleep and the Impossibility of Disconnection Sleep has historically been understood as an embodied state of detachment (see Ekirch, 2001; Gallinier et al., 2010), of withdrawal from the world for rest and recuperation. Historical and theoretical notions of sleep as a site of subjective, social, and technological disconnection are, however, being reworked by contemporary media technologies. Media technologies function to both disrupt and facilitate possibilities for sleep management through sleep technology design and application. Concern about technological disruption of sleep has centered on smartphones, which have come to represent the corrosive forces of technology and society on well-​being and our need for rest, especially their capacity to encroach on personal and domestic life including the bedroom (see Gregg, 2011). As portable, connected, and at-​hand devices, the bedtime use of mobile devices, including by young people, is not unexpected. The prevalence of sleeping with a smartphone is increasingly raised as a public health concern, especially for younger people. There is a wealth of medical research suggesting that the use of mobile phones in the bedroom is strongly correlated with poor sleep quality and sleep duration, with potential knock-​on effects including poor cognitive performance and the increased likelihood of depression and anxiety. Medical literature points to the role of smartphones in driving an epidemic of poor sleep, focusing particularly on the detrimental impacts of screens and electromagnetic fields on the melatonin levels and brainwave activity conducive to good sleep. This impact on sleep quality and quantity is associated with the blue light emitted from device screens inhibiting melatonin release (Wahnschaffe et al., 2013), and with stimulation from the presence of devices or with stimulating content (Arora et al., 2014; Buxton et al., 2015; Garrison et al., 2011).

140  (Dis)Connected Lives This relationship between digital technologies and sleep has been noted in studies of voluntary disconnection from digital technologies. These studies observe that improving sleep is often one of the motivations that people have for such digital disconnections (Woodstock, 2014: 1995), and is touted by self-​help guides as a key benefit of digital detoxes (Syvertsen & Enli, 2019: 10). The desire to improve sleep through regulating technology use can be understood as part of a broader discourse that equates disconnecting from digital technologies with reconnecting to a more healthy, productive, and authentic mode of living (Fish, 2017; Jorge, 2019; Sutton, 2017; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019; Enli & Syvertsen, this volume). However, beyond these drives to improve sleep through disconnecting from technology, there are other, more complex relationships between digital technologies, disconnection, and sleep. As a mode of disconnection itself, sleep is increasingly mediated by digital technologies that promise to improve it and, in doing so, provide a range of health and productivity outcomes that mirror those associated with digital disconnection. For instance, while mobile technologies are linked to poor sleep, there is, paradoxically, a growing interest in the development of mobile technologies and software applications to produce better sleep through sleep management functions including notifications and alerts, sleep tracking and monitoring, and relaxation therapies to encourage good sleep “hygiene”. Personal sleep monitoring was initially enabled by technologies that moved outside the scientific and medical institutions of the sleep lab or hospital, and into everyday life through the development of wearable devices, mobile phones, and Internet applications (Williams et al., 2015). Subsequently, there has been an explosive growth and development of digital products within the sleep industry that exploit the potential of mobile applications as personal behavioral tools for optimizing sleeping quality (Liang & Ploderer, 2016). Williams, Coveney, and Meadows (2015) observe the irony here that “the very information and communication technologies which elsewhere are criticized or demonized by experts as the enemy of sleep—​no computers or texting in the bedroom for instance—​are in this case transformed or touted as the aid or ally of sleep” (2015: 1049). Sleep is now a targeted site of daily monitoring and management via a range of technologies. These extend from mobile and wearable devices to Internet of Things-​ enabled products for the bedroom, personal data collection and visualization, biohacking interventions, and organizational management solutions. These sleep-​specific media are underpinned by the spread and normalization

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  141

of wider Internet economies and cultural practices of self-​tracking and datafication—​the transformation of daily life into digital information (see O’Neill & Nansen, 2019). The design of sleep technologies, spaces, or interventions is, however, not necessarily new or unique to our current moment, with historical examples offering alternative material and ideological configurations of designing for sleep. One prominent example involves Konstantin Melnikov, a Russian architect, who designed a building for sleeping workers as part of a 1929 USSR plan for a garden suburb outside Moscow during Stalin’s First Five-​ Year Plan. It was never built, but the designs for the building he labeled the “Sonata of Sleep” were an ambitious plan to express Soviet social values in built form by fitting out dormitories with a range of instruments: At either end of the long buildings were to be situated control booths, where technicians would command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft salubrious scents and “rarefied condensed air” through the halls. Nor would sound be left unorganized. Specialists working “according to scientific facts” would transmit from the control centre a range of sounds gauged to intensify the process of slumber. The rustle of leaves, the cooing of nightingales, or the soft murmur of waves would instantly relax the most overwrought veteran of the metropolis. Should these fail, the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost. (Starr, 1978: 179)

In his recent book, How to Sleep: The Art, Biology and Culture of Unconsciousness, media theorist Matthew Fuller notes the ideals/​values of Soviet communism were in Melnikov’s design articulated as a deliberate attempt to mold the communist subject in rest as much as work, through an entanglement of collective bodies, architectural design, and media broadcast to a somnolent mass. If we turn to cultures of sleep in contemporary capitalism, different formations of bodies, media, and space emerge, expressing radically different social values and ideals. Today, as we are all aware, bodies, bedrooms, and busyness are now mediated by digital devices in ordinary and common yet ubiquitous and disturbing ways. Sleeping with your phone symbolizes the continuous attachment, tethering, and embodiment of mobile media in the present. It shows ties to networks of sociality or labor, of

142  (Dis)Connected Lives being entertained, informed, stimulated, connected, extending across the day to the night, from the office to street, to the living room to the bedroom. As detailed in the work of Jonathan Crary and others, sleep is often devalued by the exigencies of waking life, positioned as wasted time, an unproductive burden impeding capital and the accumulation of value. In 2017, for example, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stated that sleep was his primary competitor (Hern, 2017). In his 2011 monograph The Politics of Sleep, health sociologist Simon Williams argues that the dominant perspective on sleep is one which undervalues or neglects sleep as a component of a healthy or fulfilled life. Williams describes this pervasive understanding of the body and of work as one which valorizes “the conscious, waking dimensions of life, and associated mandates or motifs of (self-​) mastery, containment and control” (Williams, 2011: xiii). Perhaps the most well-​known critique of this “anti-​sleep” position has been formulated by Jonathan Crary in his 24/​7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013), in which Crary argues that the essentially unproductive nature of sleep has necessitated its disavowal or erasure under the stricture of capitalist productivism. For Crary, sleep has been systematically undermined since the dawn of the modern age, becoming “devalued in the face of a privileging of consciousness and volition, of notions of utility, objectivity, and self-​interested agency” (Crary, 2013: 12). Individuals operate within this environment through injunctions to self-​manage their sleep, to navigate competing discourses between sleep hygiene and sleep optimization. Spanning a spectrum from medical through to popular sleep science (Van den Bulck, 2015; Walker, 2017), and often refracted through both self-​help and news media literature, is a panoply of authoritative voices locating sleep within the biopolitical terrain of contemporary capitalist society. Prevailing narratives of sleep are framed through a lens—​whether explicitly or tacitly—​of governmentality, which radiates from the social to the individual and back as a public health concern, an institutional problem, and a personal responsibility addressed through injunctions to manage one’s sleep as a form of self-​care and well-​ being. Typically, they suggest people adopt better sleep hygiene through practices of self-​care or discipline, including suggestions like removing media from your bedroom. Alternatively, the crisis and commodification of sleep in the contemporary era, when commercial and technological forces simultaneously

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  143

subvert and solve the problem of sleep, compel individuals to consume an ever-​growing range of products for self-​managing rest, awakening, and alertness, including sensor-​b ased IoT “smart” devices for the bedroom.1 Sleep is big business, with an industry formed around innumerable products for the bedroom and improving personal sleep. These range from sleep-​tracking devices, to newer “smart” products for the bedroom that are worn (earplugs, masks), listened to (music; meditation/​relaxation products), reclined on (pillows and mattresses designed to alternately measure your movements in bed or to record your optimal sleeping position), and so on.2 Sleep, then, is no longer detached from everyday social or economic life, but now organized as part of the broader cultural and biopolitical terrain of life within contemporary capitalism. At varied scales of pathologization and intervention, sleep is emerging as an increasingly malleable target for commercial and technical mediation by a growing sleep industry, which draws on networked digital devices to gather data, provide analytics, or modulate/​optimize sleeping architectures—​in terms of both sleep phases and sleep environments. Medical studies have investigated the diagnostic accuracy and value of sleep-​tracking technologies (e.g., see Behar et al., 2013; Lee-​ Tobin et al., 2017), sociological studies have analyzed how sleep technologies fit into prevailing narratives around self-​managing health and well-​b eing (Williams, 2011), critical theory has addressed the impact of capitalist economies on sleep (Crary, 2013; Fuller, 2018), and research from a media studies perspective has contributed to sleep research by analyzing features in popular sleep apps to understand how they enroll sleep within the digital monitoring and management of personal health and well-​b eing (O’Neill & Nansen, 2019).

1 The cultural and biopolitics of designing bedroom sleep products manifested in a 2019 Instagram post from Mark Zuckerberg, in which he promotes a “sleep box” he built for his wife, which emits a soft light in the early morning to alert his wife when it’s time to wake up to look after children without looking at her phone. Ridiculed for its gender politics, naivety about domestic labor and child care, or for its clumsy redesign of existing technologies, like nightlights, such interventions reflect the hubris in Silicon Valley solutionism. 2 We note here our ambivalence around the use of the now ubiquitous term ‘smart’, often taken for granted as signifying a break—​or indeed, a disconnection—​from the ‘dumb’ terminals of earlier computing eras, while glossing over the degree to which such technologies serve to advance “corporate technocratic power . . . (and) digital capitalism,” promoting “convenience and connection” while eliding the extraction of user data and value (Sadowski, 2020: 5).

144  (Dis)Connected Lives It is this cultural politics of sleep that this chapter focuses on, which is manifested in personal responsibilization, and broader commoditization, of sleep. The chapter locates sleep media—​technologies designed to mediate and modulate patterns of sleep—​within a larger field of digital life in such a way as to draw attention to ambiguities and power relations around disconnection. This everyday cultural politics and biopolitics of sleep, which we study through a focus on product and marketing materials and by surveying various digital products, configures relations between bodies, technologies, and spaces to produce particular values and norms of somnolescence, arrangements that are unevenly distributed in their imperatives and affects. This approach builds on the work of Crawford et al. (2015), who analyzed advertising materials of self-​measurement in historical weight scale and contemporary wearable self-​trackers. Crawford et al. (2015) analyzed discourses around data, noting while both historic and contemporary technologies emphasized self-​knowledge and control through measurement, contemporary self-​trackers, “enter into a relation that is an inherently uneven exchange—​they are providing more data than they receive, and have little input as to the life of that data—​where it is stored, whether it can be deleted and with whom it is shared” (p. 493). Extending this specific work focused on products and marketing for self-​tracking—​ as well as broader critiques of sleep media from both media theory and health sociology perspectives (Fuller, 2018; Williams et al., 2010)—​this chapter takes the critique of the digital encroachment into everyday life into an analysis at the intersection of sleeping commercial technology products and sleeping architectures, in terms of both sleep phases and environments. Focusing on product and marketing materials, the sites of analysis include the following: personal sleep architectures, involving efforts to manage or optimize the spatiotemporalities of sleep architectures; and household sleep architectures that use sensors and Internet connectivity to monitor and automate sensory environments in order to optimize the architectural spaces of sleep. At the same time, the architectures of sleep mediation examined in this chapter signify how such arrangements are unevenly distributed, with disconnective sleep technologies operating as a form of privilege and distinction for those who have the resources (knowledge, time, money, access) to reshape their spaces and rhythms of sleep.

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  145

Sleep Interventions Personal Sleep Architectures Personal efforts to manage or optimize personal sleep architectures include the polyphasic sleep routines tech that enthusiasts have adopted as form of biohacking via sleep tracking and analytics; everyday sleep tracking through various haptic media like the Ōura ring which feel for movement or pulse to measure sleep; and the gamification of sleep, such as the recently announced Pokémon Sleep game. Personal health and sleep management has emerged through the widespread use of sleep-​tracking software and hardware, including apps and wearables. Williams et al. (2015) highlight how personal sleep monitoring was enabled by technologies that moved outside the scientific and medical institutions of the sleep lab, and into everyday life through the development of wearable devices, mobile phones, and Internet applications (see also Kroker, 2007). These wearable and tracking technologies fit into developments of haptic media technologies in which embodied and intimate connections with media are expanded through an increasing range of sensors for monitoring the physiology of bodies (see Parisi, 2018)—​various signals for measuring bodily functions, from movement to breathing, to heart rate and blood pressure—​applied to sleep tracking. The core feature characterizing sleep-​tracking apps is, of course, the capacity to measure and communicate data about sleep patterns using one of two sensors—​the phone’s accelerometer or its microphone to track either bodily movement or breathing sounds. These measures, movement or sound, are taken as a proxy for sleep quality, the key principle being that more activity indicates lighter sleep, while stillness indicates deeper sleep. Algorithms take this sensor data to produce metrics and visualizations of sleep architecture, including patterns and quality. Such everyday and personal health monitoring borrow from the more scientifically precise sleep laboratory monitoring known as polysomnography and use of wearables by sleep specialists for measuring sleep quality in the home, known as actigraphy. Polysomnography requires patients to enter a sleep laboratory and to be monitored by over a dozen sensor technologies. While considered the “gold standard” of sleep-​monitoring research, it is nevertheless expensive and inconvenient for the patient. Consumer wearables, by contrast, put sleep-​tracking technologies in the hands of

146  (Dis)Connected Lives everyday users. Commercial product literature emphasizes how sensor technologies have become increasingly precise, improved through more “direct” haptic measurement via sensors that touch the skin to record more accurate measures (beyond movement and sound) and measure heart rate using LED lights (a method technically called photoplethysmography). Such commercial products range from multipurpose self-​tracking devices, such as the FitBit, Apple Watch, and Microsoft band, to more dedicated sleep wearables like the Ōura ring. Sleep sensors, then, include accelerometers and gyroscopes for tracking movement, and microphones for recording sound, but also haptic sensors like the photoplethysmograph, which measure volume of blood flow through pulse oximetry or LED illumination. In the “wearable wars,” claims to accuracy through distinctions in sensor technology abound. For example, the Fitbit Charge 3, shifted from popular green to red light sensor technology, which it claims can read deeper into the body. Green lights can experience problems when trying to sense data from within, while skin tone and tattoos have also been known to cause issues for green light sensor technology (Sawh, 2017). In contrast, “the body is a poor absorber of red light allowing the light to pass much deeper into the body and a larger volume of tissues to help provide more insightful data and could lead to improved accuracy with biometric data like heart rate” (Sawh, 2017). Distinction is also claimed through the novelty of sensor technologies. The Ōura ring, for example, sets itself apart by dedicating itself to sleep tracking (rather than general activity tracking), and incorporates a body temperature sensor in addition to movement and infrared LED claims. The three sensors allow the Ōura ring to measure movement, heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure variation. Technologies and practices of personal sleep tracking and analytics have implications that move beyond health-​and well-​being-​focused efforts to manage sleep hygiene and improve sleep practices, and shift into a register of customizing and optimizing sleep architectures to maximize its productivity and value (O’Neill & Nansen, 2019). Features such as “smart wake-​up” functions, and the notion of brainwave frequency modulation through the use of “binaural beats,” suggest that sleep apps and wearables should be understood not only in terms of the customization of one’s sleep schedule, but also as media which seek to reconfigure the value of “good sleep” practices by directly intervening in modulating sleep architectures and frequencies.

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  147

Such visions of customizing and reconfiguring sleep extend to more fringe endeavors such as transhumanist “biohackers,” who envisage and operationalize poly-​phasic sleep patterns, deploying sensors and data monitoring to optimize and improve health, alertness, and productivity by maximizing wakefulness hours (see Berson, 2015: 84–​99; Reagle, 2019). There are many variations and approaches taken by sleep hackers, though perhaps most emblematic of the movement is the work of sleep hacking “pioneer” Marie Staver, who as a philosophy student developed what she refers to as the Uberman (sic) approach. Staver would eschew a “monophasic” full night’s architecture of sleep in favor of catnaps scattered through the day 20 minutes every four hours, ultimately amounting to 2 hours total sleep time per day. Uberman is the most famous and most oft-​attempted form of sleep hacking. However, as the Polyphasic Sleep website, which promotes sleep hacking, puts it, “[s]‌adly, due to its extreme difficulty or likely impossibility for people with normal genetics, almost all of these attempts end in failure” (Zandimna, 2019). Staver later developed the less extreme and supposedly more achievable Everyman approach, which involves a three-​hour sleep in the early morning, supplemented by two half-​hour naps during the day (see Preston, 2016). These activities promote a biopolitics of working past the point of the body’s corporeal limits, an attitude implicated within a productivist vision of bodily mastery and increased output. As Joshua Berson argues, the development and popularization of polyphasic sleep practices: is symptomatic of a shift in the economy of vigilance, the rhythmic flow of attention, arousal and alertness through our bodies and through the dyadic and collective configurations of movement by which we enact our social world . . . That is, the relationship between the passage of time and the rhythmic alternation of our states of vigilance and quiescence is becoming more labile. (Berson, 2015: 87)

More prosaically, sleep-​positive solutions are emerging through the explosive growth and development of digital products that position mobile applications as personal behavioral tools for optimizing everyday sleeping practices and quality (Liang & Ploderer, 2016). Here, the medical concern for how mobile devices disrupt sleep is supplanted by an ideology of commercial innovation in which mobile software applications are envisaged as able to produce better sleep through sleep management functions that include notifications

148  (Dis)Connected Lives and alerts, sleep tracking and monitoring, and relaxation therapies to encourage good sleep hygiene. This shift connects with the emergence of the Quantified Self movement that seeks “self-​knowledge through numbers” (Wolf, 2010). As Martin Berg argues in his analysis of the Ōura, this self-​ quantification can have an alienating effect upon the sleeper’s knowledge of the self, as “[b]‌odily experiences are thus positioned as remote, intangible and perhaps even impossible to make sense of without proper guidance from a technology that interprets, categorises and visualises these experiences in ways through which they are rendered measurable, precise and comparable” (2017: 8). While sleep possesses its own dynamics and specificity as a form of somatic experience, the issues of bodily alienation, overinvestment in the authority of number, and questions of governmentality and biopower have resonance with other critical discussions of the Quantified Self (see Lupton, 2016), and it is thus important to place the phenomena of sleep apps within the broader ecology of self-​tracking technologies, politics, and cultures. This tracking extends to using gamification to actively intervene in sleep monitoring and mediation, including for children. We can see this in the May 2019 announcement by Pokémon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara of the launch of an enigmatic new mobile game, Pokémon Sleep, to be released sometime in 2020 as a companion app to the popular augmented reality game, Pokémon Go. While details about how Pokémon sleep will function remain scarce, it has been described as gamifying sleep in a similar way to how Pokémon Go gamified activity tracking: “turn[ing] sleep into entertainment” (Lum, 2019). Videogame critics were quick to speculate, describing how the app would use accelerometer sensors built into mobile phones or the Pokémon Go Plus+ wearable to track movement and measure the duration, efficiency, and latency of user’s sleep patterns—​much in the manner of other sleep-​tracking apps (O’Neill & Nansen, 2019). Exactly how sleep data will be used within the mechanics of Pokémon Go play remains unclear at this stage; however, what is evident is the social function—​the aim is to gamify sleep by “reward[ing] good sleep habits as part of a healthy lifestyle” (Lum, 2019). As such, Pokémon Sleep connects mobile games and digital play with sleep technologies and sleep health, specifically targeting and training young sleep technology consumers in the process. We have seen an explosion in the technological monitoring and mediation of sleep, extending from mobile applications to all kinds of wearable and “smart” devices. These recast sleep as a site of productivity and improvement

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  149

through the datafication of sleep tracking for both personal well-​being and economic value. Situated within this historical trajectory and broader digital encroachment on everyday life, Pokémon Sleep represents an intensification of self-​tracking imaginaries (Crawford et al. 2015), not only utilizing sensors, data, and algorithms to monitor sleep quality but transforming the unproductive time of sleep into the quantified grind of digital play (Hulsey, 2019). In doing so, rather than viewing sleep as a competitor to entertainment industries—​a sentiment expressed by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in 2017—​Pokémon Sleep aims to entangle sleep within a continuous “interface envelop” (Ash, 2015) of play activity and reward for the games industry. This ambition to challenge possibly the last boundary of disconnection has, however, not been received smoothly with public reactions on the Twitter hashtag #PokémonSleep characterized by memes, humor, antagonism, and critique. Many of these forms of personal sleep media position good sleep within the cultural and biopolitics of personal responsibilization, in which individuals are tasked with improving their well-​ being and productivity by monitoring sleep patterns and refining sleep hygiene. This connects with observations in disconnections literature about the centrality of self-​ management in discourses about digital disconnection (Fish, 2017; Jorge, 2019; Sutton, 2017; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019; Enli & Syvertsen, this volume). These discourses identify a range of risks associated with digital media use and place responsibility for managing those risks on individual users who must mitigate them by limiting their technology use and “unplugging” or “detoxing” regularly. As several scholars have noted, this emphasis on individual responsibility leaves out questions about whether those risks might be better combated through changes in technology regulation or design (Fish, 2017; Jorge, 2019; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). Sleep media thus provide another example of how disconnection is positioned as an individual responsibility in a way that elides interrogation of broader structural factors that might be contributing to the need for “better” disconnection.

Household Sleep Architectures Logics of personal sleep management have, in turn, been adopted within household spatio-​sensory arrangements, such as bedroom IoT systems that

150  (Dis)Connected Lives monitor and automate temperature, sound, and luminosity to optimize the architectural spaces of sleep. Household “smart” consumer products reposition sleep into a state that can, via sensors and Internet connectivity, be made more productive within an ecology of geo-​mediated monitoring and modulating of bedroom spaces and sleep architectures. These technologies include various combinations of sensory registers: haptic, acoustic, and visual. Haptic media, such as the Apple Watch, shift in functionality from simply tracking and analyzing data to haptically intervening in sleep by, for example, using vibrating alarms to stop snoring; acoustic media, like the Sleep Shepherd Blue and Nightingale Sleep System, listen to auditory signals from the body or produce sounds to optimize the frequencies and atmospheres of sleep; visual media, like the Withings Aura Sleep System, use light to customize and optimize spaces of sleep, and to manage sleep-​wake rhythms via sunrise or sunset alarms that adjust melatonin hormones in the body. These sensor features, then, extend from assisting with sleep tracking and management to automating and modulating sleep architectures through a more direct intervention into the transitions between waking and sleeping. In doing so, they enact a range of sleep-​related functions, including lulling (to sleep with sounds, movements, frequency), soothing (environmental adjustment), comforting (night light, soft materials), spooning (sleep robot), nudging (snore control), and arousing (smart wake-​up). A key haptic feature, found in the Sleep Cycle for Apple Watch, for example, combines audio cues to detect snoring and applies vibration applied to the wrist to “silently nudge” sleeping bodies to move position without waking: The goal is simple. Using the Apple Watch’s Taptic Engine, Sleep Cycle can give your wrist a subtle (and silent) tap when the iPhone app detects that you’re snoring. The tap is subtle enough that it shouldn’t wake you, Sleep Cycle says, but it should prompt you to change positions which can help you stop snoring. It’s like when you’re snoring wakes up your partner and they prod you turn over and stop snoring, except your partner is Apple Watch and no one has to wake up tired and annoyed. (Hall, 2018)

Another key haptic feature is vibrating alarms that wake users at the best moment, as defined by an algorithmically determined “smart wake-​up”

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  151

function. Rather than setting an exact time to wake, the smart wake-​up feature allows users to enter a time period in which the app determines the optimal time of waking based on sensor data on stages of sleep. These alarms listen to auditory signals from the body to algorithmically determine the optimal point within the phases of the sleep cycle to be woken. The smart wake-​up alarm can be understood within the context of broader historical transformations of measuring and regulating sleep schedules. The alarm clock itself has a long-​established pedigree, and adjustable mechanized alarm clocks were first patented in France in the mid-​19th century (Steiner, 2019: 339). In their classical form, they can be understood as an archetypal example of the disciplinary function of the clock and of “the mechanical routine” of “machine civilisation” more broadly (Mumford, 1934: 269). It was only in the mid-​20th century that the snooze alarm first appeared as a feature of commercial alarm clocks. In 1956 General Electric marketed its Telechron Snooz-​Alarm as “the world’s most humane alarm clock” (Kennan, 2001), enabling the sleeper to “really enjoy turning over for that delicious final snooze, knowing the alarm will go off again” (New York Times, Oct 28, 1956: 66). In 1959 a patent was filed for a “drowse” alarm, which described its purpose as “to provide an alarm clock having a novel delayed-​alarm mechanism . . . which is well suited for operation by a drowsy, just awakened individual without necessity for intentional or directed effort and without risk that the alarm clock will be knocked off the bedside table as a result of the fumbling efforts of the user” (General Time Corporation, 1959). The function of the alarm clock then shifted subtly from the relatively straightforward imposition of a normative temporal order, and toward a more “humane,” emergent form of personalized sleep architecture, eliding “intentional or directed effort” in favor of the modulation of a semiconscious state of “drowsing” (cf. Hassoun & Gilmore, 2017). This shift was in turn developed by entrepreneur Derek Lidow’s 1978 patent for the “Sleep State Inhibited Wake-​Up Alarm.” Lidow’s device involved the monitoring of a range of physiological data points, and was conceptualized as an inversion of “systems wherein an alarm is given . . . in response to the monitoring of the brain waves of a subject which would indicate that he is falling asleep or that he is experiencing a medical catastrophy [sic]” (International Rectifier Corporation, 1978). While such systems were designed to initiate an alarm in the event of, for example, long-​haul truck drivers falling asleep at the wheel, or intensive care patients suddenly

152  (Dis)Connected Lives losing vital function, Lidow designed his system so that the wake-​up alarm would not sound until after the user had moved out of deep sleep and into a shallow-​sleep phase. Lidow understood such a staged awakening as enabling an “easier” wake-​up, and the user would “feel more refreshed than if he had been awakened from sleep during the deep-​sleep phase” (International Rectifier Corporation, 1978). This can be understood then as an early commodification of disconnection—​a form of self-​management which simultaneously refines the automation of sleep management at the same time as it positions the alarm as a potentially unwelcome intruder upon the unconscious sleeper. Lidow’s patent required the use of a raft of cumbersome and expensive medical sensors, likely limiting its commercial viability. In contrast, in contemporary smartphone apps and “smart” sleep devices, smart wake-​ups are monitored through the use of widely available and inexpensive motion sensors. These features, then, extend from assisting with sleep tracking and management to automating and modulating sleep through a more direct haptic intervention into the transitions between waking and sleeping. The combination of accuracy in tracking and optimization in modulating somnolescence arguably reaches its pinnacle in acoustic wearables like the Sleep Shepherd Blue headband, or the Luuna sleep mask. These technologies use EEG (electroencephalograph) sensors in the fabric of the product to monitor electrical signals in brain activity and have small embedded speakers that provide biofeedback. The developers of these systems claim that biofeedback operates dynamically in real time, monitoring brain activity and generating appropriate sounds and ambient music in response to constantly modulate the frequency of brainwaves. These sounds include low-​ frequency audio tones and binaural beats that are directed into each ear to induce sleep. Luuna then creates a biofeedback system that uses real-​time brainwave data to help continually optimize your sleep cycle, including a smart wake-​up alarm that gently lulls you awake. Acoustic sleep media are not just targeting the body and its sleep architectures, but also the architectures of sleeping environments. These include white noise machines, sleeping headphones, and speakers that mask unwanted noise in the bedroom or lull you to sleep with relaxing music, ambient soundscapes, or nature sounds. Like other household sleep media, such environmental acoustics in turn move from monitoring to modulating environments. The Nightingale Sleep System, for example, immerses your

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  153

bedroom in what the company refers to as “sound blankets” in order to mask environmental noises that can prevent you from falling asleep. A sound blanket is created by having sound signals, from white noise to whale songs, project from multiple points in the room, creating a stereo speaker effect that purportedly saturates the room with sound more effectively than a one-​unit localized speaker. These sound blankets are customized to individual environments based on surveys that each user completes about their bedroom materials, surfaces, and furnishings, all of which affect sound absorption, as well as any ambient noises in the room or personal medical conditions, such as tinnitus or snoring. Another environmental acoustics technology is the S+ by ResMed, a smart device that records the light, noise, and temperature conditions in your room. The device works by sending out pulses of radio waves and then listens for the signal’s “echo” an echo-​locative approach similar to that of bats. ResMed claims that the S+ can detect body movements using this system. It then processes this data using proprietary algorithms that calculate a user’s sleep architecture and provides metrics, including tailored suggestions on how to improve the sleep conditions in their bedroom. Visual media operate by lighting spaces and are used to manage sleep-​ wake rhythms via sunrise or sunset alarms, and to customize and optimize spaces of sleep based on smart circadian lighting systems and light therapy lamps. Light adjustment is now a common feature of smartphones, such as Apple’s Night Shift mode which reduces the illumination and blue light of the phone screen. These features are intended to reduce the negative impacts of phone use on sleep as wavelengths at the blue end of the spectrum inhibit the production of melatonin. However we can also observe interventions in lighting in a range of other IoT and smart bedroom products, including Philips Hue color-​changing bulbs, and Philips Somneo Connected Lamp, both of which can be programmed to optimize phases of falling asleep and waking through sunset and sunrise light simulation that adjusts melatonin hormones in the body. We have also begun to see the emergence of products that focus on the spatiality of bedrooms by assembling together multiple sensor functions. These monitor and modulate sleep environments via items like lamps, pillows, blankets and mattresses that employ multiple modes of sensory experience including sound, light, and touch. Such products leverage discourses of the smart home and IoT to, in the language of Kitchin and Dodge (2011), transform bedrooms into “code-​spaces,” in which the digital reconfiguration

154  (Dis)Connected Lives of sleep spaces aims to automate, customize, and optimize sleep architectures. For example, the Withings Aura Sleep System includes a lamp device and sensor pad to monitor varied scales of sleep architecture. The sensor pad is placed underneath the mattress, and uses ballistocardiography (BCG) sensors to measure heart rate and breathing by detecting the micro-​ mechanical forces of arteries and blood vessels, in the same way a stethoscope does. The data from these sensors are then used to provide sleep metrics and smart wake-​ups. The Aura unit also analyzes the bedroom environment using sensors for room temperature, luminosity (light levels), and noise levels, and sends notifications via smartphone if there is too much light or noise in the room. The lamp device incorporates light and sound sequences for producing fall-​sleep and wake-​up programs that are comprised of slowly changing colors and ambient sleep soundtracks. Another smart bedroom product, the Eight mattress is a thin mattress cover designed to fit under your bed sheets. Like the Auram, it also uses multiple sensors to collect sleep and bed data including heart and breathing rate, movement, and bed temperature, as well as environmental data such as room temperature, humidity, noise, and levels of ambient light. In addition to the analytics and smart alarms common to other products, Eight makes adjustments to your bed’s temperature during the night for optimal somnolescence. Eight also communicates with other smart home devices, making the mattress part of the connected home environment, such that it can be programmed (via IFTTT (if this then that) software to sync and automate things like temperature, alarm systems, and lighting with sleeping and waking. Finally, we see the emergence of smart products that do not seek to become embedded or discretely disappear within bedroom architectures, but instead are marketed as smart sleeping companions. The Somnox sleep robot, for example, advertised as the “ultimate sleep companion,” is described within marketing materials as designed to nestle into your body like a newborn lain against your chest (Pardes, 2019: n.p.). The company’s marketing materials show a woman in pink pajamas, spooning the Somnox, and facing away from her partner who sleeps beside her. The $600 device promises to help its bedtime companion fall asleep more quickly by guiding their breathing rhythms. It is shaped like an oversized butternut squash and covered in soft fabric; inside is a motorized breathing mechanism, which expands and contracts like a miniature lung. The idea is that by cuddling the device, your

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  155

breathing begins to synchronize with its mechanical lung to slow down your heart, make you feel relaxed, and guide you swiftly toward sleep: Unlike other pieces of sleep tech—​headbands that futz with your brainwaves, or mattresses that adjust their temperature throughout the night—​the Somnox offers its solution with minimal intervention. You simply turn it on, hold it against your chest, and snuggle it to sleep. (Pardes, 2019: n.p.)

All forms of sleep media are intimate to some degree, being positioned in the bedroom and used to monitor and intervene in states of reduced consciousness. However, the fact that the Somnox takes the form of an anthropomorphized companion and works by being explicitly present, rather than invisible, heightens this intimacy. The Somnox also most explicitly elicits the trope, common in the marketing of sleep media, that consumers should adopt better sleep hygiene through practices of self-​care or discipline—​ practices that are positioned as only achievable through intimate forms of commercial technology consumption. Collectively these products reposition sleep into a state that can be made more efficient, controlled, productive or optimized via the use of “smart” and IoT technologies that monitor and modulate the feel, sounds, and illumination of bedrooms and sleep architectures. They hold out the promise of a more embedded and integrated system that reconfigures bedroom spaces for a better night’s sleep, as part of a growing range of products from the sleep industry for managing rest, wake, and alertness. In doing so, they scale up the cultural and biopolitical demands of personal sleep management, from the body to the bedroom. These intensive arrangements of sleeping environments remediate the tools of the 20th-​century sleep lab, such as the polysomnogram, the datafication of personal sleep-​tracking apps, and the hype of IoT augmentation for the customization and optimization of sleep spaces. The reconfiguration of sleep spaces and rhythms, then, heightens both the crisis and commodification of disturbed sleep in the contemporary period, materializing the contradiction of digital technologies as both disrupting and solving the problem of sleep. In particular, these technologies operate to target key sensory modes—​sound, light, touch—​in optimizing the architectures of contemporary sleep. Delegating to digital media somewhat shifts models of sleep

156  (Dis)Connected Lives management from one of personal responsibility, to one in which personal responsibility is enrolled within distributed, sensor-​based, and data-​driven automation. Here, often mundane automation in smart home technology enrolls human occupants in ways that insert the body within feedback loops, cybernetic configurations of ongoing adjustment and modulation. Interestingly, these technologies then shift the discourse around sleep away from a focus on good sleep “hygiene,” or the maintenance of routines to improve sleep predicated on a disciplinary discourse of “self-​care” and self-​management, and toward a discourse of control, which instead targets the environments in which sleeping occurs. In turn, such technological development removes the obligation of the individual to interpret and act on data, and instead directly intervenes in the automation and modulation of sleep architectures at multiple levels—​from the entrainment of brainwave frequencies, to the manipulation of atmospheres, and the reconfiguring of bedroom spaces toward optimal conditions of sleep.

Disparities in Sleep Media and Disconnection These technological interventions and their promises of improved sleep extend and complicate existing observations about digital disconnection. Most immediately, sleep media provide further examples of the complex entanglement between digital connections and disconnections. This has been a central theme in the theorization of disconnection, with scholars observing that connection and disconnection are not mutually exclusive but rather tightly entwined, as disconnection often involves or enables connection (Baumer et al., 2013; Brubaker et al., 2016; Fish, 2017; Light, 2014; Light & Cassidy, 2014). So far, however, this theorization has occurred mostly in studies of communication technologies, particularly social media, where disconnection is synonymous with the non-​use of technologies (such as quitting) or with modes of technology use that limit connections to other people (such as blocking or unfollowing contacts). Charting recent developments in sleep media reveals further entanglements between connection and disconnection. Most immediately, with sleep media, technological connections, in the form of sleep monitoring and intervention, promise improved disconnections, in the form of optimized sleep.

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  157

This faith that digital technology can enhance periods of disconnection has also been observed in studies of communications media, namely in the form of apps and features that limit technology use through mechanisms such as reducing notifications or blocking access to specific platforms (Morrison & Gomez, 2014; Plaut, 2015). The app Siempo, for instance, discourages compulsive smartphone use by transforming home screens into grayscale interfaces that are scrubbed of branding and by continually changing the position of apps to prevent habitual use. Sleep media involve the same belief in technological solutions for disconnection. This is perhaps particularly the case with forms of household sleep media that not only monitor but directly and autonomously intervene in sleep. However, the distinction between sleep media and other technological solutions for digital disconnection is that, in the context of sleep, disconnection is pursued through adding, rather than altering, digital technologies. Rather than tweaking the design of smartphone interfaces or restricting access to social media, sleep media facilitate disconnection through the adoption and integration of technologies into the previously relatively untechnologized realm of everyday sleep. Sleep media create new reasons to adopt new technologies, producing new flows of data and new habits of technology engagement. No longer a “paranodal” (Mejias, 2013) state, sleep becomes networked. As noted earlier, the politics of sleep media also represent a commodification of sleep, as they are marketed and sold, often at high prices. This commodification of sleep can be positioned within a broader commodification of disconnection. In the context of communication technologies, scholars have noted that disconnection is increasingly commercialized through products and services that extend from digital detox retreats (Fish, 2017; Sutton, 2017; Hesselberth, this volume) and technology self-​help guides (Syvertsen & Enli, 2019), to themed mugs and t-​shirts (Jorge, 2019). As Jorge (2019) notes, Instagram influencers also use discourses of disconnection to sell unrelated goods by, for instance, linking their 24-​hour social media hiatus with the similarly restorative benefits of an eye cream. Sleep media extend this commercialization of disconnection through apps, masks, headphones, furnishings, lighting, and other sleep aids that similarly promise to deliver a healthier, more balanced, and more efficient life. Particularly in their capacity as luxury goods, these products demonstrate how disconnection operates as a marker of taste and distinction. Portwood-​ Stacer (2012) makes this observation in the context of quitting or abstaining

158  (Dis)Connected Lives from Facebook. She describes those disconnections as performative acts that signify a rejection of mainstream practices and a preference for more “authentic,” “meaningful,” or “cool” pastimes. In the context of sleep media, the use of technologies to optimize disconnection arguably operates as a similar marker of cultural distinction, both by showing a person’s awareness of and commitment to the importance of “good” sleep, and through their and ability to purchase and use technologies promising to deliver it. Through these processes of technologization and commercialization, sleep media raises questions about who can access the optimized disconnection they promise. As scholars have observed in the context of communications media, disconnection is not equally available to all. For instance, rejecting or limiting the use of particular digital media is easier for individuals whose social and/​or economic capital will not be impacted by doing so (Marwick, 2011; Portwood-​Stacer, 2013; Woodstock, 2014: 1988). As Portwood-​Stacer (2013: 1054) notes, “having the option to unplug is a privilege in itself, and it may be a privilege that accrues disproportionately to those who already enjoy economic, political, and other forms of privilege.” Sleep media, as conduits for a different mode of disconnection, are similarly bound up in questions about privilege. Research into various places of digital disconnection (Fast et al., this volume) identifies the bedroom as a significant site in which media use is socially stratified between working-​and middle-​class homes and hence operates as a space of class distinction: While it can be a place of excessive media use (e.g., where media are used for entertainment, sexual or information purposes), it is also a place of media ambivalence where disconnection sentiments and visions of fixity materialize (e.g., in acts of removing or silencing one’s smartphone) (Salmela et al., 2019). Also, screen-​free bedrooms are oftentimes advocated in the contemporary public debate on media dependency, which might make the “anxious middle class” more inclined to follow suit and adjust their media uses and moralities accordingly. (Fast et al., this volume)

Our analysis builds on this spatial analysis of bedroom media by analyzing personal and household sleep technologies. In doing so we complicate clear class-​based distinctions by observing how privilege also intersects with varying forms of access, knowledge, or ideological views of technology

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  159

necessary to undertake activities like sleep hacking (Reagle, 2019), “smart wake-​up” or home sensory modulation. The processes of datafication and automation involved in sleep media reproduce normative ideas about sleep architectures as something to be improved and optimized. And paradoxically, what ostensibly appears as personalized customization or individualized sleep hacking actually reinforces a dominant ideal and singular model of sleep as a monophasic rhythm of REM/​NREM phases bound by technologies for monitoring and modulating sleeping spaces. This elides what Fuller (2018) and others have shown as a rich and diverse historical, cultural, and social practice. Further, these technologies remain inaccessible for many due to their cost, their technological requirements, and their emphasis on individual sleeping bodies, all of which do not necessarily or neatly align with a whole range of marginalized bodies whose lifestyles and working cultures do not synchronize with the dominant architectural model of sleep.

References Arora, T., Broglia, E., Thomas, G.N., & Taheri, S. (2014). Associations between specific technologies and adolescent sleep quantity, sleep quality, and parasomnias. Sleep Medicine, 15(2), 240–​247. Ash, J. (2015). The Interface Envelope: Gaming, Technology, Power. London: Bloomsbury. Baumer, E., Adams, P., Khovanskaya, V., Liao, T., Smith, M., Schwanda Sosik, V., & Williams, K. (2013). Limiting, leaving, and (re)lapsing: An exploration of Facebook non-​use practices and experiences. In Proceedings of CHI’13 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3257–​3266. Berg, M. (2017). Making sense with sensors: Self-​tracking and the temporalities of wellbeing. Digital Health, 3, 1–​11. Berson, J. (2015). Computable Bodies: Instrumented Life and the Human Somatic Machine. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Brubaker, J., Ananny, M., & Crawford, K. (2016). Departing glances: A sociotechnical account of “leaving” Grindr. New Media & Society, 18(3), 373–​390. Buxton, O.M., Chang, A.M., Spilsbury, J.C., Bos, T., Emsellem, H., & Knutson, K.L. (2015). Sleep in the modern family: Protective family routines for child and adolescent sleep. Sleep Health, 1(1), 15–​27. Crary, J. (2013). 24/​7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso.

160  (Dis)Connected Lives Crawford, K., Lingel, J., & Karppi, T. (2015). Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-​tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(4–​5), 479–​496. Fish, A. (2017). Technology retreats and the politics of social media. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism and Critique, 15(1), 355–​369. Fuller, M. (2018). How To Sleep: The Art, Biology and Culture of Unconsciousness. London and New York: Bloomsbury. Garrison, M.M., Liekweg, K., & Christakis, D.A. (2011). Media use and child sleep: The impact of content, timing, and environment. Pediatrics, 128(1), 29–​35. General Time Corporation. (1959) Alarm clock. US patent no. US3039260A. Goggin, G. (2011). Ubiquitous apps: Politics of openness in global mobile cultures. Digital Creativity, 22(3), 148–​159. Gregg, M. (2011). Work’s Intimacy. Cambridge: Polity. Hall, Z. (2018). Sleep Cycle debuts Apple Watch app with snore prevention, silent alarm. 9 to 5 Mac. Accessed May 6, 2020. Available at: . Hassoun, D., & Gilmore, J. (2017). Drowsing: Toward a concept of sleepy screen engagement. Communication and Critical/​Cultural Studies, 14(2), 103–​119. Hern, A. (2017). Netflix’s biggest competitor? Sleep. guardian.co.uk. Accessed April 28, 2020. Available at: . Hulsey, N. (2019). Games in Everyday Life: For Play. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. International Rectifier Corporation. (1978). Sleep state inhibited wake up alarm. US patent no. 4228806. Jorge, A. (2019). Social media, interrupted: Users recounting temporary disconnection on Instagram. Social Media + Society, 5(4), 1–​19. Karppi, T. (2011). Digital suicide and the biopolitics of leaving Facebook. Transformations: Journal of Media and Culture, 20, 1–​28. Kennan, J. (2001) 7H241The Snooz-​ Alarm. Accessed July 26, 2020. Available at: . Kitchin, R., & Dodge, M. (2011) Code/​Space: Software and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kroker, K. (2007). The Sleep of Others and the Transformations of Sleep Research. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Liang, Z., & Ploderer, B. (2016) Sleep tracking in the real world: A qualitative study into barriers for improving sleep. In Proceedings of OzCHI 2016.

Senses and Sensors of Sleep  161 Light, B. (2014). Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Marwick, A. (2011, August). “If you don’t like it, don’t use it. It’s that simple.” ORLY? Social media collective research blog. Available at: http://​socialmediacollective.org/​ 2011/​08/​11/​. Mejias, U. A. (2013). Off the Network: Disrupting the Digital World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Morrison, S., & Gomez, R. (2014). Pushback: Expressions of resistance to the “evertime” of constant online connectivity. First Monday, 19(8). n.p. Available at: https://​firstmonday.org/​ojs/​index.php/​fm/​article/​view/​4902. Mumford, L. (1934). Technics and Civilisation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. O’Neill, C., & Nansen, B. (2019). Sleep mode: Mobile apps and the optimisation of sleep-​wake rhythms. First Monday, 24(6). n.p. Available at: https://​firstmonday. org/​ojs/​index.php/​fm/​article/​view/​9574. Pardes, A. (2019). Review: Somnox. Wired Magazine. April 13. Available at: https://​ www.wired.com/​review/​somnox-​sleep-​robot/​. Plaut, E. R. (2015). Technologies of avoidance: The swear jar and the cell phone. First Monday, 20(11). https://​doi.org/​10.5210/​fm.v20i11.6295. Portwood-​Stacer, L. (2013). Media refusal and conspicuous non-​consumption: The performative and political dimensions of Facebook abstention. New Media and Society, 15(7), 1041–​1057. Preston, E. (2016). The Uberwoman who beat sleep. Vice. Accessed May 6, 2020. Available at: . Reagle, Jr, J. M. (2019). Hacking Life: Systematized Living and Its Discontents. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sadowski, J. (2020) Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism Is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Sawh, M. (2017). Red light, green light: Why Fitbit’s sensor shake-​up is a huge deal. Wearable. August 11. Available at: . Seamon, D. (2015). A Geography of the Lifeworld (Routledge Revivals): Movement, Rest and Encounter. London: Routledge. Sleeptrackers.io (2019). Withings Aura Sleep System: Full Review. Available at: . Starr, F. S. (1978). Melnikov: Solo Architect in a Mass Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

162  (Dis)Connected Lives Steiner, C. (2019). Reading time: An anthropology of clocks in the history of photography. In MacClancy, J. (Ed.), Exotic No More: Anthropology For the Contemporary World (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sutton, T. (2017). Disconnect to reconnect: The food/​technology metaphor in digital detoxing. First Monday, 22(6). n.p. Available at: https://​firstmonday.org/​ojs/​index. php/​fm/​article/​view/​7561. Syvertsen, T., & Enli, G. (2019). Digital detox: Media resistance and the promise of authenticity. Convergence, 26(5–​6), 1269–​1283. Van den Bulck J. (2015). Sleep apps and the quantified self: Blessing or curse? Journal of Sleep Research, 24(2), 121–​123. Wahnschaffe A., Haedel S., Rodenbeck A. et al. (2013). Out of the lab and into the bathroom: Evening short-​term exposure to conventional light suppresses melatonin and increases alertness perception. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 14(2), 2573–​2589. Walker, M. (2017). Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams. London: Allen Lane. Williams, S. (2011). The Politics of Sleep: Governing (Un)consciousness in the Late Modern Age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Williams, S., Coveney, C., & Meadows, R. (2015). ‘M-​apping’ sleep? Trends and transformations in the digital age. Sociology of Health and Illness, 37(7), 1039–​1054. Williams, S., Meadows, R., & Arber, S. (2010). The sociology of sleep. In Cappuccio F., Miller M., & Lockley S. (Eds.), Sleep, Health and Society: From Aetiology to Public Health (pp. 275–​299). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wolf, G. (2010). The data-​driven life. The New York Times Magazine. Available at: http://​www.nytimes.com/​2010/​05/​02/​magazine/​02self-​measurement-​t.html. Accessed February 5, 2018. Woodstock, L. (2014). Media resistance: Opportunities for practice theory and new media research. International Journal of Communication, 8, 1983–​2001. https://​ ijoc.org/​index.php/​ijoc/​article/​view/​2415. Zandimna. (2019). Uberman. Polyphasic Sleep (online). Accessed May 6, 2020. Available at: .

7 Digital Ruins Virtual Worlds as Landscapes of Disconnection Gonzalo C. Garcia and Vincent Miller

Introduction The impact on Earth society is hard to overestimate. With the development of voice technology, communication in VWs [Virtual Worlds] will move from cumbersome chat to telephone-​like conversation, thus greatly enhancing the VW as a place of social interaction . . . Families living thousands of miles apart will meet every day for a few hours in the evening, gathering their avatars around the virtual kitchen table and catching up. And the day of driving to the store may well be over. Earth roads will be empty because, instead of using them, everyone will be sailing across the azure heavens on their flying purple horses, to shimmering virtual Walmarts in the sky. (Castranova, 2001: 39)

In 2005, economist Edward Castronova published Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, one of the first comprehensive studies of virtual world environments (Castronova, 2005). This study was primarily focused on gaming worlds, such as Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and World of Warcraft—​not only as profitable businesses, but as spaces that were beginning to generate significant economies with implications in the “real world.” However, he also included a relatively new site, Second Life, which, in contrast to gaming worlds, had no organized “gaming” element: no developer-​made puzzles to solve, no linear or open mission design, and no levels to beat. Instead, Second Life was at its core what he called a “social world,” in which the primary goal was to socialize and chat with other Gonzalo C. Garcia and Vincent Miller, Digital Ruins In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0008

164  (Dis)Connected Lives people. Users were encouraged to invest their time and money in the world (through mechanics put in place to create interaction between players and these virtual environments) by building and modifying their avatars, developing land and creating virtual objects, environments, and social spaces. Castronova’s depiction of these emerging economies was indeed prophetic in the case of online gaming, where their potential has been realized in the form of a hugely profitable Massively Multiplayer gaming industry (Businesswire, 2017). However, the “social worlds” he described—​these supposed hubs for virtual connections—​have not lived up to this potential. Eighteen years later, one hears very little about these types of virtual worlds. With more developed types of connecting, platforms (e.g., social networking and video conferencing, those in which the virtual connectedness is not diluted by recognizably game-​like mechanics or perceived as virtual niche spaces) are now more immediate and accessible ways to achieve the kind of interactions Castronova described, and the gamification of those interactions has now been replaced by game worlds with clear game objectives and social connections though gameplay mechanics. However, between 2000 and 2010, such was the hype for all things virtual-​ social, that dozens of these virtual worlds were developed1 to capitalize on this new speculative electronic frontier. Over time, many, such as Kaneva and Your Alternative Life, have been deleted. Some such as There.com have been deleted and subsequently reborn with no success. Others, such as Red Light Centre, Entropia Universe, and IMVU, continue to modestly thrive in the niche markets of adult content, gambling, and cybersex. A surprising number though continue to exist as abandoned or semi-​abandoned spaces, largely forgotten, but often still home to a dwindling group of users who doggedly persist among a vast array of increasingly empty virtual spaces. The latter kind create questions about the remains—​the traces—​of agency in worlds which are materially intact but which now offer the experience of a particular kind of virtual disconnection, that is one that is dictated by an acknowledgment of past connective roles, of abandoned connections. We

1 Some examples include the following: Active Worlds (1995), Entropia Universe (2000), There.com (2003), Second Life (2003), IMVU (2004), Kaneva (2006), Twinity (2008), Blue Mars (2009), Third Rock Grid (2008), InWorldz (2009), Your Alternative Life (2009), Gojiyo (2010), Sine Space (2016); Teen-​oriented virtual worlds such as vSide (2006), Smallworlds (2008), Onverse (2009), Club Cooee (2009); and adult-​oriented worlds such as Utherverse/​Red light Center (2002), Eros Island (2012).

Digital Ruins  165

consider these spaces to be emblematic of digital ruins: online spaces that have been largely abandoned by their users but continue to exist intact. When thinking of ruined landscapes, the first port of call for most geographers would be the contemporary landscapes of post-​ industrialism and de-​industrialization which have inspired a host of recent work in cultural geography in particular. Of note here in particular is the work of Tim Edensor (2005a, 2005b, 2007, 2008). Taking a lead from Walter Benjamin’s approach to the study of modern life, Edensor sees in the materiality of industrial ruins and their discarded contents the manifestation of the myths of “progress” and “prosperity” that surrounded the development of these spaces in the modern industrial era of capitalism. For Walter Benjamin, the ruins of the modern city reflected a tension between the ascending dreams of their creation and the reality of everyday survival (Boym, 2011). For Edensor, the appreciation of such ruins allows us to question the ideology of neoliberal global capitalism, and the disconnection from post-​industrial flows of capital which consigned these spaces to irrelevance and blight and which continue to transform our towns, cities, and livelihoods. As such, they stand as a testament to capitalism’s failings, especially the sheer waste of places, materials, and people (Edensor, 2005a). However, while having much in common with their industrial, material counterparts, post-​industrial, digital ruins such as Blue Mars, Active Worlds, Twinity, and Second Life provide both interesting phenomenological and analytical contrasts to contemporary material ruinscapes. They also provide a unique opportunity for a critical analysis of virtual worlds as spaces of disconnection: particularly in their disconnection from time, their algorithmic disconnection from the social imaginary of the Internet, the experience of phenomenological disconnection one experiences in these places, and their premise as spaces of utopian disconnection from the limitations of the material. After a brief methodological discussion, these features will be discussed in turn.

Researching Digital Ruins In our investigation of digital ruins, we engaged in an ethnographic exploration of three abandoned or semi-​abandoned virtual worlds (Active Worlds, Twinity, and Blue Mars) conducted from December 2016 to November

166  (Dis)Connected Lives 2017. These three study sites all have their own unique histories, aesthetic and interactive features, software architectures, funding models, and levels of success (and failure). Active Worlds was developed as the first online three-​ dimensional (3D) virtual world by Circle of Fire Studios and fostered a large and dedicated user and builder community in the late 1990s and early 2000s. A succession of financial problems, ownership changes, reorganizations, and subscription fee rises led many to abandon the site in favor of Second Life. Active Worlds still has over 550 “worlds” in it and is populated by roughly 30 to 35 people at any given time. For context, Alphaworld, the largest of these worlds available, is roughly the size of California in virtual terms.2 Since 2013, Active Worlds has operated as a free service with no subscription fee and, unlike the other worlds, no in-​built economy. Twinity was released in 2008 by Metaversum GmbH and possessed the unique selling feature in that the site had ambitions to “mirror” major world cities such as Berlin, Singapore, London, New York, and Miami, even including Google street maps in its interface. New users were given “starter apartments” in Berlin and then encouraged to buy and create their own spaces, houses, and consumer goods. At its height, roughly 100 people would be on site at any given time. Currently, concurrent users usually number less than 15. The policy of giving away free “starter apartments” with registration has resulted in Twinity becoming a universe of an unknown number of empty rooms . . . some locked, but most still open to be visited. Finally, the above-​mentioned Blue Mars (released in 2009 by Avatar Reality) was marketed as a builder/​developer-​friendly, technologically superior alternative to Second Life, allowing for more sophisticated environments and social interactions. The Blue Mars philosophy was not to tolerate unfettered user-​generated content, but to license developers to maintain a standard of quality in the environment (although anyone could apply to be a developer). After a switch to emphasize mobile interfaces, users and developers abandoned the site, and it remains empty of users. We made several site visits at varying times to each world to explore different places and sites still open for public consumption, but largely ignored or abandoned. Resonant with real-​world urban exploration (which emphasizes how “experimental modes of exploration can play a vital role in the 2 For reference, this space is “rendered, in two-​dimensional space, as a plane . . . its areal extent spreads from a central point, Ground Zero (0N 0W) to four corners—​from (32,750S 32,750E) to (32,750N 32,750W)” (Shiode & Torrens, 2008).

Digital Ruins  167

development of critical approaches to the cultural geographies of cities,” see, e.g., Kindynis, 2016; Pinder, 2005; Garrett, 2014; Edensor, 2008), we documented our experiences through still and moving images and soundscapes. As a means of contextualizing these worlds’ decline, our explorations were supplemented with an engagement with promotional material, forums, websites, and advertisements for their respective sites. Our chosen approach for this project was autoethnography. Such approach means that we are using our own embodied engagement, personal experience, and reflexivity to understand these worlds (Adams, Ellis, & Jones, 2017; Ellis & Bochner, 2006). This focus on our own experiences meant that we did not engage with the small amounts of people still present in Twinity and Active Worlds, who were usually gathered together in one or two rooms or spaces, leaving the rest of the world empty. Due to our exploration being relatively short, and the evolved or complete state in which these worlds find themselves (we only experienced these spaces as digital ruins and not their gradual population decline), it’s important to acknowledge the multiplicity of experiences of disconnection taking place given the density of these virtual worlds’ habitus or doxic knowledge (Bourdieu, 1977). But it was the experience of traversing these empty spaces that we wanted to convey. Following writers such as Kathleen Stewart (1996, 2007) we suggest that documenting an affective, embodied experience of these places was the most appropriate way to capture their mood or atmosphere, telling us more about them and their significance than a more objective, abstract discussion of their contents and features. We also recognize that our embodied experience of these virtual places, objects, and landscapes is complicated by engagement through material and immaterial interfaces of screen, keyboard, and software, what James Ash refers to as an “interface envelope” (Ash, 2015). Such interfaces make possible our presence in these worlds and shape our experience of them. As Ash points out, they create novel sensory experiences, such as the synesthesia of touch and vision, through the physical movements of hands on keyboards and controllers determining what one sees on screen, or the haptic experience of texture experienced through visual effects such of movement or brittleness rendered on screen. In the case of virtual worlds, interface envelopes tend to prioritize “sociability” through the prominence of chat windows and avatar customization, and exploration through the ability to jump or teleport from one place, room

168  (Dis)Connected Lives or world, to another. Access to currency and the ability to shape or build objects and environments are usually also present in the interface. Such priorities come at the expense of the kinds of avatar movements and navigation available to more typical (and well-​known) gaming interfaces which prioritize speed, agility, gameplay actions, and access to weaponry in their experiences. By comparison, virtual world interfaces are slow and tedious. One can “fly” in Twinity and Active Worlds, but only at a walking pace, and Blue Mars only allows one to walk at a slow speed. Avatars were not meant to run and leap around these places, but talk, dance, explore, shop, and build. As Ellis and Bochner (2006) suggest, “Autoethnography wants the reader to care, to feel, to empathize, and to do something.” Our aim with this chapter is not only to bring the notion of “digital ruin” and some of its features into geographic discourse but also to foster an appreciation of these spaces, and the time, effort, and creativity that went into creating them. We want geographers and others to visit them, or similar abandoned digital spaces, and begin to see the Web not only as a space of multitudes, big data, algorithms, and networked infrastructures but also as a space of wasted effort: of personal projects, human relationships, and fledgling communities which have been subsequently abandoned or neglected.

Disconnection from Time: Digital Ruins and Pristine Abandonment While industrial ruins are a hallmark of the excess of materiality of the industrial age, digital ruins are, unsurprisingly, made up of immaterial virtual objects, and thus this research is placed within the “digital turn” (Ash, Kitchin, & Leszyznyski, 2018) of Geography, as a space of the digital, with its own landscapes and phenomenological experiences. For example, their virtual nature means that digital objects and landscapes do not occupy specific places in a world space and have a unique quantum quality of being both connected and disconnected, both here and there, offering an embodied virtual spatial connection which in itself underlines a disconnectedness from any recognizable interactions to material space. The experience of excess materiality in the industrial ruin is replaced by a more complicated set of engagements with virtual objects and landscapes through material and immaterial interfaces of screen, keyboard, and software (Ash, 2017).

Digital Ruins  169

As Joohan Kim (2001) points out, digital objects may not be material, but they have many of the properties of material “things”: such as durability and a kind of spatial extension. What Heidegger called “thing totality” and/​or “selfsameness.” Paul Leonardi (2010) argues similarly that digital objects, while not possessing materiality in a physical sense, possess the qualities of “practical instantiation” and “significance”; thus achieving a materiality not through their physical nature, but in how they are perceived of and used. At the same time, digital objects have a number of “un-​thing-​like” qualities. Because they are not physical, they have no temporal extension nor duration with objective time, so they do not age in the same way that material objects and structures, such as buildings, age. James Ash points this out when he suggests that game worlds have no “space” or “time,” merely processes of “spacing” and “timing” (a gradual disconnection) which emerges through the relationships between bodies, objects and interfaces (Ash, 2015). However, what these abandoned virtual worlds demonstrate is a particular kind of temporal stasis. They do not “age” as much as they become out of date, precisely because they do not change. Outside the abandoned world, time marches on, and what constitutes virtual connections keeps changing. Software changes too; aesthetic tastes and styles change; players’ expectations of, for example, interface quality, speed, or game playability change. Links to external websites are broken, literally and absolutely disconnected, when those websites disappear. Even legal regulation changes.3 Digital ruins are a kind of time capsule which demonstrate not how much they have aged, but how much we have. While they may possess some elements of decay, the overall experience of these places is dominated by their preservation, demonstrating how disconnected they are from the march of time. Thus, when we engage with virtual worlds, we navigate them with a preconceived understanding of their digital permanence. Even when a world’s structural assets become outdated in relation to contemporary real-​life design, the structures themselves that make up these spaces do not present signs of decay due to time or abandonment. This is a relevant part of the overall experience of digital ruination, a process of aging which remains at odds with the varying degrees of quality in the constructions themselves. 3 For example, while the original version of this paper was under review, the EU General Data Protection Regulation came into force. This meant that Blue Mars became inaccessible to Europeans because of the risk that data could be collected from someone using Blue Mars servers.

170  (Dis)Connected Lives In other words, the world ages because our expectations of navigating them have evolved, and our limited interactions serve as a constant reminder of both the speed with which digital platforms have evolved and how disposable these can be fated to be. Their infinite reproducibility adds to this lack of space and time, contributing, on one hand, to their sense of permanence while always suffering the fragility of complete nonexistence at any moment. Digital objects and spaces have the unique ontological quality of either enduring forever without aging or simply ceasing to exist without any remnant. There is no “in-​between” status of decay or of incompleteness (becoming) we traditionally associate with ruin. Their existence is tenuous, and therefore, when we navigate digital ruins, it is always under the implicit understanding that this time could be the last.4 On the surface, “ruin” would thus seem to be an inappropriate term to describe these abandoned but pristine places. Ruin usually refers to the state or process of the physical destruction or disintegration of something, etymologically speaking, a “collapse.” For example, a castle is considered a ruin when it is abandoned and in a state of physical decomposition. Added to this is the fact that in such a process there are moment(s) of recognition of deteriorated purpose, and the ruin’s presence suggests a constant renegotiation of the narratives they entail. Differently to what may be experienced in virtual spaces, real-​life ruins present a constant reconnection (even their absolute collapse may be integrated to an evolving narrative). Industrial ruins, such as abandoned factories, are considered so again because of their abandonment but also their physical state of decomposition and lack of “working.” As such, we must also clarify that a “ruin” has been made so by a process of discontinuation of its primary functions or status.5 This means that “ruin” is a tag anchored by an assumption of functional abandonment or disconnection. A ruin, rather than mere spatial decay, therefore suggests a use of space that, while still able to mark its presence, exists within a context that has evolved beyond its need to undergo a process of repurposing. Ruins are not so much abandoned spaces as places which have abandoned their contextual utility, their narratives of intent, and their ability to produce specific experiences tied to their original structures and vice versa. This idea is carried over 4 For example, see the footnote above. 5 For example, Collins Dictionary more generally defines ruin also as “to injure or spoil,” or “loss of value or usefulness.”

Digital Ruins  171

to digital ruins too, though slightly transformed to take into account the digital world’s persistence through time. If we take ruins to be about a lack of utility, then these can be clearly visible in user-​generated social content, once aimed at mass crowds and now empty. Ruination is not only a physical state but a process of destruction. These places, though not in physical decay, are not what they once were. Their populations have dwindled, their economies are dying or are already dead, and their spaces are largely abandoned. In digital contexts, the lack of time (particularly in the form of decay) within the digital ruin means that we can traverse fully functional towns, cities, buildings, and other endlessly variable landscapes on our own. We expect abandoned places not to work: to openly show their abandonment or disconnectedness; to rust; to be broken; to be gutted of everything of monetary and sentimental value. When they are in pristine condition, we question why they became and remain abandoned. The result is an uncanny landscape haunted by the presence of past intents, resulting from the tension of who should be here still: the undying traces of digital social spaces, Bots and Non-​Player Characters trapped in their temporal vacuum and the emptiness of a pristine world. In Blue Mars, “Tharsis Estates” is a beachside community reminiscent of the Florida coast. It is an idyllic beach community which describes itself as “a mixed use shopping and residential community” in which “building lots and shop space are available for lease.”6 It contains a small pier and the air is filled with atmospheric seagull cries. Here, one could lease land, build a home, and even start a retail enterprise in the local mall. It proposed a self-​contained community, which provided its residents with the chance of an affordable dream home, entrepreneurial opportunities, and community building. Today, one designer shoe outlet, “Firion Designs” (Figure 7.1), caters to this suburban ghost town, its shelves full of shoes still for sale, but in a currency that can no longer be acquired. In material circumstances, “Firion Designs” shelves would be empty: Stock would have been moved on to other outlets, or sold off at a discount, or looted in abandonment. The simulation of a real-​life shop window also simulates its failure. In the real world, those shelves would be empty of shoes. Someone would have wanted them. Present here is an uncanny recognition of the fragility of real-​ world structures with equivalent functionality. Thus, digital ruination is also

6

Tharsis Estates download page, Blue Mars.

172  (Dis)Connected Lives

Figure 7.1  Firion Designs (Blue Mars).

an experiential concept; the experience of ruin is a feeling mediated by the recognition of real-​life loss of value and of the impossibility of an ideal state of disconnection. Nobody wants these things. In another example, there is a large world within Active Worlds, called “America” (Figure 7.2). With a nod to Baudrillard, America is a fully functional theme park. It aimed to provide a mass-​socialization space framed around leisure activities. There are working rollercoasters, donkey rides, race tracks, a fun house, bumper cars . . . all the trappings of any theme park, including midway with playable fairground games, some of which provide cheering crowd noises when you win. The fun park shows, quite literally because they still function, the traces of the actions and possible behaviors of the people who once occupied them. In that sense, it provides the essence of what Derrida referred to as “hauntology,” marking the agency of those which are no longer (Fisher, 2014). This was a place to be enjoyed as a space and admired as a construction, built to foster virtual connectedness, its grandeur providing further distancing from any real-​life equivalence. But now the dominant experience is tied to its overwhelming emptiness, and the accompanying soundtrack, which could speak of kitsch and fun, becomes forlorn, ironic, and melancholic simultaneously, giving a haunting quality—​a dreamlike experience of the uncanny, not because we are unable to understand the process by which

Digital Ruins  173

Figure 7.2  America fun park (Active Worlds).

something gets abandoned or unused, but because it can still be used as well as ever. Its social purpose underlines a feeling of emptiness while also projecting the hauntology of imagined presences, not only of a past, but of a future that could have been, had the world succeeded and not been passed by.

Algorithmic Disconnection: Isolated Worlds These photographs, taken in the Goldfinger Casino and Quiz Game in Twinity, show virtual spaces built to encourage social interaction, gambling, and competition (Figure 7.3). As we can see here, while the construction of the room remains largely untouched (player agency over the Goldfinger Casino is limited to interaction with the games it offers), the links needed in order to achieve their social and commercial functions are broken, lost, and unreferenced. Within these largely fully functioning landscapes, such “brokenness” was quite rare in our experience, affecting our player immersion by showing the underlining importance of server upkeep and maintenance necessary to keep the world and its functions running. The broken links show the fragility

174  (Dis)Connected Lives

Figure 7.3  Goldfinger Casino, Twinity; and Quiz Game (German), Twinity.

of these constructions (see Sundén, this volume). We get to see that there were connections made, which have now been lost. While the rest of the world continues to function normally, without decay, in these moments, like a hole in the wall showing loose wiring, we get a glimpse of a space that, despite all appearances, has failed to upkeep its connections to an outside world which has left it behind. However, this predictable loss of infrastructural connection in virtual worlds is not the real story. What is more profound here is the kind of algorithmic disconnection from the wider Web that these spaces represent. Industrial ruins, to a greater or lesser extent, are still a part of our everyday lives. As Edensor (2008) points out, they often feature in our commute to work, a telling reminder of the occupational lives of the past; endemic features of the “zones of transition” of our inner cities; and a dominant feature of the larger landscapes of post-​industrial towns and former industrial heartlands, such as the north of England or the “rust belt” of America. Their preservation or destruction is thus often linked to the framing of a wider historical narrative and spatial identity formation. In his 2017 inauguration speech, Donald Trump hyperbolically played upon these images when he commented upon “rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.” Still connected in our awareness, and imaginations. Industrial ruins are still a part of the landscape. By contrast, where our journey to work often exposes us to the abandonment, decay, and transition endemic to the capitalist city, the abandoned places of the Internet get easily bypassed . . . rarely allowed to reveal their fate. Digital ruins are an absent presence. On one hand, these places are often only a few mouse clicks away. Yet at the same time, they are almost completely

Digital Ruins  175

absent from the contemporary negotiation of a Web whose connectivity has become coalesced through the algorithmic regulation of its traffic. Such algorithmic regulation and perception management ensure that we almost never accidentally stumble upon these landscapes. They need to be sought out, either through active curiosity and exploration (active processes which acknowledge the disconnected state of these places), or out of memory and nostalgia for one’s Internet activities of the past. Virtual ruins are disconnected from both our mental maps and our digital habits . . . they do not confront us as part of our everyday spatial practice unless we want them to. In this respect, they are more akin to the abandoned mining towns isolated in the Canadian wilderness, than the post-​industrial urban and semi-​urban landscapes Edensor describes. Places like Uranium City, Saskatchewan, established in 1952 in the midst of the Cold War lust for uranium, reaching a peak of almost 5,000 persons in 1982, and now with only 201 people milling among abandoned houses and decaying infrastructure. Perhaps even more accurately, Kitsault, a molybdenum mining town in northern British Columbia, established in 1979 with 1,200 residents (catered for with a shopping mall, swimming pool, and bowling alley) and evacuated 18 months later after a price crash of the hard-​to-​pronounce metal. Kitsault, unlike Uranium City, has been maintained by a speculative investor. Streetlights still come on at night, and lawns are still mowed. It expects people to return. One senses the expectation of reconnection while exploring digital ruins: the retail shelves full of virtual consumer goods, or the virtual land still for sale or rent. All belie expectation that one day they will be rediscovered, reborn, and reconnected to the social imaginary of the Internet. After all, why else would they still be there?

Phenomenological Disconnection: Digital Ruins as Existential Spaces James Ash (2009) argues that images create an existential spatiality, where content is made sense of and “depth” is created through bodily knowledge and capacities which already exist in worlds of human meaning. He uses Heidegger’s famous discussion of Van Gogh’s series of muddy shoe paintings to describe how images open up worlds of “equipmentality” and “concern.” For Heidegger, the shoes are not merely aesthetic surfaces, but

176  (Dis)Connected Lives open up possible worlds to us on the basis of our understanding of what shoes are for. So we imagine the shoes being used, worn, in Heidegger’s case, by a peasant woman toiling the land. A world of work, toil, hardship, and even hunger is brought to us through the painting because we experience the shoes not just as surfaces, but as things to be used. This brings us closer to the “truth” the painting tries to represent and gives the image meaning. As Ash suggests, equipmentality abounds in video games, where the context of completing goals and objectives, the “push-​pull” of events or “eventual navigation” within the narrative of the game creates a context and meaning for a player’s actions, as well as the equipmentality of the objects and landscapes in which a player is thrown. However, the existential space opened up by an exploration of abandoned virtual worlds is one in which the production of these possible worlds of meaning is cut off by a lack of equipmentality or a “push-​pull” of events. Even when they were populated, virtual worlds provided little in terms of specific goals and objectives outside of “meet people” or “express yourself.” In their abandoned state, they lack even these vague ambitions and their interfaces offer little, if any, place descriptions. We are left with the task of trying to make sense of these spaces without any objectives or events happening, without people to meet or talk to and ultimately without narrative context. This experience, what we refer to as a “shock of disconnection,” was particularly apparent when “landing” in a new space for the first time. For example, upon landing in “Venezia” in Blue Mars, we are greeted by a female voice with an American West-​Coast accent, high in the audio mix: This is Terry Paulding, and welcome to the Paulding and Company kitchen. Today I’m going to show you a really fast, easy and wonderful hors d’oeuvre or snack that you can make during fig season . . .

Terry’s warm voice giving us cooking instructions stands in stark contrast to the loneliness of Blue Mars. It is welcoming, haunting, and aesthetically confusing, all at the same time. The Venezia landing pad aesthetic is already an odd hybrid combination of old-​world Mediterranean villa (complete with fountain and pond and shaded with a dominant cream-​ colored pallet) and futuristic Mars colony architecture, with a small gothic clothing retailer thrown into the mix. If the world were populated,

Digital Ruins  177

this may be confusing, but the juxtaposition of these disparate elements would, through its being used and through potential conversations with others, have been somewhat resolved. What remains, instead, is the tension between our assumptions of its purpose and the imaginary narratives of its pastness. The fig recipe is a puzzle which will remain unsolved, and this future inexplicability creates a sense of unease in the present. The banality of a cooking program becomes an experience of the uncanny, largely because of the incompleteness of the world opened up to us that can never be reconciled. “Van Gogh” in Active Worlds is a world which, upon arrival, one realizes is a town space modeled after Van Gogh’s various paintings, including Café Terrace at Night, within a surrounding landscape painted in the style of Wheatfield with Crows. Recordings of town street ambient sounds welcomed us. These became louder and more focused as we approached the café area, where the screen darkens to nighttime progressively on approach to communicate the café’s interactivity to players and set a particular ambiance. Although filled with empty tables and chairs, the café presents the sounds of crowds and the surrounding town life, including birds and wind. At first taken aback by the sheer amount of work it would have taken to build this world, we were then puzzled by the inclusion of a Norah Jones backing track, and a small audio tutorial on Van Gogh himself. This sense of both recognition and disorientation was common in our arrivals to new worlds like this one. The sometimes barely audible soundbites and inconsistent visual cues without the presentation of clear gameplay or player objectives led us to an exploration without a consistent narrative context. In this case, while we understood the intent to re-​create artwork in a digitally livable space with a clear referent, the unexpected sonic elements and confusing lack of gameplay direction meant that our attention was mostly drawn toward its emptiness: the incongruence of suggesting crowds, and the stock birdsong which we knew should have remained a background loop to the social interactions that could have once taken place here. It did not help that Active Worlds does not offer contextual information prior to entering a world aside from its title, which adds to this initial bewilderment (Figure 7.4). Again, experiencing such places provides a disturbing quality of the inexplicable or mysterious: spaces and objects that do not quite make sense

178  (Dis)Connected Lives

Figure 7.4  Van Gogh (Active Worlds).

as consistent wholes (their contextual and experiential consistency undermined by their lack of use or purpose for being there apart from exploration). The lack of contextual explanation, the fact that there is no one around who can provide an explanation as to why things are the way they are, or even a reassurance, grants the place the uncanniness and haunting quality of a dream. Because of the impossibility of immediate understanding, and the lack of consistent referents, our experiences of abandoned worlds were governed not only by the alienation we felt by the absence of players but also this “shock” of disconnection due to the absence of a consistent overarching narrative which would have otherwise offered us clues to clearly imagine the actions and interactions within them. The drive to understand, to make sense of these places, with their odd juxtapositions of pristine objects and sounds provides a form of existential angst which is surprisingly taxing as we move back and forth between experiences of wonder, puzzlement, and the realization that these spaces have become pointless. The worlds opened up to us are framed by the presumption that they were meant to be used and appreciated socially. However, we can never be sure of this, just like Heidegger could never truly be sure of whose shoes Van Gogh painted. Maybe Heidegger was wrong, maybe they were Van Gogh’s shoes (Schapiro, 1968).

Digital Ruins  179

Virtual Worlds and Utopian Disconnection Bissell (2009) and DeSilvey and Edensor (2013) highlight the potential of industrial ruins as sites of resistance. Bissell suggests that industrial ruins, because of their liminal, unregulated/​unsurveilled quality, allow one to understand and experience spaces on more sensual, intuitive, and affective levels, offering a “Lefebvrian opportunity” to engage in space with and through the body, a disconnection offering empowering connections, as opposed to the regulation and control implicit in the “abstraction” of everyday urban space. Similarly, DeSilvey and Edensor see in these spaces of disorder the potential for resistance to the oppressive spatial homogeneity and control implicit in the contemporary urban experience. Thus, industrial ruins contain the possibility for alternative conceptualizations and uses of space in a way that digital ruins, with their strict spatial order maintained through passwords, perhaps cannot. By contrast, much of the discourse around the Internet, both in academic circles and in wider popular discussions, was framed around the opportunities that a dematerialized online culture, which celebrated a disconnection from material bodies and structures, could provide for both the realization of the self in a libertarian sense and for more just and tolerant communities. Majid Yar (2014) summed up this technoromantic utopianism as a romantic striving for imagination, creativity, and unity through an embrace of the technological (virtual). This romanticism was often contrasted with what was seen as the “failed” project of enlightenment modernity, which continued to be plagued by inequality, discrimination, and intolerance of difference and had created increasingly over-​managed, over-​secured, and racially and socially fragmented material urban spaces which stifled individual freedom, creativity, and expression. The promise of the virtual stood in stark contrast to the latter and promised to transcend these failures through a disconnect from the material (Yar, 2014). The early work of Sherry Turkle (1995) reflected this in terms of the freedom to depict multidimensional aspects of the self, and Howard Rheingold (2000) optimistically depicted new forms of possible communities which might have freed us from the troubled and dysfunctional communities of the offline world. This utopian vision of virtual worlds was based on harnessing the creative capacities of their residents as digital prosumers, a term originally coined by Alvin Toffler to refer to the blurring of the roles of producer and consumer

180  (Dis)Connected Lives in economic processes. As Bonsu and Darmody suggest in their discussion of Second Life, “Consumers are invited to bring their knowledge and skills to bear on playfully creating a world of their dreams” (Bonsu & Darmody, 2008). Indeed, the idea of almost limitless creativity and self-​expression, not only in terms of what one could build with digital materials (such as homes, cities, environments, businesses) but also in terms of the building of networks, friendships, and relationships, set up the virtual world as an ideal space for self-​fulfillment and self-​actualization. In many respects, this is the ideal terrain to actualize the creative and productive instincts of humans, what Marx referred to as “species being” (Dyer-​Witherford, 2010): the impulse to build, create, or transform matter into things which carries on in humans even after our physical needs are met. For Marx, the essence of humanity was the desire to imagine, plan, and build. Such also was the ambition of virtual worlds, as reflected in promotional material of the time. For example, Second Life used slogans such as “Your world—​explore—​share—​ create—​your world—​your imagination”7 to emphasize the creative and emancipatory dimensions of online existence. Abandoned virtual worlds are filled with the remnants of these ambitions. Take, for example, the thousands of homes that people made, decorated, and abandoned. In many respects, it makes no sense for an avatar to have a home, yet the building of dream houses was a central theme throughout the marketing of 3D virtual worlds. Communities are made up of homes, and homes are the locus for relationships as well as signs of material success. The ability to create an ideal home space is arguably fundamental to visualizing and selling any utopian vision, or individual dream. “Promenade Club” (Figure 7.5) in Twinity, with its contemporary beach house stylings and modernist patio and pool area expresses how such ambitions can be realized. This is a place to be sociable, to bring people. Several appreciative comments in the guestbook are hauntological testaments to this. This place, in virtual terms, was a success. It was designed well and people came to visit. Likewise, “Chameleon’s Den” (Figure 7.6), a sumptuous Italian Villa in Active Worlds, demonstrates these ambitions in a more grandiose fashion. Its grand hall, guest house, fountains, and swan-​shaped boat perhaps speak to Nouveau-​riche sensibilities. There is, due to its current emptiness, now a

7 Second Life promotional video, 2012, watch?v=r74hkI-​JcHY [accessed on 11/​12/​2016].

located

at:

https://​www.youtube.com/​

Figure 7.5  Promenade Club (Twinity).

Figure 7.6  Chameleon’s Den (Active Worlds).

182  (Dis)Connected Lives sense of peace conveyed by one’s ability to navigate it unhindered, though this peacefulness is interrupted by the presence of a series of photos of family and friends, and thereby a feeling of trespassing. These photos add a touching intimacy to the expansive rooms and haunts the space with the reminder that behind these absent avatars are people who invested not only time but emotional connections to another world into these places. The fact that these photos too were abandoned leaves us to speculate on the meaning and circumstances of their abandonment. This constant decoding of intent is how we experienced abandonment in such contexts, and, as visitors, we simultaneously recognize the implied utopic narratives within these creations as well as feeling powerless to overturn their fate. Another part of the vision for techno-​utopians was a pluralistic cyberspace whose immaterial bodies could be free from the structures which repress (particular) identities and material bodies (in general) in all kinds of ways. The expression of sexuality in particular became, and still is, a major part of online culture. Virtual worlds allowed people to create safe spaces for such expression. Whether as homes or nightclubs, marginalized sexual spaces were symptomatic of an online utopian disconnectedness: a vision of freedom, diversity, and acceptance. This is articulated in homes and spaces, which, certainly in some cases, still present a glimpse into the personal importance of these places to those who perhaps were unable to cultivate such identities offline. Articulating these identities in a digital space also acknowledges the importance once given to such spaces, as personal representations of identity through building complex structures marks a sign of authorial presence and self-​expression—​as well as the utopian ideal of digital freedom. Here, “Lesbian Home” (Figure 7.7) in Twinity is a modestly decorated home which celebrates and forcefully demonstrates an identity through the combination of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)-​friendly images and icons, the insertion of (presumably) a photo of the occupier of the home and a guestbook signed by appreciative friends and hopeful partners. In another example, “Forte,” in Active Worlds, stands as a safe space and information center created to assist gay Christians who have not yet come out to their family and friends. Its generous offerings of help and acceptance lie in wait and remain unappreciated and unutilized. This perceived freedom to articulate identities also implies the creation of places which sought to provide a transformative experience in the appreciation of artwork, and the embracing of the possibilities of digital

Digital Ruins  183

Figure 7.7  Lesbian Home (Twinity).

Figure 7.8  ARAF (Blue Mars).

space as an open art form—​advancing the utopian belief in the untapped potential for spatial expression (and thus the provision of experiences) in digital worlds. For example, ARAF (Figure 7.8) is a sumptuous world created in Blue Mars by animator and digital artist Sivan Okcuoglu, based on the drawings of Turkish illustrator, Bahadir Baruter. Exploration of this world alone could take hours, filled with amazing vistas and spectacular detail.

184  (Dis)Connected Lives Similarly, “New Venice” (Figure 7.9), also in Blue Mars, is a detailed and stunning city, which includes waterways, soundscapes, and mountain vistas. It is almost therapeutic, containing wind chimes, the wavering of the ocean, dynamic shadows, and lighting which captures realistic tree leaves swaying, suggestive of a light breeze. Touring these impressive spaces in isolation creates moments of joy, as though one has discovered an unknown land whose reason of being remains a question answered only by our unfettered assumptions. However, this is followed by the sobering realization that these spaces now lie isolated and abandoned despite the Herculean effort and creative energy that some of these constructions must have required. One is reminded of the waste, and the hundreds of hours of toil, all of it seemingly for nothing. What haunts these places are the utopian dreams of their builders. Their pristine nature makes more evident the ambitions of those who saw in the Internet the ultimate projection of the Platonic/​Cartesian ideal of a society in which minds were liberated from the prison of the material and the bodily: from lives of toil, from racism and heteronormativity, and from material deprivation. These spaces had the potential to provide unshackled freedom to express one’s intellectual, artistic, and social capacities to the full. Every classroom, every lavishly decorated home, every museum, and every nightclub dance floor represent someone’s desire to exceed or disconnect form the material, the bodily and social limitations of contemporary life. They are a reminder that people once believed that the Internet might give

Figure 7.9  New Venice (Blue Mars).

Digital Ruins  185

us a better future, and were willing to invest their time, physical and emotional labor to build these places and these communities. As contemporary netizens, we cannot help but feel a disconnection from such utopian ideals.

Conclusion: Digital Ruins, Abundance, and the Abandoned Landscapes of Prosumerism In the welcome area of Active Worlds, a large billboard proudly proclaims “Every one of the 13.7 million things you see here were built by the 179,000+ citizens of AlphaWorld.” (Ethnographic notes by authors)

The digital ruin represents the utopian promise of the digital, built on a premise of abundance: on limitless speculation, creativity, reproduction, prosumption, relationship building, and self-​realization, unhindered by material limits. Yet, at the height of this optimism, and faith in a future of digital abundance, these fledgling utopias failed. One by one, we have turned our backs on them, as the creative destruction of the material became mirrored in the creative abandonment of the digital. Unlike their real counterparts, the now abandoned structures built in virtual spaces (the objects themselves and the narrative links they entail) do not get destroyed and repurposed according to the functional needs of a particular context, they merely get left behind. This creative abandonment is marked by its sheer inevitability. These virtual spaces were characterized by a belief in the continuity of the utopic vision which caused them. Without evolution, the social worlds mentioned in this chapter remain largely forgotten, their functionality, and presence in the imagination dependent on algorithmic connections. The multiplicity of empty landscapes and spaces (and the few users who may be left hanging on in these multiplicities) now project a mournful nostalgia not of what was (as these places are still here and functioning), but what can never be. The timelessness of these digital ruins means that we now have failed utopias we can return to and witness how thousands of hours of creating, socializing, entrepreneurship, relationship and community building have only come to fruition as empty, hollowed-​out spaces that will eventually, and inevitably, cease to exist.

186  (Dis)Connected Lives The fact that such efforts and investments can be abandoned and forgotten so easily reveals the blasé nature with which we encounter (and perhaps embrace) the waste and prosumerist overproduction of the digital. The Internet is a space littered with one successive phase of abandonment after another: abandoned blogs, games, instant messaging services, social networks, and other communities of various types. It is telling how far back in the past these quite recent online fads, such as blogging, MySpace, Friendster, or the peak of Second Life seem. Perhaps only by traversing these spaces in their abandoned states can we truly appreciate this social reality of waste and overproduction involved in their creation. One should acknowledge the charm of these traces of play, too, and the pleasure in uncovering untouched proof of personal and collective creative endeavors, even if it is this very charm that lends abandoned virtual worlds their pathos, mystery, and uncanniness. Virtual worlds are not the only digital ruins, but merely one phase in a series of virtual endeavors in which people invest time, emotional effort and creativity, and from which they move on. What we are left with are incomplete traces of agency and the recognition of active responses to the utopian narratives at the start of the virtual-​social hype. This incompletion is marked by the intact appearance of a space, its apparent neatness, and the lack of present voices to express it and renegotiate its meaning. More importantly, our experiences of these worlds were marked by a “shock of disconnection,” the absence of other people to connect spaces to their intended purposes or to voice these worlds. However, beyond the narrative ties to the functionality of virtual objects, the experience of these spaces is mediated by our own associations to the process of real-​life ruination, characterized by a sense of becoming: the visibility of said process and the ensuing formation of a spatial narrative which takes it into account. It is in this emptiness that we are left with traces of the users’ unmet expectations (of freedom from the constraints of the material and its inequalities, and of real-​life discursive oppression). Witnessing the apparent stability of these untouched worlds with the recognition of the fragility of the digital (the tension between digital permanence and its possible sudden disappearance) adds to digital ruins a feeling of the uncanny, as we experience not so much the pristine environment alongside the deterioration of its purpose, as a constant fluctuation between connection to what was and disconnection from what is.

Digital Ruins  187

References Adams, T., Ellis, C., & Jones, S. (2017). Autoethnography. In Matthes, J. (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communications Research Methods. London: John Wiley and Sons. Ash, J. (2009). Emerging spatialities of the screen: Video games and the reconfiguration of spatial awareness. Environment and Planning A, 41(9), 2105–​2124. Ash, J. (2015). The Interface Envelope. New York: Bloomsbury. Ash, J., Kitchin, R., & Leszcyznyski, A. (2018). Digital turn, digital geographies? Progress in Human Geography, 42(1), 25–​43. Bonsu, S., & Darmody, A. (2008). Co-​creating Second Life: Market—​Consumer Cooperation in Contemporary Economy. Journal of Macromarketing, 28(4), 355–​368. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boym, S. (2011). Ruinophilia. Appreciation of ruins. Atlas of transformation. Located at: http://​monumenttotranformation.org/​atlas‑of‑transformation/​ html/​r/​ruinop hilia‑appreciation‑of‑ruin‑svetlana‑boym.html [accessed on: 10/​05/​2017]. Businesswire (2017). Global Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Gaming Market -​Forecast to Reach $44.6 Billion by 2022 -​Research and Markets. Businesswire. com. Located at: https://​www.businesswire.com/​news/​home/​20171115005641/​ en/​Global-​Massively-​Multiplayer-​Online-​MMO-​Gaming-​Market [accessed on 12/​21/​2017]. Castronova, E. (2001). Virtual worlds: A first-​hand account of market and society on the cyberian frontier (CESifo Working Paper Series No. 618), located at: http://​papers. ssrn.com/​sol3/​papers.cfm?abstract_​id=294828, p 39. Castronova, E. (2005). Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DeSilvey, C., & Edensor, T. (2013). Reckoning with ruins. Progress in Human Geography, 37(4), 465–​485. Dyer-​Witheford, N. (2010). Digital labour, species-​becoming and the global worker. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 10(3), 484–​503. Edensor, T. (2005a). Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Edensor, T. (2005b). The ghosts of industrial ruins: Ordering and disordering memory in excessive space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23(6), 829–​849.

188  (Dis)Connected Lives Edensor, T. (2007). Sensing the ruin. The Senses and Society, 2(2), 217–​232. Edensor, T. (2008). Mundane hauntings: Commuting through the phantasmagoric working-​class spaces of Manchester, England. Cultural Geographies, 15(3), 313–​333. Edensor, T. (2008). Walking through ruin. In Ingold, T., & Vergunst, J. (Eds.), Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot (pp. 123–​142). Aldershot: Ashgate. Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2006). Analyzing analytic autoethnography: An autopsy. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4), 429–​449. Fisher, M. (2014). Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. Winchester: Zero Books. Garrett, B. (2014). Undertaking recreational trespass: Urban exploration and infiltration. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(1), 1–​13. Kim, J. (2001). Phenomenology of digital-​being. Human Studies, 24(1–​2), 87–​111. Kindynis, T. (2016). Urban exploration: From subterranea to spectacle. British Journal of Criminology, 57(4), 982–​1001. Leonardi, P. (2010). Digital materiality? How objects without matter, matter. First Monday, 15(6). Available at: https://​ojphi.org/​ojs/​index.php/​fm/​article/​view/​ 3036/​2567 [accessed on 11/​22/​2018]. Pinder, D. (2005). Arts of urban exploration. Cultural Geographies, 12(4), 383–​411. Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Schapiro, M. (1968). The still life as a personal object—​A note on Heidegger and van Gogh. The Reach of Mind (pp. 203–​209). Berlin: Springer. Shiode, N., & Torrens, P. (2008). Comparing the growth dynamics of real and virtual cities. In Hornsby, K. S., & Yuan, M. (Eds.), Understanding Dynamics of Geographic Domains (p. 189). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Stewart, K. (1996). A Space on the Side of the Road: Cultural Poetics in an “Other” America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen. New York: Simon & Shuster. Yar, M. (2014). The Cultural Imaginary of the Internet: Virtual Utopias and Dystopias. London: Palgrave.

8 “Think on Paper, Share Online” Interrogating the Sense of Slowness and Disconnection in the Rise of Shouzhang in China Yan Yuan

The power of the media technologies in reshaping time and space experiences of human societies has already been widely acknowledged by both geographers and media scholars. As for the exact orientation of this reconfiguration, most scholars tend to focus on the affordance of immediacy, which generates unprecedented speed in time and creates unexpected proximity and connection in space. Media are therefore celebrated as a form of boundary-​breaking emancipation on the one hand, and blamed for the sense of anxiety and uncertainty caused by the agitated acceleration and unescapable connectivity on the other. This interpretation has been so dominant that in a sense the term “media” sounds like a synonym for “fast” or “immediacy” (Tomlinson, 2018). However, this is only one side of the picture. As Nigel Thrift reminds us, the go-​faster world has in fact been balanced by a series of “practices of slowness.” Along with “the increasingly frenetic future-​oriented quality” of time, there has also been “an expansion of awareness of the present” (2008: 57). Paradoxically, media echo the cry for slowing down and disconnection as much as they express the urge for speeding up and connectivity. Since the turn of the 21st century, the idea of “slow media” has gained increasing voice and developed into a cultural movement in many countries. It calls for actions that reduce people’s use of fast, digital media in favor of old, slow, analog activities, reappraising heirloom forms of media, such as books, newspapers, postcards, film, vinyl records, etc. So far, this kind of media practice has been largely understood as a form of “technostalgia,” an outlier or a counter-​current against the tendency of mediatization. The exact role that “slow media” play in the historical meta-​process of mediatization, the unique mechanisms that they contribute Yan Yuan, “Think on Paper, Share Online” In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0009

190  (Dis)Connected Lives to the time-​space reconfiguration in social structure and people’s daily life, and their intricate relationships with “fast media” are often neglected. Taking these issues into consideration would help to advance “a complex, situated and critical understanding of what mediatisation means and how it works under modern life-​conditions” (Jansson, 2018: 3). This chapter intends to open up the discussion by focusing on one example of “slow media”: the return of the analog tradition of diary keeping within the societies where online diary, e-​journal, and planner apps have become the new norm. In China, despite the country’s rapid development toward a digital and paperless society in recent decades, such a “slow” fashion of journal keeping has gained a surprising level of popularity and developed into a new youth hobby, called shouzhang (手账). Tens of thousands of fans indulge themselves with a stunning variety of notebooks and stationery, and promote this handcrafted and nostalgic way of journal keeping as “a means of mindful living in a digital age” (Liang, 2018). A lucrative market is also generated by both local and global players, which sell physical journals and stationery as something even more privileged than digital devices. “Think on paper, share online!” As this advertising slogan of Moleskine suggests, the slowness of pen and paper seem to stand for a revelatory space, an analog oasis away from digital turbulence. It is this kind of almost mythical construction of slowness and disconnection related to shouzhang and its deep social and cultural implications that this chapter interrogates.

Disenchanting the “Slow Media” The concept of “slow media” was initially proposed by a few critical thinkers, writers, and designers as a way to reflect on the cost of the rise of the Internet, social media, and other digital technologies (Rauch, 2018). From 2010, following the popularity of the Slow Food Movement, the idea of slow media entered into public view and gradually developed into a countercultural movement in the increasingly mediated world (Köhler et al., 2010). Like other forms of movement equally intended for digital disconnection, such as the Digital Detox Campaign, Unplugging Movement, and Internet Sabbaths, the Slow Media Movement also encourages people to temporarily or permanently reduce their time spent with digital networks and devices. However, it emphasizes the approach of resistance that lies in “an

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  191

appreciation or re-​appraisal of ‘heirloom’ forms of media,” increasing the use of “traditional or vintage tools,” such as writing letters by hand, typing on typewriters, learning calligraphy, sending postcards, using fountain pens, recording with analog equipment, etc. (Rauch, 2011: 1). As both a philosophy and practice, proponents of Slow Media often appraise the print, analog, and any non-​digital media as a “human,” “natural,” and “sustainable” way of communication, a solution to the problems of a digitalizing and accelerating world. They are linked not only with precious qualities of media artifacts, such as physical, local, handmade, long-​lived, sensuous, heritage, and eco-​ friendly, but also with a kind of personal disposition that is serene, moderate, mindful, and disciplined (Rauch, 2018: 25). The rise of this counter-​current against the triumphalism of digitalization and mediatization in the contemporary media poses a challenge to the lineal narrative of media development in media and communication studies and has triggered a whole array of works that interrogate the complicated social implications of digital media from political, economic, social, and cultural perspectives (Turow & Tsui, 2008; Zielinski, 2011; Dijck, 2013). However, in the face of all the problems inherent within digital media, is going back to the old media really a solution? Can the old analog media really disconnect us from the digital? Where can this kind of “disconnection” lead us? After all, as Turkle reminds us, “we love our objects, but enchantment comes with a price” (2017: 453). If the discourse of slow media forms a “disenchantment with the digital culture” (Rauch, 2018: 20), then could it also be true that this countercultural movement itself has been romanticized and deserves to be disenchanted? To answer these questions, one has to scrutinize a much more basic premise underlying the promise of slow media: Are there any clear-​cut demarcations between digital and non-​digital media? The common-​sense answer would be yes, and this assumption is usually based on three dichotomies: old and new, real and virtual, object and subject. First of all, digital media usually refers to new technologies since the arrival of computer, the Internet, ICT, while media that existed before then are thought of as non-​ digital. This dichotomy between the new and the old, however, is very problematic. The commonality shared by the old and the new media might not be less than the differences between them. Marvin reminds us, “New technologies is a historically relative term” (1988: 3). Many communication technologies we take as new are reworkings of older ones instead of being innovated from scratch. Long before telegraph was credited with having “annihilated

192  (Dis)Connected Lives time and space,” the postal system had been described in precisely the same way (John, 1995: 10). “In a historical sense, the computer is no more than an instantaneous telegraph with a prodigious memory, and all the communications inventions in between have simply been elaborations on the telegraph’s original work” (Marvin, 1988: 3). The concept of “Net” arrived much earlier than the age of the Internet and computer-​mediated communications, and it is equally applicable to telegraph and telephone networks, or even to earlier networks of book publication and distribution (Adams, 2009: 15). The second dichotomy is to demarcate digital and non-​digital along the real/​virtual or material/​immaterial division. Talking about matter usually runs the risk of reducing matter to inert substance with fixed logics and properties (Hepp, 2020). Only things which are visible and solid are material, the invisible and fluid are immaterial. This is an assumption more or less suggested by scholars when they reflect on the phenomena of “technostalgia” and “aesthetic of the analogue” (Fickers, 2009; Pinch & Reinecke, 2009; Heijden, 2015). For example, when paper, reels, and tapes are replaced by bits and bytes, it is normally said the objects and people’s experiences are “dematerialized” (Sapio, 2014: 44) Digital information is persistently discussed in terms that imply its immateriality. This is an impediment deeply rooted in the tradition of material cultural studies, which has been criticized by Ingold. He argues that because the idea of material culture has been largely focused on fixed objects and artifacts, it “obstructs our understanding of the fields of force and circulations of materials that actually give rise to things and that are constitutive of the web of life” (Ingold, 2012: 428). In order to highlight the variability of matter—​ its tensions and elasticities, Ingold proposes a “line” notion of material to challenge the “dot” notion of material which has been dominant in modernity. Matter, whether organic or non-​organic, is in constant formation. It is the entanglement of lines of flow and resistances instead of separate dots with fixed boundaries (Ingold, 2016: 81). Therefore, whenever we encounter matter, “it is matter in movement, in flux, in variation” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004: 451–​452). Just as solid objects and artifacts are not immutable, the so-​called virtual world is not entirely ethereal. According to Banchette’s (2011) material history of bits, however immaterial it might appear, information cannot exist outside of given institutions in material forms. Bits cannot escape the material constraints of the physical devices that manipulate, store, and exchange them.

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  193

The last dichotomy makes us believe that matter is purely objective and materiality is the innate and fixed quality and logic of things outside of human intervention. But in fact, like meanings and representations, materiality is also subject to discursive productions and practices. In Barad’s “agential realist elaboration,” there is no clear-​cut difference between the object and the subject in the Cartesian perspective. “A specific intra-​action (involving a specific material configuration of the ‘apparatus of observation’) enacts an agential cut . . . effecting a separation between ‘subject’ and ‘object’ ” (2003: 815). Ingold also contends that materiality is a social product. He explains, “materials are ineffable. They cannot be pinned down in terms of established concepts or categories. To describe any material is to pose a riddle, whose answer can be discovered only through observation and engagement with what is there” (2012: 435). For Krämer, being able to describe any material is to read the trace of media which are otherwise invisible. But because “traces are not simply encountered, but rather they originate in acts of securing and identifying traces, which in some cases are very difficult and elaborate,” then “reading traces thus means making things talk, yet things are mute” (2015: 177). This means that to explore the materiality of media is not simply to “describe” or “discover” what the matter is, but to trace how it is constructed into such a matter. In order to go beyond these dichotomies, a dynamic and relational approach should be introduced to make sense of the materiality of slow media. Instead of assuming they are ontologically separate from digital media and that some innate qualities lead to the sense of slowness and disconnection, it is better to understand a medium as a process, and in relation to other media. Here Bolter and Grusin’s theory of remediation is particularly useful. From the history of media development, they do not see clear-​cut gaps between the old and the new; older technologies are refashioned into new ones and at the same time reaffirm their status in the new media environment. “Both new and old media are invoking the twin logics of immediacy and hypermediacy in their efforts to remake themselves” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000: 5). At the time of “deep mediatization” led by digitalization, the process of remediation becomes more intensified than ever (Hepp, 2020). Today’s media environment is really a “hybrid system” based on conflict and competition as well as interdependence between “old” and “new” media (Chadwick, 2017). The primary concern of media users shifts from the constraints imposed by an individual medium to an emphasis upon the social, emotional, and moral consequences

194  (Dis)Connected Lives of choosing between those different media under the “polymedia” circumstance (Madianou & Miller, 2013). In such a system, “media do not stand alone, discrete and inert, but are comprehensively connected with one another. It is in this way that their specificity [is] articulated” (Hepp, 2020: 84). Based on this, it would be misleading to do media studies along the traditional approach that emphasizes a single medium. Rather, the specificity of any single medium has to be understood within the whole media environment, as an integral part of a particular “media ensemble”—​the array of media that are used within a particular social domain of a collectivity or organization, and “media repertoire”—​the whole variety of media regularly assembled by a person (Hepp, 2020: 89, 92). If the sense of slowness and disconnection is taken as the materiality or specificity of analog media like shouzhang, then this materiality is also subject to such a dynamic and relational approach of interpretation. Only in the process of constant transformation of the practice of diary-​keeping, and through its connection with other media, can we understand what shouzhang in today’s China is about. How exactly is it different and disconnected from the digital media? And where is the sense of slowness and disconnection coming from? Methodologically, this research is framed as a “material discourse analysis” (Hardy & Thomas, 2015; Orlikowski & Scott, 2015), which considers shouzhang not merely as an inert artifact, but a “material-​discursive practice” based on an actor-​network system co-​performed by both human and nonhuman, both the producer and the user. The analysis is based on the data collected from the following sources: (1) the commercial promotional texts from the official websites of the five most popular international brands of journal acknowledged by Chinese shouzhang fandom circle. They are three Japanese brands (Kokuyo, Hobonichi, and Midori) and two European brands (Moleskine and Leuchtturm 1917). (2) Three guidebooks on how to do shouzhang published in China in 2012, 2016, 2019 respectively. One was translated from a Japanese version. Two are created by Chinese shouzhang fans. (3) One online course on how to use shouzhang to improve one’s productivity in 2017, called “Chenzao.” (4) The online entries and discussions about shouzhang from the three most popular shouzhang-​related blogs on Sina Weibo between October 2019 to January 2020. (5) In-​depth interviews of ten shouzhang fans, who are aged from 15 to 29, consisting of one male and nine females. While source 1 functions as a representation of the social construction of contemporary shouzhang from the international producer’s

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  195

point of view, the rest of the sources are used to reveal how the Chinese users appreciate and interpret shouzhang in their daily life.

Approaching Shouzhang as a Media Ensemble Linguistically speaking, shouzhang (手帐) is a very uncanny term, being familiar and strange at the same time. The characters手帐 are Japanese kanji, meaning a small handheld notebook that is used for to keep a personal journal. But the pronunciation is not “techo” as in Japanese, but shǒu zhàng as in Chinese Pinyin. This phenomenon is not new for the Chinese language. Although China was previously viewed as Japan’s teacher, more recently China has been following Japan’s step in opening up to Western culture in modernity. In the process, Western concepts such as economy (经济), politics (政治), and physics (物理) were first translated into Japanese kanji, then introduced to Chinese with the same Japanese kanji characters but Chinese pronunciations. Thanks to the frequent communication between the two countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries, about a quarter of social scientific and humanity terms in Chinese were derived through this method. In recent decades, the popularity of Japanese pop culture among Chinese youngsters has driven a second wave of such word creation, bringing another range of Japanese vocabularies into Chinese catchwords, such as zhai (宅) meaning “otaku,” and daren (达人) meaning “talent.” The word shouzhang is one of them. But what is special about “shouzhang” is that, if it only refers to the physical notebook that is used to keep a diary, or the activity of diary keeping, then this is by no means an imported concept but one that already existed in China as early as the Tang Dynasty, referred to in Chinese as riji (日记) (Chan, 1989). Although it has been occasionally admitted that shouzhang shares some commonalities with riji, strangely, all the guidebooks and online discussions about shouzhang trace its origin either to Japan, or to the West mediated by Japan. For example, a 2017 online course on the history of shouzhang pays a tribute to American politician Benjamin Franklin as the founder of shouzhang, and the idea was then encountered by Japanese enlightenment thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi in France in the 19th century, who introduced it to Japan (Wang, 2017, also see Hou, 2018). The history of riji in China was not mentioned at all in this narrative. During my

196  (Dis)Connected Lives interviews, many shouzhang fans also expressed a denial of any linkage between shouzhang to riji. As one young woman insisted: “Riji is something my parents did or what my school teacher used to assign as homework. It’s out of date. Shouzhang stands for high taste and a new fashion.” How is it different? No superficial difference can justify such a denial. There must be some qualitative differences if it requires a new vocabulary to be created for it. We have to look beyond the journal and stationery to find the answer, however central they seem to be in the shouzhang culture. Many slow media advocates tend to understand the relationship between old and new media as zero-​sum. The increasing use of one would lead to less use of the other. This is certainly not the case for Chinese shouzhang fans. As the generation of so-​called “digital natives” who have used computers and the Internet since a young age and are comfortable with social media and mobile phones, doing shouzhang for them involves a combination of media as diverse as those who do not do shouzhang. Keeping a physical diary and handwriting are indeed important for doing shouzhang, but they are only part of a whole array of media used within the shouzhang community. More precisely, shouzhang is not the name of a single medium, but the name of a “media ensemble” (Hepp, 2020: 89) composed of various media, both old and new. In the daily exercise of individual fans, keeping a physical diary goes hand in hand with using computers, mobile phones, and tablets. Shouzhang is far from an exclusive choice for their self-​recording and self-​organizing, but acts as a distinguishing element in their individual “media repertoires” (Hepp, 2020: 92). Among their “media repertoires,” various digital media, such as the Internet, social media, and mobile phones also play central roles. At the heart of this media ensemble are of course physical diaries and stationery, which themselves already form a huge ensemble that distinguishes shouzhang in the digital age from its predecessors. A sophisticated fan normally uses several journals and notebooks simultaneously, with diverse designs, functions, and styles suitable for accounting different parts of their life. Other stationery is an ever-​growing collection too, including pens, pencils, erasers, washi tapes, stamps, stickers, tags, clips, scissors, so on so forth. Each type of stationery is also available in diverse designs, patterns, and brands. Apart from physical diaries, notebooks and stationery, a less visible but equally important medium are mobile phones, which can be seen as the middle layer of the ensemble. Mobile phones are carried by shouzhang fans more often than physical diaries in their daily lives. The highly mobile life

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  197

of Chinese young people also makes notetaking and photo-​taking on one’s mobile much easier and more ubiquitous than sitting down to write. Phones are always used to capture and store information and images which provide the database for shouzhang composition afterward. In order to use the images taken by a mobile phone in the physical notebook, many fans set up a mini photo-​printer on their desk. At the end of a shouzhang session, their mobile phone is then used to take photos, either for private storage or for online sharing. That is why the knowledge exchange about how to use a mobile camera to create a professional photo of shouzhang takes a substantial space in the online discussions and guidebooks. Recently, many famous journal brands also developed their own mobile apps to enable the users to transform the shouzhang pages into digital ones for storage and reorganization, which further tightened the linkage between physical journals and mobile phones. The outer layer of shouzhang media ensemble extends to various social media platforms. Most shouzhang hobbyists are heavy users of social media at the same time. According to my informants, social media platforms were where they initially encountered the concept of shouzhang and got inspired to do it. Throughout their everyday practices, doing shouzhang and going on social media are often intertwined. The only way in which they differ from other social media users is that their uses are more shouzhang related. Three platforms are most commonly mentioned: Douban, Blibli, and Sina Weibo. Among them, Douban is the earliest platform that engaged with shouzhang. Since being established in 2005, it has grown into the most influential book, film, and knowledge sharing platform for Chinese young people and better educated groups, and it now has more than 20 million users. In December 2009, a Douban blogger named Qitian Danima initiated purportedly the first online shouzhang group in China. This has now accumulated 332,465 members, one of the biggest groups in Douban. Apart from the “Shouzhang” Group, there are more than 100 other groups related to shouzhang on Douban. Eight of them have more than 10,000 members. Blibli was initially a video and game-​sharing platform for Chinese fans of Japanese anime, comics, and games set up in 2010. Now it has become a top virtual community for more than 12 million monthly active users and 78% of them are aged 18 to 35. Although it engaged in shouzhang culture later than Douban, it has become the biggest platform for shouzhang fans to exchange shouzhang online courses and vlogs. Compared to Douban and Bilibli, Sina Weibo covers

198  (Dis)Connected Lives a much wider age group. It is the biggest blog space in China with more than 40 million active users. Among hundreds of hobby-​related “super topics” in Weibo, tag #Shouzhang# has long stayed within the top three. Tags #Show You My Shouzhang# and #Shouzhang Material Sharing# are also among top 10 super topics. Various social media platforms not only provide fans with a constant flow of shouzhang-​related information and ideas, but also help form a virtual community, whose members label themselves as “shouzhanger” (shouzhang doer). There is a strong sense of pride related to this identity, pertaining to personal qualities such as “high taste,” “refinement,” “artistic,” “meticulous,” “passionate,” “self-​discipline,” “self-​development,” etc. When seeing shouzhang as such a multilayered media ensemble rather than a singular medium, with its practices spanning physical and virtual spaces, it is understandable that shouzhang is not seen as the continuance of the traditional riji in today’s China, but rather as something imported. Thanks to the convergence of different media within ensemble, the previously physical and local experience of keeping a diary has been permeated with the logic of global markets and a cosmopolitan ethos. In order to understand this, one has to remember that most of shouzhang fans were well versed in the uses of social media and mobile phones before they fell in love with shouzhang. Social media platforms are the defining context where they encountered the idea and developed it into a personal hobby and lifestyle. Their engagements with shouzhang are thus deeply structured and constantly steered by the orientation of social media. Japanese cultural products have long enjoyed a large audience in China ever since the economic opening up of the country in the 1980s. But since they were less accepted by Chinese official media in the early 2000s, the rise of social media at that time filled the gap to meet the steady demand for Japanese pop culture among young generations, generating to a whole array of fandom groups. This unique historical match between Chinese social media and the consumption of Japanese culture means the social media users among Chinese millennials are likely to value ideas and goods from Japan. In fact, the idea of shouzhang was initially spotted as a unique element of Japanese culture within some Japanese films and dramas, when the characters used it in their lives. So more precisely, for Chinese millennials, the idea of shouzhang was initially imported to China from the imagined Japan and constructed by the online consumption of Japanese animation and drama, rather than from the “real” Japan. It is called shouzhang rather than riji not simply because of the admiration

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  199

for Japanese culture, but essentially because what the fans encountered in the virtual world was the physical shouzhang embedded in Japanese stories, not the physical riji in Chinese stories. In this sense, despite the passion toward the physical diary and stationery, shouzhang culture in China was a virtual phenomenon from the outset; the passion toward the physical is only the result. For the same reason, it is not surprising that Japanese brands of stationery like Kokuyo, Midori, and Hobonichi have become sought after among Chinese fans. Of course, the cross-​boundary affordance of social media does not limit Chinese fans’ imagination and aspiration to Japan. Although the online life of Chinese netizens has been walled in by the government’s Internet censorship, various grassroot technologies are widely used to connect Chinese social media users to global platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, from which Western stationery brands like Moleskine and Leuchtturm also top shouzhang fans’ shopping list. They are also well synchronized with newly emerged diary and notetaking techniques from the West, such as Bullet Journal and Cornell Method. Apart from shaping the cultural belongings of shouzhang, social media also enable cultural belongings to be materialized through the direct participation in the operation of the market. Due to the long existence of a big local stationery industry in China, until recently, most Japanese and Western stationery products were rarely imported into China via the institutional channels. Social media turned out to be the main platform to network shouzhang fans with the producers and traders of the foreign products they pursue, wherein they themselves also function as active prosumers. Pioneering users of certain products normally evaluate the products with their personal experiences and share them in blogs. This personal evaluation or promotion is called zhongcao (种草) or anli (安利), which works effectively to generate the desire of many followers, since it tends to be considered as more authentic and trustworthy than commercial promotions. In order to meet the generated desire for products not available locally, social media are also used to organize an alternative online trading system called daigou (代利), meaning shopping on behalf of someone else. This is a unique way to combine online and offline shopping together; Chinese migrants who live or study abroad or business people who frequently travel across borders buy products not available within China on behalf of their customers. The process of ordering and the payments are all organized online through interest

200  (Dis)Connected Lives groups. The purchased goods are then delivered to the address according to agreements. To cut the costs, daigou is normally combined with tuangou (团利), another online shopping method that organizes separate fans into larger groups in order to enjoy wholesale prices. Whether daigou or tuangou, such mobilization and organization among strangers across geographical and social boundaries is only imaginable in the globalizing and digitalizing China, as international travel and migration, online shopping, mobile payment, and logistic networks are increasingly commonplace. To summarize, the media ensemble of shouzhang culture goes far beyond the physical diary and stationery. The role played by digital media in the ensemble is not additional, but constitutional. They define the cultural meaning and identity of shouzhang practice not as the revival of a local tradition, but a cultural adventure, a mark of “cosmopolitan capital” (Jansson, 2018: 88) that is suitable and affordable for youngsters. They also steer the orientation of the consumption of the physical diary to match its cultural identity.

How Exactly “Non-​Digital” Is the Physical Shouzhang? The concept of media ensemble helps us realize how the physical diary gains both its cultural meanings and material supply through connections to digital media. In this section we focus on the physical diary itself and understand its relationship with digital media. When one delves into the abundance of literature about shouzhang, one might be intrigued to find that most of the influential concepts about shouzhang design and techniques among Chinese fans can be traced back to designers and experts who specialize in information science or digital product design, such as the author of a Japanese book (also translated into Chinese) that promotes Moleskin notetaking techniques, Masatake E. Hori; and the inventor of Bullet Journal, Ryder Carroll. This connection reminds us of Lev Manovich’s critical thinking about “the language of new media” (2001). In his book, he takes an alternative look into some of the key differences between digital and non-​digital media in academic consensus, including the concepts of numeric representation, modular organization, automation, variability, and transcoding. His argument is that most of these key features are not exclusive to new digital media, but already existed in analog media before and are still there nowadays

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  201

(2001: 66). In the light of this, we can also see the language of digital media, especially the concepts of numeric coding and modular organization, have permeated the designing and operation of shouzhang physical diaries.

Numeric Coding It is generally believed that to be digital is basically to see the world as numbers, “converting continuous data into a numerical representation” (Manovich, 2001: 49). This unique mode of representation has long been considered as the exclusive property of computation and new media technologies. Traditional media like paper and pen, on the contrary, are defined as non-​digital, because they only generate continuous data unless it is digitalized by computers. This binary understanding, however, invites scrutiny. How different, exactly, are words and digits? Are writing and numbering really exclusive of each other? In terms of symbolic systems, numbers and words might not be as different as we usually think. Due to the widespread use of Arabic numbers in contemporary communications, numbers usually appear as a separate system from other written characters within many languages. But if we compare the original form of numbers in that language with other written characters, they are more integral than separated. Historically, numbers and words actually shared the same root. Recent historical discovery suggests that human ancestors initiated written communication from inventing simple marks for counting (Everett, 2017). Numbers are not only the foundation for arithmetic and mathematics, but also the original source that shaped writing systems and written communication. During more than half a millennium after cuneiform was invented in Mesopotamia, it was mainly used as a tool for counting and calculating in the process of tax collection and trading, which normally contained lists of grain, manpower, and taxes (Scott, 2017: 142). That means the early development of writing was highly dominated by numerical thinking. The digital gene does not solely exist in scientific and technological data processing, but in the whole of written communication in human society. In material terms, it is normally assumed that pen and paper are different from digital devices because they require a different manual operation: handwriting rather than typing. This is undeniable. Ingold uses the metaphors of

202  (Dis)Connected Lives “energetic lines” and “inert dots” to describe their difference. He likens the handwriter to the embroiderer, the boatman or the walker, who commonly generate continuous body movements even if the traces left on the surface appear fragmented. Just like the embroiderer’s thread is continuous despite being visible only as spaced dashes, the rower continues to move even when his oar is not in contact with the water, and a walker is carried onward even while his/​her feet are lifted from the ground, the letters and words of a manuscript “are not broken off from the line of movement but implanted along it” (Ingold, 2016: 93). On the contrary, in typing and printing, we see ready-​made letter-​forms delivered to the page by keys and machines. “The punctual movements of the digits on the keys are wholly unrelated to the marks engraved on them, and which they impress upon the page” (p. 93). As a result, “the intimate link between the manual gesture and the inscriptive trace is broken” (p. 3). When writers ceased to perform the equivalent of a walk, their words were reduced to fragments. This comparison seems to set handwriting and typing as opposites. But Ingold’s analysis doesn’t stop here. He further points out that, after typing and printing gained dominance, they turned back to influence or merge with handwriting. Nowadays, handwriters often imitate typing and printing even if they still use pen and paper. For example, when we fill in bureaucratic forms the movement of writing is not a continuous line any more, but serves only to transport the pen from spot to spot. Likewise, handwriting is not exclusively performed with pen and paper any more. In China, for example, most mobile devices allow users to physically write onto the screen as an input method. These recent changes suggest that the division between continuous and discrete data cannot sustain the demarcation between the digital and non-​digital. Analog media like pen and paper—​at first restricted to producing continuous data—​can also be used to produce discrete data and fragmented experiences. Compared to other forms of writing, keeping a diary is normally valued for allowing the writer to build a very intimate relationship with their notebook and words. It seems only natural that it should become a refuge for handwriting from the dominance of typing and printing. But in fact the modern diary has never really escaped the influence of printing and typing. Since 1773, when Robert Aitken published what he claimed was America’s first daily planner, diaries have always been big business for publishers (McCarthy, 2013). Diary pages in turn ceased to be totally blank, but became colonized by the industrial principle of standardization, regimentation, and

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  203

efficiency. Diary keepers were offered prefabricated lines, dots, grids, calendars, and other layouts which enabled them not just to capture the present but to plan for the future. From the beginning, the format was intimately connected with business accounting and bureaucratic organization. Customers were guided to use separate spaces to reorganize their daily experiences and particular formats were devoted to expenses, appointments, and memos. Under this discrete format, the diary became more like a form to “sign” rather than a book to “write.” From the 1930s, with the rise of individualistic society, the mass-​productive aesthetic of the diary started to face challenges. Drawing on the work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, a group of psychoanalysts including Marion Milner and Rachel Bowlby advocated a new fashion of diary keeping which was at odds with industrial logic. Writing a diary was promoted as a cure for various psychological disorders. It could nurture individual well-​being and self-​discovery rather than promoting productivity or the education of model citizens. The key element of this treatment was to remove any format or rules, allowing the individual’s spirits to be freed by free writing (Rainer, 1978; Milner, 2011). In other words, it would resume what Ingold calls “the intimate link between the manual gesture and the inscriptive trace.” This shifting history of the handwritten diary suggests that being continuous or discrete is not the fixed property of pen and paper, but the product of contingent intersections of handwriting with other writing technologies, either as their accompaniment or opponent. So what is the appearance of contemporary shouzhang in China? My observations suggest that the industrial day planner format is more dominant for shouzhang design than the aesthetic of a post-​industrial free diary. Most shouzhang fans choose a well-​designed day planner format with row upon row of compact and self-​contained marks. Ordinary lined notebooks and blank paged notebooks are also used, but they are considered either suitable for novices or only as supplements. Entries are recorded by pen on paper, but continuous and lineal handwriting with simple paragraphing and little decorations is dismissed as low-​skilled and outdated. On the contrary, the way shouzhang entries are written appears to be highly fragmented under the logic of quantification and datafication. Entries have to fit into compact time slots, checking lists, account tables, and statistical graphs, quite similar to the formats used for business reports and management statements (see Figure 8.1). Shouzhang also emulates the industrial day planner by laying a similar stress on efficiency and the sense of time pressure. To keep up with the pace

Figure 8.1  The page design of Kokuyo Jibun Techo demonstrated in a Tmall shop. Screenshot from: https://​detail.tmall.com/​item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.32. e4a56e89OwycVp&id=629791686842&ns=1&abbucket=7.

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  205

of the industrializing world, people realized that “mapping the future would be critical to getting ahead” and “saw their days laid out before them and plan ahead weekly, monthly or annually” (McCarthy, 2013). Driven by the sense of instantaneity and acceleration in the digital age, today’s shouzhang fans are even offered three-​year or five-​year planners, which re-​sequence time by compacting the same day of several years together, a kind of montage effect of time on paper. The only thing that differentiates contemporary shouzhang from the industrial planner or business reports is probably its personal and flexible appearance. Whatever methods of quantification are involved in the handwritten shouzhang, they are not necessarily pre-​printed on the planner and set by the publisher, but often designed and drawn by users themselves (see Figure 8.2) or are sold separately in the forms of stamps or stickers (see Figure 8.3). This helps shouzhang shed the sense of standardization and regimentalism associated with the mass-​productive mode of the industrial age; it manages to correspond to the post-​industrial logic of “production on demand” afforded by the use of computers and computer networks in all stages of manufacturing and distribution (Manovich, 2011: 56).

Modular Organization Another principle underlying shouzhang design and composition is modularity. According to Blanchette, modularity is the core mechanism for abstracting, structuring, and distributing the material resources of computation (2011: 14). In information science and technology studies, it is normally described as a mechanism whereby small and self-​sufficient modules are assembled into larger programs or objects without losing their independence. The programs and objects themselves then can be combined into even larger objects—​again, without losing their independence (Manovich, 2001: 51). Such a system is designed to accommodate complexity caused by the “growth in size and traffic, technical evolution and decay, diversity of implementations, integration of new services to answer unanticipated needs, emergent behaviors, etc.” (Blanchette, 2011: 15). This strategy has indeed been pushed to a new level by the software and hardware design of computation, but it is not exclusive to computers and other digital media. The underlying principle has already been widely applied in manufacturing (from automobiles to disposable razors), architecture, and education (curriculum design).

(a)

(b)

Figure 8.2  Two examples of hand-​drawn statistic graphs for mood tracking used in shouzhang. Screenshot from https://​mp.weixin.qq.com/​s/​ rcS25dE4YhlzGutGlKPDsw.

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  207

Figure 8.3  A type of marking tape for habit tracking in shouzhang. Screenshot from: https://​detail.tmall.com/​item.htm?spm=a1z10.5-​b-​s.w4011-​ 16502168047.78.78a23caeKuHm4a&id=567398204246&rn=6ea0e451e4cdf4f3 48f946043241725c&abbucket=9.

The complexity of a personal journal might not be comparable to that of a computer, a mobile phone, or the World Wide Web, but it is still a challenge for individuals. How should they use limited pages to record an unlimited traffic of experiences and ideas? How can the bonded paper pages adapt to the constant change of life and mood? For both designers and users, there is always a dilemma between versatility and specialization, fixation and flexibility. On the one hand, for convenience and coherence, it is ideal to merge as many records as possible in one journal. But on the other hand, different

208  (Dis)Connected Lives layouts, sizes, and designs are required to accommodate personal needs, which are bound to be diverse and fluid. Contemporary shouzhang needs to serve both. Modularity turns out to be the solution, which permeates all aspects of shouzhang design and the operations of publishers and users. At the most basic level, each page is supposed to be divided into several areas instead of being used as a whole space. Each part forms an independent module with a unique layout or format to serve a particular purpose at its best: a square area to write about today’s mood, a timeline area for schedules, a “to do list” area to check daily tasks, another list area to track eating and sleeping habits, a blank area to draw pictures or to paste memorable scraps, so on and so forth. If needed, users can add stickers on the top of each page for more separate spaces. Some shouzhang formats come with pre-​printed page partitions, such as Kokuyo Jibun Techo and Hobonichi Techo. Others encourage their users to do this personally, an idea highly promoted by the designer of Bullet Journal, Ryder Carroll, for instance (2018). Just as each page is a space combined from different partitions, the whole journal is also an object constituted of independent printed inserts. For example, Kokuyo Jibun Techo uses 3-​in-​1 structure to accommodate many purposes in one book (see Figure 8.4): “Diary” with weekly and monthly timeline of each year format for daily life and work scheduling and recording; “Idea” with grid format to take casual notes and organize thoughts and information; and “Life” with pre-​printed graphs and tables to record permanent information such as personal goals, anniversary dates, family tree, medical records, passwords, etc. The three fascicles work separately and can be renewed separately, which effectively extends the lifespan and flexibility of the whole journal. The same strategy is applied to Midori Traveler’s Notebook, but in an even more versatile and flexible fashion. Users are provided with a leather cover with rubber bands, together with multiple choices of fascicles with varied formats and paper qualities. Some have lined format, some grid or blank. Some are fine and thin, some thick and rough. They are supposed to freely select whatever types of fascicles suit their own purposes and band them together with rubber bands and a leather cover. While the fascicles are always new, the leather cover is designed to be long-​lasting, in fact the older the better. Unlike Kokuyo Jibun Techo, Midori Traveler’s Notebook doesn’t name each fascicle for one particular use. But the idea is the same: (a) to make the journal more adaptive to individual needs, so that it has “one-​for-​ all” ability; (b) to combine the obsolete (the fascicles) with the permanent

Figure 8.4  The 3-​in-​1 structure of Kokuyo Jibun Techo demonstrated in a Tmall shop. Screenshot from: https://​detail.tmall.com/​item.htm?spm=a220m .1000858.1000725.11.43942fbekrmASr&id=627657841755&skuId=4625112922 570&user_​id=3001789139&cat_​id=2&is_​b=1&rn=d3a4b960d3f72a2c6e472e18 5c7f03fd.

210  (Dis)Connected Lives (the leather cover), so that one object can be both new and old, mobile and stable at the same time. The strategy of modularity is also manifested in the organization of different diaries. Because every product has its strengths and weaknesses, it’s up to shouzhang users to match different types of diary keeping with different purposes. In order to remain open to multiple purposes and goals, one diary never seems to be enough, no matter how good it is. Therefore, one important issue of shouzhang mastery is to decide how many and what types of physical diaries to keep and then constantly tailor the combination to one’s life. As a result, the contemporary shouzhang for each fan rarely means a single diary, but a whole series, which is formally called a “shouzhang system.” The number of brands and types of diary available on the market are limited, but the possibilities of combination are unlimited. So each fan cannot claim much about the uniqueness of any singular diary he or she is using, but can surely claim that his or her “shouzhang system” is unique. Like the modular structure within a journal, the systematic structure between different journals also provides a solution to the dilemma between stability and flexibility. Shouzhang fans usually keep using one type of journal as their “core journal” for a long term, while their use of other journals remains flexible. As one shouzhang fan describes: After 6 years of doing Shouzhang, I have established my own shouzhang system. At this moment, it includes four journals in total: a Kokuyo Jibun Techo for daily time planning and recording, a Hobonichi diary to write diary, a Moleskine notebook to record all the films and dramas I watched, and an ordinary blank journal to collect interesting scraps and tapes. They are useful in different ways. For example, Kokuyo Jibun Techo is very useful to visualize my daily tasks and help me organise time. But it’s too structured, I can’t write much in the tiny space of each time slot. Hobonichi Diary then allows me to write more freely. At the end of every year, I would spend some time to reflect on how this system works for me and make some adjustments to let it fit into my life in the coming year better. Sometimes to launch a new journal contributed to a new habit or new project. Sometimes to give up one if I have less spare time or if it doesn’t work for me very well. But throughout these years, Kokuyo Jibun Techo has been always with me. It really gives me a sense of continuity and allows me to see my growth. (From the interview with Miss Xibing)

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  211

As the result of these two design principles, both the materiality and practice of shouzhang become very paradoxical. They are highly structured and standardized, but at the same time feel unprecedently flexible and variable. The presence of sophisticated formats and ever-​upgrading techniques inevitably imposes a rational order onto the self and leaves very limited space for anarchic composition on the paper, but the mechanism of the ordering is different from that of the industrial age, which only produces objects as fixed and identical to each other. Today’s shouzhang designers are more like computer programmers, who “substitute every constant by a variable” (Manovich, 2001: 62). The users are always “indulged” with options along various dimensions, size, scale, degree of detail, format, color, shape, duration, style, brand, to name just a few, which makes the physical diaries almost as mutable as computer programs. Based on this “structured flexibility,” shouzhang gains an ability to track and navigate similar to that of mobile phones and wearable devices, a common manifestation of new technologies in the era of “geomedia” (McQuire, 2016; Fast et al., 2018). Self-​writing is less about self-​caring than self-​tracking and self-​monitoring. From the self-​ promotion of many famous brands, such as “The Bullet Journal Method will help you go from passenger to pilot of your own life,” or “Leuchtturm 1917 Change Journal believes ‘change is easy!’ ” one can hear the pressure of compulsory mobility and precariousness in the digital age echoed in an analog form.

Where Is the Sense of Slowness and Disconnection From? Given the integration between the physical diary and other digital devices in the media ensemble of shouzhang, and the digital logic deeply embedded in the designing principles of the physical diary itself, as we discussed in the earlier sections, then why is shouzhang still able to evoke a sense of slowness and allow the user to feel disconnected from the digital environment? My argument is that this is also an effect derived from a social-​technical production of shouzhang jointly participated in by the publisher and the user, rather than caused by any innate quality of paper and pen totally opposite to digital devices. According to Lars Hallnäs and Johan Redström, the design philosophy of slow technology is not simply to slow down speed or to make it

212  (Dis)Connected Lives “time consuming,” but rather “time productive,” which means to give time for “new reflective activities.” Opposite to the fast technology which encourages people to focus on function and efficiency, the key issue of slow technology is about “exposing technology in a way that encourages people to reflect and think about it.” The user not only “uses” the technology to fulfill certain tasks, but also to feel the “presence” of the technology itself, being able to appreciate the “aesthetics of material” and the “form of design” (Hallnäs & Redström, 2001: 210). In other words, the sense of slowness doesn’t necessarily come from certain technologies essentially different from the fast technologies. It’s more a result of the technological and cultural operation with the existing technology that makes the invisible materiality of the technology visible, as well as the visible invisible. This particular social and cultural construction of technology is exactly what Bolter and Grusin call “the twin logics of immediacy and hypermediacy,” which both new and old media invoke “in their efforts to remake themselves and each other” (2000: 5). They explain: If the logic of immediacy leads one either to erase or to render automatic the act of representation, the logic of hypermediacy acknowledges multiple acts of representation and makes them visible. Where immediacy suggests a unified visual space, contemporary hypermediacy offers a heterogeneous space, in which representation is conceived of not as a window on to the world, but rather as “windowed” itself—​with windows that open on to other representations or other media. (Bolter & Grusin, 2000: 33–​34)

Looking back on the historical evolution of paper as a fundamental medium for human civilization, one can already see the coexistence of influences from both logics. On the one side, there has been a strong quest to make paper transparent and invisible. After its initial invention by the ancient Egyptians and the second invention in China, paper has been constantly reinvented in order to make it cheaper, more accessible and portable, in order to minimize the efforts and costs of usage until the existence of paper can be almost ignored and all attention can be focused on the actions and information demonstrated on its surface. Paper became more and more uniform, smooth, light, and thin. In this process, especially after the industrialization of both paper-​making and printing, the connections between the production of paper with its natural resources (e.g., Cyperus papyrus, bark, linen,

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  213

old cloth fishing nets, or even cerecloth), as well as human labor and craftsmanship, were gradually eliminated. The ideal mass-​produced paper should be pure and smooth. Any trace of the natural and material resources would be seen as a defect. Besides this mainstream narrative of the history of paper we are very familiar with, however, there has been an alternative trajectory, which is also noteworthy. The practical and aesthetical appreciation of paper not just as a transparent surface but as an opaque and durable object also played an important role in shaping the history of paper. Apart from being used for information recording, paper has been widely manufactured to be used as other products, such as boxes, umbrellas, fans, clothes, paper-​ cutting, or even construction materials. Parallel to the industrial production of paper sheets, there has been a persistent endeavor to preserve the natural ingredients and craftsmanship of paper-​making. Handmade paper survived in many countries and even developed into a successful business in Japan, which claimed itself as the guardian of paper-​making craftsmanship enlisted by the ESCCO’s nonmaterial heritages system in 2014. Modern artists also contributed to this alternative history of paper. In the late 19th century, against the sweeping mechanization of paper production and printing, the worth of handmade paper and hand-​press work was embraced by British Arts and Crafts Movement as a way to revive the medieval ideal of artisans engaged in crafting. Modernists like Gauguin and Picasso also gained insights that “the paper itself made a statement” and experimented with its tremendous potential for art expression (Kurlansky, 2016). As this alternative history of paper developed, the qualities deemed as inferior, impure, and unwanted in mainstream narrative, such as the texture, the feeling of weight and thickness, and the traces of natural resources, became sought after or even intentionally fabricated. Once the transparent became opaque, the associated techniques also diverged from writing and typing to folding, cutting, stacking, scraping, pasting, etc. The ideal was not just to make paper word-​friendly, pen-​friendly, or printer-​friendly, but hand-​friendly and body-​friendly. The action of writing itself also gained independent value from words, which give rise to the art of calligraphy. Such a plural reading of the history of paper inspires us with a critical understanding about the materiality of paper and the physical journal, which is full of tension and ambiguity. While the logic of immediacy hides the traces of paper, the logic of hypermediacy highlights them, making them readable, touchable, and valuable. This is exactly the moment when people feel

214  (Dis)Connected Lives the “presence” of the technology itself and focus on “aesthetics of material” in Hallnäs and Redström’s theorization. Therefore, the sense of slowness and disconnection related to the physical journal in the digital age cannot be taken for granted as an innate quality of paper or paper-​based writing themselves. It is indeed another manifestation of the logic of hypermediacy in the process of remediation of paper responding to the changes of other media, like what has already happened throughout history. Thus, any effect of slowness and disconnection can only be understood by interrogating how the logic of hypermediacy operates, technologically and culturally. Luckily, Bolter and Grusin have already provided us with a clue: The logic of hypermediacy is usually related to the operations that generate “multiple acts of representation” in order to offer “a heterogeneous space” (2000: 31, 34). Then we can focus on how the effects of multiplicity and heterogeneity are created in the contemporary re/​making of shouzhang. The data from my observations and interviews point to the following technological and cultural mechanisms.

Spatial Heterogeneity When analyzing how the logic of hypermediacy is embedded in the design of digital web pages, Bolter and Grusin discover that web pages express “tension between regarding a visual space as mediated and as a ‘real’ space that lies beyond mediation,” which drives the viewer to “keep coming back to the surface or, in extreme cases, an attempt to hold the viewer at the surface indefinitely” (2000: 41). The same tension is also expressed by the structure of shouzhang pages. Due to the numerical coding and modular organization in the design principle, shouzhang pages are organized not as a unified space as in the traditional physical journal or book, but as a highly fragmented and heterogeneous space like a web page, with different templates for different contents and purposes. The process of doing shouzhang involves constantly making choices about format, layout, color combination, and tools among an enormous range of options, and matching contents with the right grids, slots, inserts, and modules. What’s more, given the multiple choices between different devices in the media ensemble of shouzhang, the daily practices inevitably unfold across different media platforms. Sometimes, they even expand into physical spaces, such as cafés and tourist sites. Such an idea of

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  215

spatial multiplicity is not subconsciously practiced by individual users, but deliberately used by today’s diary and stationery industry as an important marketing strategy. It is transforming the industry into another agent of the experience economy, which creates and tour-​guides customers across multiple types of spaces. For example, today’s Moleskine not only sells expensive notebooks and planners, but actively engages in other businesses. In 2012, based on a survey suggesting that “60 percent of Moleskine customers are also very digitally savvy,” it declared “a ceasefire between pen and digital” and cooperated with e-​journal Evernote to launch “Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine.” Later it developed a “Smart Writing System” that allows the user to synchronize paper writing with a digital screen. More recently, the company promoted the Moleskine Flow App for digital designing and the Moleskine Journey App that “blends productivity tools with wellness tracking features.” Besides, the company also runs Moleskine cafés in many global cities that bring smart minds to meet and provides Moleskine Creative Retreats, a kind of immersive group travel experiences co-​designed with Unsettled, “to spark inspiration, creativity, and self-​expression.” When these multiple spaces all merge into shouzhang experiences, the user confronts a collage and oscillates between different spaces. This obviously makes shouzhang practice both more intensive and distracted. But ironically, it is exactly this tension that lures the user to “acknowledge the medium as a medium and to delight in that acknowledgment” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000: 41).

Sensory Multiplicity Another mechanism of the logic of hypermediacy is to “multiply the signs of mediation and to reproduce the rich sensorium of human experience” (Bolter & Grusin, 2000: 34). As discussed earlier, unlike the traditional riji, wherein the diarist’s attention is supposed to be concentrated on writing itself in order to immerse one in dialogue with oneself, shouzhang on the contrary is constructed more as arts and crafts with a whole repertoire of tools and skills involved. The tools and techniques come in such a multitude that having a tiny workshop in one’s study for both storage and production is increasingly a common ideal for shouzhang fans. Immersed in such a variety of stationery, handwriting turns out to be marginal and gives way to all sorts of other activities, such as painting, pasting, cutting, folding, stamping,

216  (Dis)Connected Lives etc. This shifts the user’s attention from mind to body, generating rich visual, auditory, and tactile experiences. When explaining why doing shouzhang is so attractive or even addictive, fans tend to focus on their feelings when handling the physical journal and playing with different tools rather than what they write, as exemplified by the following expressions: It just sounds beautiful for my ears and feels warm when the pen moves on the paper. When I finish a whole journal, I can feel the thickness and it lets me feel good about myself. I used to be indifferent about keeping a diary. But when I see so many beautiful stickers and washi tapes, I could feel the surge of my hormones. I guess without the joy of choosing, cutting and pasting stickers and tapes, shouzhang is not much fun for me anymore. I like doing shouzhang because when I randomly choose my favorite stickers and decide to paste them however I like, I can have a break of thinking.

However strongly these embodied sensations are experienced by fans, it is naïve to assume they are merely physical feelings of some sensitive individuals. Rather, these feelings and body experiences have already been carefully encoded into the products and their marketing. In today’s market, the sophistication of a diary or planner usually comes with some elements of nature or handmaking in order to disguise its factory-​made identity. These elements require the customer to appreciate them by gazing, listening, holding, and touching. For example, in a promotion video for Midori notebooks, the audience is exposed to amplified sounds of different types of pen and pencil scratching on the surface of the paper, together with close-​up images of the paper’s texture. The quality of the paper is celebrated with sensational human hearing and touching. Likewise, in the package of Midori Traveler’s Notebook, an instruction says: “Traveler’s notebook has a leather cover which the more you use, the better quality it becomes . . . After using for a long time, when the leather quality changes, the scratches remain as your memories, this notebook will be more precious than ever for you.” This introduction not only tells the customer how to “use” the journal, but how to “feel” the presence of the journal and accumulate the feeling as the leather gradually shows wear.

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  217

Cultural and Gender Pluralism High-​end diaries used to be marked by professional designs oriented to social elites and conforming to the mainstream value of social status. But as digital devices increasingly became dominant in more and more professions, the diary publishers had to look to more marginal groups and reshape themselves as culturally and socially inclusive as possible. Japanese diaries become sought after not merely because of their handcrafted paper, but also because they add an oriental beauty to the previously Westernized landscape. Western brands like Moleskin and Leuchtturm 1917 normally render nostalgic memories about the glorious past of Europe to add aura to physical diaries. The ideas of “World Folk Patterns” or “Thailand leather” are commonly used in cover design as a clichéd formula of a hint of ethnicity. Among various dimensions of cultural identities, I am going to focus on how gender is used to create the effect of multiplicity, and how it contributes to the sense of disconnection. Despite their neutral appearance, modern technologies have always been a gendered space that help to configure both femininity and masculinity. Diary keeping is not an exception. What the feminist scholars call “genderscript” (Berg & Lie 1993; Hubak 1996; van Oost, 2003) also manifests in diary design and marketing. While the concise and structured style of planners tailored for public and social engagements usually symbolizes a dominant notion of masculinity that emphasizes self-​discipline and self-​organization, women’s engagements with their diary have long been associated with secrecy and fragility, sometimes even reified by a physical lock on the diary. The idea of planning and personal time management afforded by the formats was also more oriented to public life than the domestic life and housework. Today’s diary industry, however, tries to break this boundary by including women’s life and feminine elements in the product’s design and marketing. Hobonichi Techo’s success was a good example. Unlike other famous brands which originated from the old stationery industry, Hobonichi Techo was born from a website that sells house and home products online. This origin gives the company every incentive to distinguish itself from other competitors with a strikingly feminine style, demonstrated by the use of bright colors, soft cloth covers, relatively small sizes, cute logos, handmade stitches, butterfly clasps, etc. Its Parenting Planner and “& Child” series, which particularly tailors formats for childrearing and other domestic work, for the first time formally introduced the

218  (Dis)Connected Lives idea of planning and time management into women’s domestic sphere. Now it has 780,000 users worldwide—​not surprisingly largely women. Traditional stationery companies also made huge efforts to attract women customers in order to change their previously gender-​neutral image to adapt to the new market. For example, when Kokuyo, a Japanese stationary company with more than 100 years of history, tried to enter the Chinese market in the early 2000s, it also chose young women as its main target. From 2008 to 2011, a talent competition called “The Campus Girl” was organized every year in 25 Chinese universities, purportedly with more than 5 million students participating. Manufacturers may be seeking to appear more gender inclusive in order to win more woman customers rather than necessarily to exclude men from the market. But when the strategy was combined with the user’s re-​appreciation, the result in the Chinese context is ironically another gender discrimination. When shouzhang established itself as a new hobby in China, it turned out to be predominantly feminine. Two separate surveys in 2016 and 2017 commonly point to the disproportionate gender identity among Chinese Shouzhang users, with female users taking 92% and 81% respectively. My observation and interviews also suggested that doing shouzhang seems to be a “girly” thing in today’s China. Most shouzhang bloggers and my interviewees are young women. In their expressions, doing shouzhang forms an important performative space to construct and mark their identity as so-​called “refined women,” who are generally young, smart, well-​educated, and have refined and cosmopolitan tastes. This constructed linkage between shouzhang with women not only reconfigures a privileged femininity against the traditional and underclass femininity, it also reinforces the dominant notion of masculinity and gender difference by excluding men from shouzhang space. One of my interviewees is a 15-​year-​old boy. He admitted that he never let his family and school know about his hobby and he had to hide his real name when he communicated with other hobbyists on Weibo, because “in people’s minds, boys belong to sports and IT, not the things like shouzhang.” A female shouzhanger provided me with another example about the gender bias: My boyfriend uses pen and paper to write a diary and make daily plan as much as I do. But that’s not shouzhang. Because he doesn’t care about the brand, quality and decoration of his diary as much as I do. He doesn’t see any point to pay so much attention to those things, but I think they are important.

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  219

In her understanding, shouzhang is different from a traditional diary because it has been essentially associated with the appreciation of the material and the craftsmanship. It doesn’t belong to men, not because men don’t use pen and paper anymore, but because their focus is supposed to be “what they write” rather than “what they write with.” Only women are good at enjoying both, especially the latter. While men are supposed to “rationally” concentrate on the function, women are seen as by nature more sensitive about the material and the tactile experiences in the process. They are also expected to be more patient and be more creative with this kind of “low technology”. Then how do these women users perform and negotiate their gender identity through shouzhang practices? And how is their negotiation of gender identity intertwined with the logics of remediation? When shouzhang is perceived as a transparent channel to achieve personal development along the logic of immediacy, gender differences become vague and irrelevant in their expressions. The discussion is centered by the knowledge exchange about various techniques, such as using a timeline to manage time, creating checklists to track one’s life and build good habits, etc. Mastering the highly structured formats and the modulated system and being able to integrate them with their personal life are valued as a way to gain the qualities and abilities conventionally owned by men. In this interpretation, shouzhang functions as a technology that empowers women to go beyond the gender division and become equal individuals as men, as long as they can afford and learn to handle it. However, when the material forms of design and the sensual experience in the process are acknowledged along with the logic of hypermediacy, it immediately evokes identification with the stereotyped notion of femininity and gender hierarchy. It is commonly assumed that doing shouzhang is a hobby created for women because “women are innately skillful with their hands,” “innately quiet and neat,” “more sensitive than men,” or “it’s safer for young women to do shouzhang at home as a relaxation than going out.” Like the design principle of shouzhang, which affords a kind of “structured flexibility,” woman fans also develop a kind of “flexible femininity” which allows them to oscillate between different gender identifications. This particular practice of genderscripting, which bounds the materiality of shouzhang and the corporal experiences in the process with an essentialized notion of femininity, further contributes to the sense of disconnection about shouzhang from the mainstream environment of Chinese society, which is

220  (Dis)Connected Lives still largely male dominated, despite the empowering possibilities promised by the speedy advance of digital technologies.

Slow Legerdemain Just as speed is a cultural creation, so is slowness. What we can learn from the case of shouzhang practice in contemporary China is how the sense of slowness is technically and culturally created through the remediation of an existing medium in a new media environment. By seeing shouzhang as a process and in relation with other media rather than as a single medium or a static material, we acquire a unique lens to interrogate where the effect of slowness is from and what exactly it is about, instead of assuming it is simply out there or derived from the innate quality of certain materials. Under this processual and relational approach, the rise of shouzhang culture in China’s younger generation can no longer been naively interpreted as a retreat to old technologies or a revival of any cultural tradition. On the contrary, it forms an integral part of the social transformation toward a highly connected and mobilized society that the country is undergoing and therefore equally demonstrates a tremendous power to generate various flows across social and geographical boundaries, as well as the ability to adapt to the sense of acceleration fueled by the rapid technological and economic growth in the country. The passion for the analog not only coexists with the continuous dependence on digital devices. It is basically driven by deep mediatization in the digital age and permeated by the digital language. The sense of slowness and disconnection is not outside of or against this process, but essentially a byproduct of it, which is achieved when certain invisible traces or materiality of the pen and paper are made visible and present under the logic of hypermediacy. No one can deny the agency of individual shouzhang users to generate some genuine sense of slowness or retreat by returning to pen and paper. But, as demonstrated in this chapter, there are various technical and cultural mechanisms involved in the remaking of this seemingly authentic medium as well. The operation of these external and structural forces means that very often people’s romantic pursuit for slowness and disconnection can be exploited or coerced. In this vein, what really matters after all is not very much whether a medium is truly slow or fast, but how and why it is made slow or

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  221

fast, and for whom. When disclosing the social implications of fast media, John Tomlinson analogizes the sense of immediacy created by media technologies as a kind of “legerdemain,” an act of conjuring, that “whilst seeming effortless and offering delights, nonetheless involves certain concealments and deceptions” (2018: 247). Perhaps the same can be said when certain media are used to create a sense of slowness. If fast media, in concert with fast capitalism, “promise physical lightness and effortlessness in the operation of communications technologies with a tacit assumption of the instant and constant availability of things and people,” they in fact hide their technical complexities, the material cost of unrestricted consumption growth, and human economic relations that are presented in commodities (Tomlinson, 2018: 246). Slow media like shouzhang could do the same, as we can see from the previous analysis. Underneath the technological, economic, and cultural creation of slowness and disconnection related to pen and paper, the traditional stationery industry squeezes into the “experience economy” and claims ceasefire with the digital economy, a few international brands win their global market, cultural otherness and places are consumed, and gender boundaries are reinforced and negotiated. All these social processes are concealed while the visual, tactile, and kinesthetic qualities of pen and paper are highlighted and celebrated. As Krämer reminds us, “while the trace is invisible, what makes it visible is also invisible” (2015: 174). Let the case study of shouzhang alert us to the possibilities that some deeper social and technological transformations are happening under the surface of various forms of slow media and digital disconnection.

References Adams, P. C. (2009). Geographies of Media and Communication: A Critical Introduction. Chichester, UK and Malden, MA: Wiley-​Blackwell. Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801–​831. Basbanes, N. A. (2014). On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-​Thousand-​Year History. New York: Vintage. Berg, A. J., & Lie, M. (1993). Feminism and constructivism: Do artifacts have gender? Science, Technology and Human Values, 20, 332–​351.

222  (Dis)Connected Lives Blanchette, J. F. (2011). A material history of bits. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(6), 1042–​1057. Bolter, D., & Grusin, R. (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Carroll, R. (2018). The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. New York: Penguin. Chadwick, A. (2017). The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chan, Z. (1989). The Brief History of Diary in China. (Zhongguo riji shi lue). Beijing: China Book Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2004). A Thousand Plateaus, transl. B Massumi. London: Continuum. Everett, C. (2017). Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fast, K., Jansson, A., Lindell, J., Bengtsson, L. R., & Tesfahuney, M. (Eds.) (2018). Geomedia Studies: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized Worlds. London: Routledge. Fickers, A. (2009). Tuning in nostalgic wavelengths: Transistor memories set to music. In Bijsterveld, K., & van Dijck, J. (Eds.), Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory, and Cultural Practices (pp. 152–​ 166). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Hardy, C., & Thomas, R. (2015). Discourse in a material world. Journal of Management Studies, 52(5), 680–​696. Hallnäs, L., & Redström, J. (2001). Slow technology—​designing for reflection. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 5(3), 201–​212. Hepp, A. (2020). Deep Mediatization: Key Ideas in Media & Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. Hou, H. (2018). The history of shouzhang. (Shouzhang de Fazhan Lishi). https://​www. jianshu.com/​p/​4b5c4d569728. Hubak, M. (1996). The car as cultural statement: Car advertising as gendered socio-​ technical scripts. In Lie, M., & Sørensen, K. H. (Eds.), Making Technology Our Own. Oslo. Scandinavian University Press. Ingold, T. (2012). Toward an ecology of materials. Annual Review of Anthropology, 41, 427–​442. Ingold, T. (2016). Lines: A Brief History. London: Routledge. Jansson, A. (2018). Mediatization and Mobile Lives: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge.

“Think on Paper, Share Online”  223 John, R. (1995). Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Köhler, B., David, S., & Blumtritt, J. (2010). The Slow Media Manifesto. http://​en.slow-​ media.net/​manifesto. Krämer, S. (2015). Medium, Messenger, Transmission. An Approach to Media Philosophy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Kurlansky, M. (2017). Paper: Paging Through History. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. Liang C. (2018). The Social Medium of Pen and Paper Planners: The analog tradition of “shouzhang” is taking China by storm as a means of mindful living in a digital age.  https://​w ww.sixthtone.com/​news/​1002868/​t he-​s ocial-​medium-​of-​p en​and-​paper-​planners. Madianou, M., & Miller, D. (2013). Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(2), 169–​187. Manovich, L. (2001). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Marvin, C. (1988). When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication In the Late Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCarthy, M. (2013). The daily planner: An American History: How a nation learned to pencil you in. The Boston Globe. https://​www.bostonglobe.com/​ideas/​2013/​06/​ 01/​the-​daily-​planner-​american-​history/​WncDRG5hq7B9m0w3cE5jkM/​story. html. McQuire, S. (2016). Geomedia: Networked Cities and the Future of Public Space. Cambridge: Polity Press. Milner, M. (2011). A Life of One’s Own. London: Routledge. Moores, S. (2018). Digital Orientations: Non-​Media-​Centric Media Studies and Non-​ Representational Theories of Practice. New York: Peter Lang. Morley, D. (1995). Television: Not so much a visual medium, more a visible object. In Jenks, C. (Ed.), Visual Culture. London: Routledge. Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2015). Exploring material-​discursive practices. Journal of Management Studies, 52(5), 697–​705. Pinch, T., & Reinecke, D. (2009). Technostalgia: How old gear lives on in new music. In Bijsterveld, K., & van Dijck, J. (Eds.), Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory, and Cultural Practices (pp. 152–​ 166). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Rainer, T. (1978). The New Diary: How to Use a Journal for Self-​Guidance and Expanded Creativity. New York: Tarcher Books.

224  (Dis)Connected Lives Rauch, J. (2011). The origin of slow media: Early diffusion of a cultural innovation through popular and press discourse, 2002–​2010. Transformations: Journal of Media & Culture. Issue No. 20. Rauch, J. (2018). Slow Media: Why Slow Is Satisfying, Sustainable, and Smart. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van der Heijden, T. (2015). Technostalgia of the present: From technologies of memory to a memory of technologies. European Journal of Media Studies, 4 (2), 103–​121. Sapio, G. (2014). Homesick for aged home movies: Why do we shoot contemporary family videos in old fashioned ways? In Niemeyer, K. (Ed.), Media and Nostalgia: Yearning for the Past, Present and Future (pp. 39–​50). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Scott, J. C. (2017). Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Tomlinson, J. (2018). Fast media. In Fast, K., Jansson, A., Lindell, J., Bengtsson, L. R., & Tesfahuney, M. (Eds.), Geomedia Studies: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized Worlds. London: Routledge. Thrift, N. (2008). Non-​Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge. Turow, J., & Tsui, L. (2008). The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Turkle, S. (2017). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. van Oost, E. (2003). Materialized gender: How shavers configure the users’ femininity and masculinity. In Oudshoorn, N., & Pinch, T. (Eds.), How Users Matter: The Co-​Construction of Users and Technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wang, X. (2017) Productivity & Self-​Management. www.chenzao.com. Zielinski, S. (2013). [. . . After the Media]: News from the Slow-​Fading Twentieth Century. Minneapolis, MN: Univocal.

PART III

RETHINKING DISCONNECTION IN A DISRUPTED WORLD

9 Disconnect to Reconnect! Self-​ help to Regain an Authentic Sense of Space Through Digital Detoxing Gunn Enli and Trine Syvertsen

Introduction “Look away from our screens and enter the physical world we are in” (Colier, 2016: loc. 1843),1 is a typical call for action in contemporary self-​help literature. Like advice to stop smoking, lose weight, and improve homes, advice to do a digital detox is emerging as a popular self-​help sub-​genre. Drawing on an empirical analysis of 15 self-​help books, this chapter explores advice to reconnect with social and physical spaces by taking a break from digital technology.2 Digital detox is a relatively new term (Syvertsen, 2020), but as the chapter will show, its ideological foundations are familiar from a long history of media and technology criticism. Research on digital detox and disconnection is proliferating (see, e.g., Aranda & Baig, 2018; Baumer et al., 2013; Baym et al., 2020; Brennen, 2019; Neves et al., 2015; Schoenebeck, 2014), yet, the phenomenon is rarely placed in a historical context, and its values rarely understood as part of a broader cultural inclination. This chapter analyzes recommendation to detox in the light of classical and contemporary criticisms of media influence. A defining characteristic of the media is that they change our experience of space and introduce new virtual spaces. From the telegraph to mobile media, new communication technologies have prompted reflection over 1 Some of our sources are e-​books without page numbers, marked with “loc.” 2 The chapter is part of the project Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox, funded by the Norwegian Research Council 2019−23. https://​www.hf.uio.no/​imk/​english/​research/​projects/​digital-​disconnection/​index.html. Gunn Enli and Trine Syvertsen, Disconnect to Reconnect! Self-​help to Regain an Authentic Sense of Space Through Digital Detoxing In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0010

228  Rethinking Disconnection what it means to be situated in space and have changed the norms for behavior in different spaces (Carey, 2015). A fundamental change is epitomized in Joshua Meyrowitz’s famous term “no sense of place,” describing how the media “decreased the significance of physical presence in the experience of people and events.” As Meyrowitz notes: “One can now be an audience to a social phenomenon without being physically present; one can communicate directly with others without meeting in the same place” (1985: vii). While the ability of media to transmit sound, images, and text across vast distances fascinated the general public, these characteristics also prompted media resistance. The claims that mass media invade and transform social and physical space and create a false sense of proximity have been central in the critique of telecommunications, broadcasting, and digital media (Syvertsen, 2017). The phenomena of digital detox and intentional disconnection reflect a demand for practical solutions to combat an uncomfortable sense of spatial dislocation and a yearning to return to a more authentic sense of space (Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). A fundamental premise in texts recommending digital detox is that media disconnect us from real life and that actions are necessary to reconnect. This chapter discusses two aspects of digital detox that are both framed as reconnecting: discourses and measures about social spaces and means to reconnect with physical spaces. Common to both is a presumption that presence here-​and-​now is essential for an authentic life; and a suspicion that the media are inauthentic and that media-​created spaces are less real than physical spaces (Enli, 2015). There is a long tradition of cultural pessimism toward mass culture, where the media are seen as vehicles of indoctrination and trivialization, turning citizens into passive consumers (Brantlinger, 1983; Syvertsen, 2017). While most contributions emphasize the implications of economic and political structures (see, e.g., Horkheimer & Adorno, 1997), so-​called medium theorists (Meyrowitz, 1994) focus on the nature of the medium as a cause of social change. “The medium theorists do not suggest that the means of communication wholly shape culture and personality, but they argue that changes in communication patterns are one very important contribution to social change and one that has generally been overlooked” (Meyrowitz, 1985: 18). While self-​help literature rarely includes historical references (apart from pointing to a vague “before” when things were better), its discourse ties in with a medium-​theoretical historical tradition;

Disconnect to Reconnect!  229

in a sense it turns traditional criticisms of the media into motivational narratives for a better life. Following the literature review, we turn to digital detox and the chapter’s empirical material. Although a digital detox is often defined as a temporary pause from digital media, the term is used to describe a range of activities including offline periods, time management, screen-​free zones, the deletion of apps and platforms, muting and blocking, and transferring to light or analog devices (Syvertsen, 2020). Since digital detox is often framed as an exercise of willpower, self-​help books, sites, and social media accounts proliferate (Jorge, 2019; Karlsen & Syvertsen, 2016; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). Hence, self-​help books are useful sources of insight into how spatial invasion is conceptualized and handled in popular discourse, and how the authors of these books address their implied readers. The empirical analysis is presented in three parts structured by this overarching research question: How are social and physical reconnection conceptualized in popular discourses about digital detox, and what characterizes the motivational discourses urging users to regain a more authentic sense of space? The first and second analyses are on social and physical disconnection, while the third illustrates how (partial) disconnection is employed as a vehicle of fundamental life change. In contrast to arguments that traveling and relocation are vital to a new outlook, the digital detox literature is about changing lives while staying in the same place; it is the reduction of digital connections that leads to a more authentic sense of space.

Theoretical Perspectives—​Media and Space Dislocation The relationship between media and space is a central topic in media theory and history (Carey, 2015; Couldry & McCarthy, 2004). While writing and printing overcame space limitations, the telegraph revolutionized communication through synchronous transmission, and wireless telephony and telegraphy intensified the experience of change. “As broadcasting, radio gave uniformity to a diverse population, contact to the lonely and comfort to scattered listeners,” says Fang (2015: 225). However, it also “created a landscape that depended on unseen others for information and entertainment”

230  Rethinking Disconnection (p. 225); a fact that prompted criticism that broadcasting spaces were inauthentic and undermined the connection to “real space.” Within “medium theory,” McLuhan (1968 [1964]) and Postman (2005 [1985]) are often cited as opposites: the first more optimistic than the second in regard to how they view the technology (see, e.g., Croteau & Hoynes, 2019). In this chapter, we focus on two critics with a starker and darker view, the German philosopher Günther Anders (1956) and US activist Jerry Mander (1978 [1977]), before turning to contemporary critics of digital media. In other books, the authors have provided broad historical reviews of media-​critical works (Enli, 2015; Syvertsen, 2017); here we have chosen to accentuate some less familiar contributions to illustrate the breadth of the literary tradition. Anders and Mander are generically similar, both direct their appeals at the general public, and both combine sweeping generalizations with rich examples and details, not unlike the narrative style in some contemporary self-​help books. As social manifestos, both Anders and Mander crystallized their message in distinct theses—​10 and 4 respectively—​on how broadcasting undermined humanity and society. Nevertheless, they stand as representatives of a broader canon that also include human geography literature such as Edward Relph’s Place and Placelessness, an influential 1976 contribution arguing that mass communications and mass culture undermined an authentic sense of place (Seamon & Sowers, 2008). A common starting point in the medium-​theoretical literature is the rejection of the notion of neutral technology, as Mander explains in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978 [1977]: 43): Most Americans, whether on the political left, center or right, will argue that technology is neutral, that any technology is merely a benign instrument . . . It will be the central argument of this book that these assumptions about television, as about other technologies, are totally wrong.

Similarly, in The World as Phantom and Matrix [English title] (1956), Anders argues that broadcasting technologies could not be perceived as means; instead, they were ends in themselves with a commanding presence locking people into a pseudo-​reality. Media historians Bastiansen and Dahl (2003: 380) describe how Anders’s criticism prompted debate when it was published in Norway in 1965 with the Norwegian title A false world [En falsk

Disconnect to Reconnect!  231

verden]; despite its dark pessimism, they note, it had “surprisingly sharp observations.” Both Anders and Mander are concerned with how media disconnect people from social and physical spaces. Anders is particularly detailed on the undermining of social space; he called television “a negative family table” and argued that the home was demoted to a “container” for the video screen. Television had not become the center of family life but rather “a common avenue of escape for the members of the family”: In fact, the family members are not seated in such a way as to face one another; the arrangement of chairs in front of the television screen is a chance affair and should the family members look at each other it is only by accident, just as any speech between them (if they should ever want or be able to talk) is a result of chance. They are no longer together, but merely placed one next to the other; they are mere spectators. In these circumstances one can no longer speak of weaving the fabric of family life, or of a world in which they participate or which they create together. What takes place instead is only that the members of the family fly towards a realm of unreality at the same time, all of them together in the best cases, but never really share the experience at the point of liftoff . . . (Anders, 1956: 16–​17)

According to Anders, television undermined the home as a social space and placed family members in a “realm of unreality” where they were “soloists of mass consumption” (p. 17). Anders also formulated a lost connection to physical reality in his 10 theses on the revolutionary impact of broadcasting, including “2. When the world comes to us only as an image, it is half-​present and half-​absent, in other words, it is like a phantom,” and “8. When the actual event is socially important only in its reproduced form, i.e., as a spectacle, the difference between being and appearance, between reality and image of reality, is abolished.” Jerry Mander’s (1978[1977]) anti-​television manifesto grew out of his experience as advertising executive turned political activist. “Without our gaining control over technology, all notions of democracy are a farce,” he argued (p. 352), claiming that television led to “a new muddiness of mind” (p. 25) which in turn would facilitate authoritarian society. A crucial tenet was that people could not separate images directly experienced from those

232  Rethinking Disconnection “which had been processed and altered, and which arrives out of context” (p. 25). The new environment was nothing more than “a stage set or a series of false fronts” (p. 87), he argued, and television locked people into artificial environments with no connection to nature: Natural environments have largely given way to human-​created environments. What we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, feel and understand about the world has been processed for us. Our experiences of the world can no longer be called direct, or primary. They are secondary, mediated experiences. (Mander, 1978[1977]: 55)

Mander presents eight conditions for “the Flowering of Autocracy” (pp. 97–​ 98) similar to Anders’s principles. One is the elimination of personal knowledge and direct experiences which made it “impossible for the human to separate natural from artificial, real from unreal.” Another was to separate people from each other: “When people gather together, be sure it is for a prearranged experience that occupies all their attention at once” (p. 98). Chapter XII called “The replacement of human images by television” describes how images from distant spaces take over people’s minds and disconnect them from the here-​and-​now: When you are watching TV, you are not daydreaming, or reading, or looking out the window at the world. You have opened your mind, and someone else’s daydreams have entered. The images come from distant places you have never been, depict events you can never experience, and are sent by people you don’t know and have never met. Once their images are inside you, they imprint on your memory. They become yours. (Mander, 1978[1977]: 240).

Anders and Mander both use apocalyptic vocabularies resembling literary warnings emerging in the same decades, such as Brave New World (Huxley, 2006 [1932]), 1984 (Orwell, 2008 [1949]), and Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury, 2013 [1953]). On one level, all these are stories of how media and mass culture invade private space, destroy solidarity and filial bonds, and lock people into serfdom and slavery. To the degree that hope is expressed in these books, it through escaping screens and modern mass culture and reconnecting with non-​mediated spaces and cultures (Syvertsen, 2017).

Disconnect to Reconnect!  233

Although the tone is lighter and the positive contributions of technology are acknowledged, contemporary criticism of space dislocation caused by digital media draws on classical narratives. From the canon of books criticizing digital media, we have selected Sherry Turkle (2011, 2015) for her sharp criticism of social space dislocation, and Richard Louv (2008 [2005]) for the arguments about disconnection from natural spaces. With Alone Together (2011) and Reclaiming Conversations: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (2015), Sherry Turkle addresses the preference of “machine-​mediated relationships” (2011: 11) and comments on occasions where people fly far only to be preoccupied with their technologies, i.e. “alone together.” Hence, she ties in with Anders’s concept of “soloists of mass consumption” although she talks about digital media and not broadcasting. She uses the bubble metaphor to describe what she sees as an inauthentic space created with technology: “Life in the media bubble has come to seem natural” (p. 16). Virtual worlds draw people away from time with family or friends, “sitting around, playing Scrabble face-​to-​ face, taking a walk, watching a movie together in the old-​fashioned way” (p. 12). The real world becomes a disappointing place: Not surprisingly, people report feeling let down when they move from the virtual to the real world. It is not uncommon to see people fidget with their smartphones, looking for virtual places where they might once again be more. (Turkle, 2011: 12).

As a psychologist, Turkle is concerned with technology as a separating force for human interaction; she places “high value on relationships of intimacy and authenticity” (2011: 6). Her second book on the topic (2015) discusses the importance of conversations for society, democracy, workplaces, and social glue. Not least in families, conversation “is a space to be authentic” (p. 106). Face to face, we develop the capacity for empathy: This new mediated life has gotten us into trouble. Face-​to-​face conversation is the most human—​and humanizing—​thing we do. Fully present to one another, we learn to listen. It’s where we develop the capacity for empathy. It’s where we experience the joy of being heard, of being understood. (Turkle, 2015: 3).

234  Rethinking Disconnection Turkle is adamant that her argument “is not anti-​technology,” but “pro-​ conversation” and that phone checking and web-​surfing take us away from where we are. “We miss out on necessary conversations when we divide our attention between the people we’re with and the world on our phones,” she argues, and we “go to our phones instead of claiming a quiet moment for ourselves.” Like Mander, she reflects on how dreams are affected: “We have convinced ourselves that surfing the web is the same as daydreaming. That it provides the same space for self-​reflection. It doesn’t” (Turkle, 2015: 25). Turkle draws on a similar vocabulary to Mander and Anders, but the emphasis is more on “us” than on the media. We are not victims of autocratic, one-​dimensional systems; instead, “we” are willing accomplices using digital media to undermine our presence here and now. Similarly, contemporary critics of alienation from nature portray “us” as willing contributors. In the 2005 bestseller Last Child in the Woods, Louv (2008 [2005]) introduces the term “nature-​deficiency disorder” to describe a growing gap between children and nature. Louv argued that well-​meaning schools, poor urban planning, fearful parents, and electronic communication keep children away from green spaces, essential for recuperation, presence, and ecological consciousness. A later book, The Nature Principle (Louv, 2012) discusses nature deficiency for adults and the need to reconnect, hence the subtitle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age. Louv (2012: 3) describes his book as “[p]‌rimarily a statement of philosophy,” yet refers to a growing body of theoretical, empirical, and anecdotal evidence describing the restorative power of nature: “its impact on our senses and intelligence; on our physical, psychological, and spiritual health; and on the bonds of family, friendship, and the multi-​species community.” To “balance the virtual with the real” (p. 4), he argues, is essential to overcome phenomena such as “place blindness” (p. 100). In the social manifesto tradition, he introduces “Seven overlapping precepts” on how “the transformative powers of nature, can reshape our lives now and in the future” (p. 5). The first and most essential principle is “The more high-​tech our lives become, the more nature we need to achieve natural balance.” He is optimistic, “not only can nature-​deficit disorder be reversed, but our lives can be vastly enriched through our relationship with nature, beginning with our senses” (p. 11): Taken to its extreme, a denatured life is a dehumanized life. . . . There’s no denying the benefits of the Internet. But electronic//​immersion, without

Disconnect to Reconnect!  235 a force to balance it, creates the hole in the boat—​draining our ability to pay attention, to think clearly, to be productive and creative. The best antidote to negative electronic information immersion will be an increase in the amount of natural information we receive. (Louv, 2012: 23–​24)

Like other contemporary critics, Louv takes care to show that he is not “against” digital media. Yet, he quotes a naturalist using the disconnecting—​ reconnecting metaphor: “Connecting dots. It’s as simple as that. Off the Internet, everything is connecting you with the world. Everything” (p. 25).

Material and Analysis Digital detox is often framed within a self-​help context, and shares traits with other self-​help trends such as time management, voluntary simplicity, decluttering, and mindfulness (Syvertsen, 2020) (see also Hesselberth, this volume). Hence, self-​help books offer insights on how problems with invasive technology are framed, and this chapter analyzes 15 books within the genre (Bratsberg & Moen, 2015; Colier, 2016; Dalton, 2019; Ellis, 2017; Formica, 2015; Goodin, 2018; Huffington, 2015; Krupp, 2014; Price, 2018; Schara, 2017; Shlain, 2019; Snow, 2017; Talks, 2013; Tennant, 2012; Zahariades, 2016).3 While some are memoirs, describing profound life changes, others are short manuals; yet all include the familiar characteristics of the genre such as personal experiences, inspirational quotes, and advice for self-​regulation (Liang, 2015; McGee, 2005). The books are selected to get a manageable sample with some internal variation in terms of length, format, national origin of the author, and year of publication (from 2012 to 2019). Yet, the analyzed corpus is fairly homogenous in style and content. The implied reader is a person who experiences digital media as invasive, but is reluctant to take action, because of imagined difficulties living without constant online connection. Typically, the implied reader is not overtly critical of the technology, but self-​critical: in demand of practical ways to deal with problems.

3 Some of the books have also been discussed in other publications, but this chapter draws on many new sources (Syvertsen, 2020; Syvertsen & Enli, 2019). Translations from Bratsberg and Moen are ours.

236  Rethinking Disconnection The books are subject to a thematic analysis where we elicit statements about social and physical space and relate these to cultural criticism of mass and digital media. Drawing on studies of how problems are framed by social movement activists (Benford & Snow, 2000: 615), each analysis describes three core tasks that authors engage in: Diagnostic—​defining the problem and pointing to a cause; prognostic—​proposing solutions and outlining a plan; and motivational—​creating compelling narratives to motivate action. Through these framing tasks, those recommending a digital detox draw on cultural narratives about invasive technology and turn them into motivational tales of how to regain presence and a more authentic life.

Reconnecting to Social Space A social space is usually understood as an area—​real or virtual—​designed for social interaction.4 In this analysis, we are concerned with the spaces where we socialize with others face to face. A century of criticism has pointed the finger at the media for disturbing face-​to-​face connections and alienating people from close relations. While television was criticized for redirecting viewers’ attention away from social interaction, social media is criticized for creating a competition between two social spaces, yet, the implication is in both cases that meaningful relations with people in physical proximity are undermined. In this part, we discuss how the problems with social spaces are diagnosed, which actions are suggested, and how narratives are designed to motivate action. The self-​help literature starts from the premise that the dire predictions of intrusive media have come true. Technology is blamed implicitly, if at all. Instead, the problems are diagnosed as arising from “our” complicity: “We” allow devices to direct us away from our nearest and dearest. As argued in Off: Your Digital Detox for a Better Life: “Every day we reject an experience or a relationship in favor of time with our screens” (Goodin, 2018: 111). Goodin continues: “Our loved ones feel ignored and resentful that our phones and screens get to spend more time with us than they do.” In Log Off (Bratsberg & Moen, 2015: 39), the sense of rejection is described as jealousy:



4

https://​www.lexico.com/​definition/​social_​space.

Disconnect to Reconnect!  237 Screen jealousy is a new term describing how heavy use of mobile phone or tablet can harm a relationship. It’s possible to develop jealousy in relation to a screen. Who do you love the most? Who are you chatting with? Who are commenting? Likes and hearts. Are you cheating?

In another book titled Log Off, with the subtitle: How to Stay Connected after Disconnecting, Snow (2017: 61), suggests a psychological diagnosis: “Why do we behave like this? Because we’re unwilling or uncomfortable confronting our own feelings now, especially loneliness.” However, societal changes are also listed as causes. In The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World (Colier, 2016: loc. 1159), Colier argues that the media have broken down the barriers between public and private: As a society we have lost the distinction between public and private space. It used to be that if you were at home with your family or out on a date or some other such personal encounter, you were not available to everyone else. The setting aside of times and places where the outside world was not allowed, special places just for special people in our lives, added the sense of importance to those relationships. Now, always powered on and available to the public through our devices, always relating with the public through social media, many of us have stopped granting special importance to those in our private world. The public is now just as important as the private.

This quote points to context collapses and etiquette collisions in digital media (Carey, 2015). But there is also a deeper strand of thought here, alluding to the notions advocated by Anders, Mander, and Turkle that the media are vehicles to break intimate bonds, leading people to voluntarily isolation. While media appear to bring people together, the books are based on the premise that they draw us apart. According to Goodin (2018: 98): Humans are social animals and we crave connection. With all of your many online friends, fans, and followers, it might seem like we have more connections than ever before. And yet, why do we feel isolated at times?

Günther Anders argued that broadcasting undermined the home as a social space and placed family members in a “realm of unreality,” whereas Jerry

238  Rethinking Disconnection Mander saw the television environment as “a series of false fronts.” Similarly, in several of the self-​help books, the spaces for socialization created by digital media are perceived to be inauthentic. In Unfriend Yourself: Three Days to Discern, Detox and Decide about Social Media, Tennant (2012: 52) downgrades online communities: Online community—​an oxymoron really—​. . It’s just not as good as the real thing and leaves a gross aftertaste (similar drinking Diet Coke). At the end of the day, there is no replacement for the real thing in-​the-​flesh togetherness.

A similar argument comes from Huffington (2015: 62) in Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Happier Life: The connection that comes from technology is often an unfulfilling, ersatz version of connections. Its siren call (or beep or blinking light) can crowd out the time and energy we have for real human connection.

Following diagnostics, the prognostic framing task is to design solutions to the problem: how to reconnect to the intimate space with your nearest and dearest. The keywords in the titles (“off ” and “log off ” in different combinations) say it all: The most important is to make a conscious choice to disconnect, at least partially, from the technology and prioritize face to face. “Do something with real people. Hopefully this is self-​explanatory,” says Price (2018: 142). “Be present. Don’t split your attention with a screen,” Goodin (2018: 111) echoes. Tennant (2012: 63) elaborates: Instead of allowing our relationships to be mediated, we have to choose to be face to face more often than not. This means going for coffee, playing a game, and using our words to move past communication and arrive at communion.

The argument echoes Turkle’s (2011: 12) description of the value of “sitting around, playing Scrabble face-​to-​face, taking a walk, watching a movie together in the old-​fashioned way.” However, the self-​help books recognize that it is not easy to make these choices and that practical advice is necessary. First and foremost, they recommend clearing intimate spaces of technology.

Disconnect to Reconnect!  239

Martin Talks (2013: 85) is one of several commending: “Ban phones from the bedroom.” In Cellphone Addiction: Freedom from Social Media, Texting and Online Video, Krupp (2014: loc. 260) recommends phone-​free zones and unplugging during vacations: Maintain Phone Free Zones: No using social media, playing game or texting while you are in the bedroom. It is very important to dedicate your spaces and time from your telecom freedom and meet a wide range of people. Make it also a habit not to check your cell phone repeatedly for new messages and missed calls every couple of minutes. If your life is designed on being connected, this is the time to make unplugging a part of your vacation.

In the cultural criticism reviewed, media technology was described as something of a Trojan horse. Self-​help books recognize that guests may bring unwelcome devices to the house and suggest defense measures at the gate. In How to Break Up With Your Phone, Price (2018: 124) recommends a phone basket: “When you have guests over to your home, consider asking them to leave their phones in a basket by the door.” Like Krupp, he also recommends not to pick up the phone when with others “First step: consider doing not responding. (What’s the worst that could happen?)” (p. 127). The motivational narratives concerning social space promise that steps such as these will lead to more authentic connections, “[r]‌eal relations happening in real life” (Bratsberg & Moen, 2015: 144). “The sound of our laughter in the flesh was so much better than it was over Skype. It was that moment that I realized how very necessary face-​to-​face relationships are,” says Tennant (2012: 51–​52). A central argument in the motivational narratives is also that being together in the flesh, rather than being distracted by online communication, is necessary for “empathy, love and compassion” (Bratsberg & Moen, 2015: 40). In Digital Detox: Unplug to Reclaim Your Life, Zahariades (2016: 74) also creates a motivational narrative similar to the arguments of Turkle, and the conversations breed empathy: When you put aside your phone and other devices, you’ll develop a heightened sense of empathy. You’ll be better able to read people’s faces and body language and recognize the emotions they’re experiencing.

240  Rethinking Disconnection The aim is to return to a stage of being “authentically present in conversations with friends and family” (Bratsberg & Moen, 2015: 140). Connecting face to face will combat the sense of isolation and create deeper connections, according to Zahariades (2016: 75): You’ll feel more connected to others. You’ll be able to give people the attention they deserve. In return, you’ll receive more attention yourself. Forming such connections can be a deeply rewarding experience.

The motivational narratives recognize that the project is not without risks. Tennant (2012: 64) notes: “Being honest is hard, being authentic is sometimes terrifying, and relating in the flesh is risky.” However, he continues, “when we take a risk and engage in communication, we find life’s simplest and profoundest pleasure: joy.” In this quote, the implied reader is evident as a “we,” a person identifying with and sharing experiences with not only the author but an undefined community of readers or even a movement searching for authentic connections. To summarize, the self-​help narratives start from the premise that technologies have invaded social space, drawing on familiar elements from cultural criticism of the media. Contrary to the perception that mass and digital media connect people, the self-​help books, and cultural critics, see them as disconnectors; hence reconnection is the way forward. As Goodin (2018: 98) notes: “We need to disconnect from superficial online relationships, and reconnect with those that matter in the real world.” To Huffington (2015: 250), this means leaving “the bubble” (a metaphor used by Turkle), both in a social and physical sense: Technology has made it possible for us to live in a self-​contained, disconnected bubble twenty-​four hours a day, even while walking down the street listening to music on our smartphones. Our devices might seem like they’re also disconnecting us from the world around us. And without being connected to the people we encounter, it’s hard to activate our hardwired instinct for empathy.

Other contributions also draw together arguments concerning social and physical spaces, bringing us to the next level of analysis. Typical, fundamental questions about social and physical presence are linked, such as in

Disconnect to Reconnect!  241

Colier (2016: loc. 1843): “Do we want to give up our collective and connected societal space and shared experience of life that includes other people in our physical world?”

Reconnecting to Physical Space While a social space can be understood as an area for social interaction, perspectives concerning physical space pertain to interaction with elements in the physical environment. A typical trait of modern media is the “doubling of places,” a term suggested by Scannell (1996) to describe how audiences are present in two places at the same time, for example, in their living room and at a football stadium. As noted, critics have been skeptical of the media’s ability to draw people’s attention away from where they are, inserting a layer between them and their physical surroundings. This part discusses how the problems with physical space are diagnosed, which actions are suggested, and how narratives are designed to motivate action. Like arguments about social spaces, a key argument is that “we” have lost the ability to be present where we are. Intrusive media are presented as a fact, leaving “us” in a situation where “we” are not mindful and do not notice our surroundings. In The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less, Dalton (2019: loc. 2619) argues that: we are often so focused on our screens we forget to look around. We forget to interact with the world around us, we don’t look up; we walk, eyes down hunched over our phones like addicts. We lost the ability to connect. Connect with others and ourselves.

The premise is that loss of connection to the physical environment leads to disconnection from others and ourselves. The books have plenty of anecdotes telling how authors have been to places where they did not pay attention, and instead staged their experiences through social media, as in Bratsberg and Moen (2015: 23): One summer, I checked in on so many apps that none of my friends needed to ask what we had done and how we had been. I had shared every

242  Rethinking Disconnection centimetre of that vacation. But what did I remember? Nothing. I had not been present in the real vacation. Extremely sad.

The decoupling of the “real vacation” from the “staged” version is parallel to Mander’s perspective about the television environment as a “stage set”; only with social media, it is the users themselves who transform their environments. The self-​help books lack Mander’s path to autocracy but resemble his and Louv’s arguments about the dangers of being disconnected from nature. In Digital Detox: 7 Steps to Find Your Inner Balance (Formica, 2015: loc. 198), Formica details the argument: Most of us live in urban environments and have gradually disconnected from nature. You see, humans have lived on earth for at least 200,000 years, always in contact and in symbiosis with nature. The disconnect that we are experiencing now from nature is likely to have significant and unprecedented consequences on our inner balance.

Reflecting the dual nature of the problem, the remedies suggested are both about a general reconnection to physical space and measures to bring us closer to nature. The primary advice is to “look away from our screens and enter the physical world we are in” (Colier, 2016: loc. 1843). A series of pursuits are suggested to overcome “place blindness”—​to use Louv’s term—​ including art, creativity, culture, and travel. “If you really want to capture a moment; to immerse yourself in a place; to record your true response to a situation; then art is a great way,” says Talks (2013: 7). In A to Z of Digital Detoxing: A Practical Family Guide, Zahariades (2016: 138) echoes: “If you’ve been wanting to visit a particular locale, whether it’s the beach, a new museum, or a swanky jazz club, now is the time to do it.” Huffington (2015: 178) also recommends museums as places to reconnect: Museums and galleries remain among the few oases that can deliver what has become increasingly rare in the world. The opportunity to disconnect from our hyperconnected lives and experience the feeling of wonder.

Several authors refer to the need to allow for more surprise and spontaneity to combat the alienating impact of media engagement. “Walk on a line. Surf a wave. Yoga. Summit walks. Mountain hiking. Mountain climbing” are some

Disconnect to Reconnect!  243

of the (upmarket) suggestions from Bratsberg and Moen (2015: 136): “These activities require 100 percent presence.” Price (2018: 141) is more down to earth; according to him, separating from your phone “is a perfect opportunity to allow serendipity to re-​enter your life”: Take a walk in a new neighbourhood. Try a restaurant you’ve been curious about. Look at the listings in your local paper and go to something new. No matter what you do, it’s likely to be more memorable than staring at your phone.

Besides, there is much advice on reconnecting with nature, as Goodin (2018: 54) argues: Reconnecting with nature is one of the very best things to make time for each day. Keeping one foot always in the digital world means we’re losing our valuable connection with the natural world.

Talks (2013: 67) is one of several who recommend gardening as “a good antidote to our fast technology world.” Gardening is “good for the mind, body and soul,” and the advice is this: “Go and buy some seeds and plant them.” Much of the literature also recommends activities that combine mindfulness with reconnecting to nature, as in this quote: Stop, Breathe and Be is just what is sounds like: you stop what you are doing, take a slow, deep breath, and tune in to the details of what you’re experiencing in that moment. There are many ways to do thus, from noticing the physical sensations in your body to scanning your thoughts and emotions to taking note of your surroundings. (Price, 2018: 128)

The narratives place a strong emphasis on mental exercises to combat the sense of spatial dislocation presumably induced by digital media. In motivational narratives, the emphasis on personal rewards is stressed: a life with less restlessness, and one that is calmer and more meaningful. “When invited to be in just one place at one time, just here, we experience a sense of calm,” as argued by Colier (2016: loc. 418). Adherents can also expect to become more creative: “Stillness also gives your mind the space it needs to be creative and come up with ideas,” says Price (2018: 129). Zahariades (2016: 165) echoes:

244  Rethinking Disconnection Don’t be surprised if your newfound creativity leads to a greater sense of personal fulfilment. It’s a natural effect of quarantining yourself from the onslaught of digital media.

While scientific references are anecdotal and sparse in many self-​help books, Formica (2015: loc. 210) alludes to the ideas of nature deficiency and uses science to motivate: Recently, it has been scientifically demonstrated that having direct contact with the earth has a healing power. . . . It is particularly important to be in direct contact with dirt, grass, sand, or any type of soil, daily.

To summarize, the self-​help books recommend breaks from digital media also as a measure to combat a sense of physical dislocation. Instead of seeing the ability to be “two places at once” as an advantage (Scannell, 1996), it is seen as detrimental to physical and mental health. The recommendations concerning physical space also emphasize what individuals can do, without dwelling on the faults of the technology. Again, the recipe is partial or temporary disconnection as a way of reconnecting; to immerse oneself in nature and engage in the physical surroundings is rewarding both in a physical and social sense: When we join the physical world, we notice the other people with whom we share our space and our planet and with whom we might share a smile, a conversation, or a frustration. (Colier, 2016: loc 1869)

Reconnecting: Dramatic Awakening and a More Authentic Life Although the literature is homogenous, a distinction can be drawn between self-​help books that are manuals and those more akin to memoirs. The border between the two is blurred, nevertheless, in this final analysis we use three memoir-​type contributions (Ellis, 2017; Schara, 2017; Shlain, 2019) to illustrate how (partial) disconnection is depicted as a vehicle of fundamental life change. The memoirs illustrate how the narratives on social and physical space are connected and how disconnecting is infused with transformative qualities.

Disconnect to Reconnect!  245

There are many descriptions of how a move to a new physical space can be life changing. In the tradition of Thoreau’s 1854 classic Walden, traveling to distant places or shifting to a simpler life in nature is a road to wisdom. Contemporary phenomena such as the Australian “seachange” (Osbaldiston, 2012) describe how individuals abandon life in the city and migrate to rural coastal communities to achieve a more “authentic sociability” (p. 32). For sea-​changers, authenticity is the place; the surrounding nature, culture or community need to have a certain aesthetic or charm (p. 130). Although the books about digital detoxing share with sea-​changers the belief that “we” need to “tune in” to our “internal voice” (p. 141), the arguments in digital detox memoirs are not about relocating to a new place. Instead, disconnection from technology is a method to reconnect with people and the place where you are. Digitox: How to Find a Healthy Balance for Your Family’s Digital diet, is Mark Ellis’s report on a three-​year family experiment of limiting the use of technology (2017). The author portrays himself as an Internet addict, a semi-​reformed “technoholic.” Consistent with the genre, the narrative describes a dramatic awakening as a starting point and a motive for the lifestyle turnaround. The awakening came in the form of a memory of an alternative space; a recollection of a cabin where he had experienced mental peace. He realized that he was far away from that peaceful image in his current life: “One Sunday morning three years ago, it dawned to me that we were as far as humanly possible from our log cabin. Conversation had been lost, but the house was far from silent.” What later turned into a permanent change in lifestyle, started with a “moment”: I had a moment,—​failing to resolve the arguments around me (which were disturbing my own gadget enjoyment) I switched it all off. Everything—​ the TV, the gaming, the router, and announced that the day was going to be spent without the gadgets. (Ellis, 2017: loc. 1015).

While Ellis first thought of the switch-​off as punishment, it was the start of a more genuine and authentic connection to others and the surroundings. The family implemented “Tech Free Sundays” and rules clearing social and physical spaces: no phones in bedrooms and at the table, and screen-​free evenings. The book talks to an implied reader who is keen to experience a deeper life change, or at least “see how it feels to break down the addiction chains,

246  Rethinking Disconnection then take a step back and gain a slightly different perspective on your behaviour and that of your family” (p. 166). Instead of being a purely individualistic endeavor, the proposals address an implied community of parents and caregivers with responsibilities beyond self. An Analog Month: A Digital Detox in the Real World (Schara, 2017) is a diary of the author’s digital media break. Like Ellis, Schara describes how she was a phone addict with 50 to 60 apps on her phone and how she transformed her life long-​term. Although friends and coworkers reacted and expressed concern, Schara avoided temptation and became used to the new lifestyle; she describes day 16 at the “best day yet,” and by day 27 she writes that “being without internet or apps is no longer hard” (loc. 420). Although the new lifestyle is described as cumbersome in some respects, Schara writes that she was amply rewarded. Her motivational narrative centers on how her life improved in major ways; she regained lost time, became less anxious and depressed, more secure of herself, and happier than ever. The key point was that being without the “leash” of a smartphone, she was able to be “fully present in her own life” (loc. 312). Although not physically bound by the smartphone, the connection is described with a metaphor implying inability to move freely both physically and mentally; hence this is a narrative of one woman’s liberation struggle. In 24/​6 The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week, Tiffany Shlain (2019) tells of another dramatic awakening. The feeling that she was not paying enough attention to her loved ones physically present was exacerbated by the death of her father, and the birth of her daughter, only days apart. Of the time with her father she writes: During the period when he was dying, there were times when he had only one lucid hour a day. When I went to visit him, I turned my phone off completely. I needed to protect the time and space around us to focus on him and the moments we had left. (Schlain, 2019: 3)

Shlain and her husband introduced a “Tech Sabbath”—​one day a week without devices in order to “have more authentic connections with one another without screens” (p. 10). The benefits were better social connection, more eye contact and attention, as well as inner peace and patience. Shlain argues that “eye contact is the first and last form of communication we have. It’s fundamental” (p. 94). The motivational narrative in this memoir also

Disconnect to Reconnect!  247

focuses on stillness; the author writes on how she found the library to be a “my perfect palace in space”: “The silence of that vast space lets you think and feel, imagine and hear” (p. 131). Being in nature is also described as essential for connection (p. 141): When my family started keeping Tech Sabbaths, it made perfect sense that we’d incorporate nature into the practice. . . . We try to make being in nature a regular part of our screen-​free day.

The implied reader in this case is an unsettled person yearning for inner peace and deeper connections. Like the others, Shlain’s story portrays a lifestyle where the alienating forces of technology can be controlled and kept in check. Although the books are based on descriptions of invasive media akin to those found in philosophical, political, and psychological accounts, the personal experiences of the authors indicate that it can all be reversed. As Shlain’s experience with being in nature is described: Being outside makes me feel more attuned and linked to the natural world. Which in turn links me to the world as a whole. It’s sort of ironic—​ by disconnecting from screens, I feel more connected to everything and everyone. (Schlain, 2019: 142)

Conclusion A fundamental premise in texts recommending digital detox is that media serve as disconnectors and that actions are necessary to reconnect. This chapter has discussed two aspects of digital detox that are both framed as reconnecting: discourses and measures about social spaces, and means to reconnect with physical spaces. Through a thematic analysis of 15 self-​help books, we have addressed the following research question: How are social and physical reconnection conceptualized in popular discourses about digital detox, and what characterizes the motivational discourses urging users to regain a more authentic sense of space? The analysis started with a review of four contributions addressing classical themes in media criticism and resistance, such as the presumed

248  Rethinking Disconnection undermining of family bonds, escapism, disconnection from nature, and a sense of unreality brought on by media. The metaphor of “bubble” epitomizes the conditions described; a layer has been inserted between individuals, their nearest and dearest, and the physical environs. The implications spelled out for humans is alienation, stress, isolation, as well as a loss of empathy, intimacy, and authenticity. The chapter has further shown how authors of self-​help books handle these problems and challenge dominant narratives about the benefits of being online. The analyses have described how authors diagnose the problem, prescribe recipes for action, and create compelling stories motivating people to act. Through these framing methods, those recommending a digital detox draw on cultural narratives about invasive technology and turn them into motivational tales of how to regain presence and a more authentic life. Regarding how social and physical reconnection is conceptualized in popular discourses about digital detox, the self-​help books start from the assumption that dire predictions about technology and social change have come true. Media have invaded us and changed our relationship with social and physical space. Still, the self-​help books do not share the dystopic tone of early media criticism. Instead, they describe the main problem as “our” complicity and the fact that “we” let ourselves be led astray by technology. Hence, when suggesting recipes for action, they focus on what “we” can do: Prioritize face-​to-​face relationships and pay more attention to the physical world. This promise of authentic connections by reducing one’s use of digital media might be criticized for ignoring the fact that also pre-​Internet societies have been characterized as inauthentic and failing to create real communities (Riesman, 1950; Sennett, 1970). The idea of more authentic places in a world without Internet and mobile phones might be an illusion, based on a nostalgic ideology and a vague idea about technology as a hindrance for real and authentic connections. Moreover, the focus on individual efforts and self-​regulation might be interpreted as “organized self-​realization” (Honneth, 2004) and problematized as a path toward feelings of emptiness and depression (Ehrenberg, 1998). Indeed, the books analyzed point to individual struggles of how to cope with social demands and how to improve the self in the area of digital media usage, but also construct a “we” in order to create a perceived community around the individualistic self-​improvement project.

Disconnect to Reconnect!  249

Although the books illuminate many obstacles and difficulties in connection with a technological renegotiation, they hold onto the basic idea that problems can be solved, social and physical dislocation, reversed, and the alienating forces of technology, controlled and kept in check.

References Anders, G. (1956). The world as phantom and as matrix. Dissent, 3(1), 14–​24. Retrieved from http://​marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/​projects/​anders/​Anders1 956DissentWorldPhantomAndMatrixOCR.pdf. Aranda, J., & Baig, S. (2018). Toward “JOMO”: The joy of missing out and the freedom of disconnecting. MobileHCI ‘18: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Human-​Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, 1–​ 8. doi:https://​doi.org/​10.1145/​3229434.3229468. Bastiansen, H., & Dahl, H. F. (2003). Norsk Mediehistorie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Baumer, E. P. S., Adams, P., Khovanskaya, V. D., Liao, T. C., Smith, M. E., Sosik, V. S., & Williams, K. (2013). Limiting, leaving, and (re)lapsing: An exploration of Facebook non-​use practices and experiences. Paper presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Paris, France. Baym, N. K., Wagman, K. B., & Persaud, C. J. (2020). Mindfully scrolling: Rethinking Facebook after time deactivated. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 2056305120919105. doi:10.1177/​2056305120919105. Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–​639. Bradbury, R. (2013 [1953]). Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster. Brantlinger, P. (1983). Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass Culture as Social Decay. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bratsberg, L., & Moen, T. (2015). Logg av. Oslo: Cappelen Damm. Brennen, B. (2019). Opting Out of Digital Media. London: Routledge. Carey, J. (2015). Digital media and the transformation of space. In G. Einav (Ed.), The New World of Transitioned Media. The Economics of Information, Communication, and Entertainment (pp. 13–​26). Cham: Springer. Colier, N. (2016). The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. Couldry, N., & McCarthy, A. (2004). MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age. London and New York: Routledge.

250  Rethinking Disconnection Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (2019). Media/​Society: Technology, Industries, Content, and Users. London: Sage. Dalton, T. (2019). The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books. Ehrenberg, A. (1998). La Fatigue d’être soi: Dépression et société. Paris: Odile Jacob. Ellis, M. (2017). Digitox: How to Find a Healthy Balance for Your Family’s Digital Diet. London: Culture Transform. Enli, G. (2015). Mediated Authenticity: How Media Construct Reality. New York: Peter Lang. Fang, I. (2015). From Alphabet to Internet: Media in Our Lives. New York: Routledge. Formica, S. (2015). Digital Detox: 7 Steps to Find Your Inner Balance. n/​a: Sandro Formica. Goodin, T. (2018). Off: Your Digital Detox for a Better Life. New York: Abrams. Honneth, A. (2004). Organized self-​realization: Some paradoxes of individualization. European Journal of Social Theory, 7(4), 463–​478. Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1997). The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception. In Dialectic of Enlightenment (pp. 120–​ 167). London and New York: Verso. Huffington, A. (2015). Thrive—​The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-​Being, Wisdom, and Wonder. New York: Harmony. Huxley, A. (2006 [1932]). Brave New World. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Harper Perennial. Jorge, A. (2019). Social media, interrupted: Users recounting temporary disconnection on Instagram. Social Media + Society, 5(4), 2056305119881691. doi:10.1177/​ 2056305119881691. Karlsen, F., & Syvertsen, T. (2016). You can’t smell roses online: Intruding media and reverse domestication. Nordicom Review, 37. Retrieved from nordicom.gu.se/​ sites/​default/​files/​kapitel-​pdf/​10.1515_​nor-​2016-​0021.pdf. Krupp, E. (2014). Cellphone Addiction: Freedom from Social Media, Texting and Online Video. n/​a: Erik Krupp. Liang, K. D. (2015). Self-​Improvement Books: A Genre Analysis. PhD dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NZ. Louv, R. (2008 [2005]). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-​ Deficit Disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books. Louv, R. (2012). The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books.

Disconnect to Reconnect!  251 Mander, J. (1978 [1977]). Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York: Morrow. McGee, M. (2005). Self-​ Help Inc: Makeover Culture in American Life: Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012. DOI: 10.1093/​acprof:oso/​9780195171242.001.0001. McLuhan, M. (1968 [1964]). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Sphere Books. Meyrowitz, J. (1985). No Sense of Place. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meyrowitz, J. (1994). Medium theory. In Crowley, D., & Mitchell, D. (Eds.), Communication Theory Today (pp. 50–​77). Cambridge: Polity. Neves, B. B., de Matos, J. M., Rente, R., & Martins, S. L. (2015). The “non-​ aligned”: Young people’s narratives of rejection of social networking sites. YOUNG, 23(2), 116–​135. Orwell, G. (2008 [1949]). Nineteen Eighty-​Four. London: Penguin. Osbaldiston, N. (2012). Seeking Authenticity in Place, Culture and the Self. The Great Urban Escape. London: Palgrave McMillan. Postman, N. (2005 [1985]). Amusing Ourselves to Death. London: Penguin. Price, C. (2018). How to Break up with Your Phone: The 30-​Day Plan to Take Back Your Life. London: The Orion Publishing Group. Riesman, D. (1950). The Lonely Crowd. A Study of the Changing American Character. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Scannell, P. (1996). Radio, Television and Modern Life. Oxford: Blackwell. Schara, Z. (2017). An Analog Month: A Digital Detox in the Real World. Chicago: Zahara Schara. Schoenebeck, S. Y. (2014). Giving up twitter for lent: How and why we take breaks from social media. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Seamon, D., & Sowers, J. (2008). Place and placelessness, Edward Relph. In Hubbard, P., Kitchen, R., & Vallentine, G. (Eds.), Key Texts in Human Geography (pp. 43–​51). London: SAGE. Sennett, R. (1970). Uses of Disorder. Personal Identity and City Life. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shlain, T. (2019). 24/​ 6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week. New York: Gallery Books. Snow, B. (2017). Log Off: How to Stay Connected after Disconnecting. n/​a: Blake Snow. Syvertsen, T. (2017). Media Resistance: Protest, Dislike, Abstention. Cham: Palgrave. Syvertsen, T. (2020). Digital Detox: The Politics of Disconnecting. Bingley: Emerald.

252  Rethinking Disconnection Syvertsen, T. & Enli, G. (2019). Digital detox: Media resistance and the promise of authenticity. Convergence, Online first, 2019. Talks, M. (2013). A to Z of Digital Detoxing: A Practical Family Guide. n.a.: Martin Talks. Tennant, K. (2012). Unfriend Yourself: Three Days to Discern, Detox and Decide About Social Media. Chicago: Moody. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other. New York: Basic Books. Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming Conversation. The Power of Talk in the Digital Age. New York: Penguin. Zahariades, D. (2016). Digital Detox: Unplug to Reclaim Your Life. n/​a: Damon Zahariades.

10 Retreat Culture and Therapeutic Disconnection Pepita Hesselberth

This chapter offers an auto-​ethnographic account of my journey through a series of self-​care and wellness retreats in which I partook in light of my research on “Disconnectivity in the Digital Age,” a project for which I received a grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research in 2015. The chapter you are about to read, however, is not quite the chapter I initially intended to write. Something happened. COVID-​19 happened. Quarantine happened. Digital detox retreats, mindfulness retreats, yoga and health retreats, nature and wilderness retreats, the me-​retreat. Within our current culture of connectivity to go on a retreat as a way to reduce stress and improve one’s quality of life by temporarily disconnecting from our everyday (media) environments has been a growing trend. Retreat culture, however, has also been subject to controversy in public and scholarly discourse alike, especially more recently.1 For, while generally conceived to be beneficial to the well-​being of those who partake in it, the (idea of) retreat has also been criticized for feeding into the neoliberal program of privatizing solutions to what are, in fact, social problems—​be it stress, burnout, labor precarity, our always-​on culture, or the present economy of attention. Here, the retreat reveals itself to be part of a disciplining leisure industry that parasitizes on our need to disconnect, or as Adorno would have it, to “get out” (2001a: 190)—​a form of governmentality and control (to speak with Foucault and Deleuze at once) that is fully in line with today’s personality management technologies, where individuals, and individuals alone, are held accountable for their own 1 See, for example, Purser (2019) and Forbes’s (2019) critique of mainstream mindfulness, and Žižek’s on Western Buddhism (for instance here 2001, here 2014, and here 2012) to which I will return below. Pepita Hesselberth, Retreat Culture and Therapeutic Disconnection In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0011

254  Rethinking Disconnection development, productivity, and health and well-​being in the fields of work and society at large (see Villadsen, 2007). Expanding on this controversy, in this chapter, I will probe the retreat as an (un?)critical imaginary, a term I borrow from Eric Weiner, who uses it to denote the ways in which the “hegemony of realism” may be challenged by engaging “the improbable through acts of imaginative transgression” (Weiner, 2015: 27–​28). As an un/​critical imaginary, I argue, our present-​day retreat culture—​as a fantasy of therapeutic disconnection—​first and foremost helps to disclose some of the cracks in our existing reality, and perchance may also open up a transitional space in which change may take place.

Retreat Culture Brands align with spiritual principles for Millennial appeal. Implications -​Though Millennials are less likely to be involved with or motivated by religion, many continue to express an interest in spirituality, meditation and holistic wellness. As a result, brands are offering experiences that closely mimic the religious or spiritual “retreat,” whilst continuing to align with modern-​day interests, such as social media or entertainment. By combining community-​oriented values with the often solitary activities favored by Millennials, brands create a hybrid experience that promotes self-​care and wellness in an accessible way. (Retreat Culture, n.d.)

“Brands align with spiritual principles for Millennial appeal.” Thus reads a 2015 “sample consumer insight” on “the world’s #1 largest, most powerful trend platform” Trendhunter (I mean, seriously: Read it, it’s worth it!). Featured examples include “Mindful Beauty Bars,” “Outdoor Writing Retreats,” “Rejuvenating Yoga Retreats,” a “Stress Re-​set Retreat,” and even a “Television-​Themed Retreat,” a brilliantly branded hoax (as it turns out to be) for a Samsung-​sponsored “Catch-​Up Grant,” offering one dedicated television fan “the opportunity to binge watch their favorite programs” in peace during a 100-​day retreat “in a Tibetan monastery”(Pendrill, 2015; also see DDB Stockholm, 2015). And the trend has not waned since; in fact it is raging. Indeed, today, by 2020 the me-​retreat (the pure me, the happy me,

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  255

the me me me, the reset me, the time for me) turns out to be a proven sales strategy, promising its patrons journeys through self-​discovery, restored inner balance, and a reconnection of body, mind and soul . . . for anyone who can afford it. For, as New York Wellness Consultant/​Designer (and spa columnist) Judy Chapman writes on her blog The Chapman Guides (“the best of the best in wellness travel, spas, retreats, yoga, nourishing foods, detox, health, Ayurveda, fitness”):2 “A retreat isn’t cheap but neither is going in and out of hospitals or taking medications.” In times of fake news and the complete dissipation of everything we once believed in (“even the healthcare system”), Chapman’s blog on “Retreat Culture” hollers: “It’s time to believe in ourselves again!” (no date). My first retreat more or less coincided with the origins of my project on disconnectivity. I was recovering from a herniated disc in my lower back and had continued working because, back then, I was still on a temporary contract and simply did not want to risk it. By the time I could stand up straight and walk again I had nearly reached the end of my summer break and decided to go on a five-​day hike to recover the strength in my legs, followed by a one-​week mindfulness retreat at Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery in the south of France, led by the then still active Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. It was life-​changing. Many retreats would follow, some short, some long; some nearby, others in more remote places;3 some at my own initiative (meaning: on my own), others fully catered for. Some I joined out of curiosity, others I joined out of need. There is a number of traits that the organized retreats I have been to have in common, different though as they may have been. Besides the good food and the promise of an arguable break with daily routines—​ the chance to “get out,” “unwind,” “unplug,” or “disconnect” from all the things that we feel are tiring, stressful, and demanding in everyday life—​ these common denominators are, to briefly sum them up, the terms of the public debate on the topic: first, location, location, location; second, time . . .; and third, the promise of healing (or therapeutic disconnection if you will, whether packaged as such and/​or not). I will return to each 2 Italics in text. The slogan has been changed since, but its original phrasing can still be found, for example, here: Oneworld Retreats (2016). 3 Though no doubt it would have generated wonderful research material, I never had the heart nor felt the need to take intercontinental flights or spend more than a three-​figure amount for a retreat.

256  Rethinking Disconnection of these traits below in my brief walk-​through but, for now, briefly want to call attention to correspondence between these traits and the multiple meanings of the noun “retreat,” which, interestingly, has its origins in both military and ascetic practice. A quick glance at Lexico, Oxford’s online dictionary, suffices to see that the retreat signals, at once, a gesture (“the act of moving back or withdrawing,” especially after a defeat); a siren or an alert (to sound a retreat, i.e., a signal to withdraw); and a specific kind of place (“quiet or secluded” where “one can rest and relax”) and a particular period and/​or quality of time (“a period of seclusion for the purposes of prayer and meditation”). These meanings, I hope to show, are indicative for the kind of role the retreat fulfills in our present-​day culture, which has been variously described in terms of a “culture of connectivity” (van Dijck, 2013), an “economy of attention” (e.g., Crawford, 2016; Odell, 2019), a “burnout society” (Han, 2015), and the still relevant discourses on discipline (Foucault, 1988, 1995), control (Deleuze, 1992, 2011), and the cultural industry (Adorno, 2001b; Horkheimer & Adorno, 2007).

Three Retreats: A Brief Walk-​through Three retreats marked my journey through the disconnectivity project: a vinyasa pranayama retreat at Yoga Rocks on the Southside of the Greek isle, Crete (summer 2017); a Digital Detox Retreat in Puglia (Italy) organized by Time to Log Off (autumn 2017); and a series of extended stays at Plum Village near Bordeaux in southwest France over a period of four months (spring/​ summer 2018).4 These retreats, as indicated earlier, have a number of traits in common. First of all, they all took place at locations that were outstandingly beautiful and somewhat remote (meaning inaccessible by public transport). Indeed, location is one of the major selling points on the sites of both Yoga Rocks (“breathtakingly serene coastline,” “incredible atmosphere,” “picturesque location”), Time to Log Off (“held in areas of outstanding natural beauty”), and to a lesser degree Plum Village (who on their site first just state that the monastery “began as a small, rustic farmstead” but elsewhere also speak of it as a “home away from home, and a beautiful, nourishing and 4 To specify: in 2018 I spent two weeks at Lower Hamlet during the Spring Retreat, five weeks as a volunteer at Upper Hamlet for the 21-​Day Retreat, and another three weeks at Lower Hamlet during the Summer Opening Retreat.

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  257

simple environment”). The imagery of the sites also clearly contributes to projection of the freshness and beauty of the environments. What these locations have in common, besides being located in the country or seaside, is that they are secluded places, not only in the sense of “away from the pressures of everyday life” (Yoga Rocks, 2020a), but also in the sense that they hold the promise that, here, intensified mental activity can take place. For this, obviously, time is needed—​not just time spent (however important), but also, and more importantly, a particular quality of time, that is, time for oneself, time dedicated. The time of the retreat, however, is also scheduled time. To support retreatants in their practice of letting go (of daily routines, distractions, and external stimuli), significantly, the retreats were all structured around a daily schedule, a program of activities that generally included, among others, the following: three meals (simple or copious), and a variation of walking and sitting meditation, yoga, (dharma) sharing, singing, relaxation and/​or service. Finally, the promise of healing was central to this retreats, which was said to offer the retreatant the time and place “to immerse yourself in all things yogic” (Yoga Rocks, 2020a), “to reconnect with your physical self ” (Time to Log Off, 2020), and “experience the art of mindful living” (Plum Village), promising to leave the retreatant “refreshed and restored” (Time to Log Off, 2020), with “a rarely experienced feeling of peace” (Yoga Rocks, 2020a) and “more freedom, peace and happiness in our daily life” (Plum Village, 2020a). Despite the commonality of these traits, a recipe that will sound familiar to anyone who has ever been on (any kind of) retreat, there were, of course, also notable differences between the retreats of Yoga Rocks, Time to Log Off, and Plum Village in terms of location, time, and the way the promise of healing was packaged (or not), but also, as well as in terms of the incentives of the organizers and the aspirations that brought retreatants to them. A brief walk-​through will help to clarify this. Yoga Rocks is the habitat of Helen (British) and Phil (half British, half Greek), who used to spend their summers at the yoga practice center in Tripetra with their two kids until 2019, when the couple made Crete their full-​time home. The hosts are supported by Morag (admin) and a “changing group of incredible helpers,” mostly woofers (Yoga Rocks, 2020d). Classes are taught by an international group of “exceptionally experienced and generous” teachers (Yoga Rocks, 2020b; and I have to concur) most of whom have dedicated their lives to yogic practice. The program usually runs from

258  Rethinking Disconnection April until October.5 The retreat of Patrick (Shukram Das)6 that I attended was relatively laid back with a regular and steady daily schedule consisting of optional morning meditation, two yoga classes (one before breakfast, the other before dinner, except on Thursday when we had the afternoon off), and an evening program comprised of Satsang (being together), a short dharma talk (a “teaching,” if you will, of yogic philosophy), and a short meditation or Kirtan (chanting). It was encouraged to remain silent from after Satsang until after breakfast. It was also encouraged not to use phones, but very few retreatants stuck to that. Partly due to the weather—​which went from windy, to boilingly hot, to extremely windy—​there were no excursions except on the last evening, when—​some of the retreatants fully dressed up—​we all walked down to the taverna on the beach to have our final dinner together. Perhaps as a result, most of us spent our time at the resort, where the program allowed for plenty of time to relax, connect, doze off in the sun or in a hammock, take a nap, read a book, or go for swim. In the spirit of Yoga Rocks’ overall atmosphere and branding strategy if you like, everything at the retreat was explicitly presented as optional, with “no pressure” (“no one’s judging!”), indeed no more than an invitation (and opportunity!) to “[d]‌elve deep inside or simply kick back,” unwind and enjoy the place “as your mood takes you” (2020b). After all, the site reads, “it’s your holiday”—​a holiday, the resort promises, “from which you will return feeling refreshed and revitalized” (2020d). The food was very tasty, “locally sourced, freshly prepared, [and] vegetarian,” and in fact had earned the resort the Yoga Journal-​label “Foodie Retreat” that year (“The Must List: Foodie Retreats, 2018”)—​though, admittedly, I was astounded by the large amount of it that went to waste, as it was common policy not to serve the delicate leftovers to the retreatants a second time. The retreatants: about 20 in number, two-​thirds of them female; all of them European (Denmark, Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Italy) or North American (the United States and Canada); aged between 20+ and 50+; and predominantly (if not all) middle-​class and white. Duration: one week (seven days, six nights). Costs: 850 euros for a shared room +travel expenses +optional massage. 5 Due to COVID-​19 the new 2020 schedule doesn’t run as usual and the program started instead in June; see Yoga Rocks (2020c). 6 Together with his partner Gösta (Shunya), Patrick is the co-​founder of Svaha Yoga in Amsterdam, where I volunteered as a Karma Yogi while working on the disconnectivity project. Both Patrick, Gösta, and the then managing director of the studio (and spirited yogi) Josie Sykes are among Yoga Rocks’ changing group of international teachers.

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  259

Of the three retreats, “The Digital Detox Retreat”—​now strategically rebranded as the catch-​them-​all “Mindful Digital Detox and Yoga Retreat”—​ of Time to Log Off, for me, stands out most for its unconcealed branding and ongoing sales strategy (even during the retreat), which, admittedly, was also what sparked my curiosity and drew me to the retreat in the first place. The retreat took place at Masseria Della Zingara (literally: gypsy farm or house of the gypsy), an 18th-​century building in the Puglia area in Italy, surrounded by cherry trees and olive groves, and available for weddings, private rentals, and “specialist holidays.”7 The retreat was organized and hosted by “digital entrepreneur,” “tech ethicist,” and self-​proclaimed “digital detox evangelist,” Tanya Goodin8—​founder of Time to Log Off. Upon arrival we had to hand in our mobile phones and were asked to state our expectations and aspirations for the week; at the end, as the phones were returned to us, we were asked about our experiences, challenges, and revelations. Throughout the retreat our host repeatedly informed us about, first, the dangers of our digital devices, “especially for children”;9 second, a phone call she was expecting about a “possible interview about the retreat for The Guardian” (presumably this one: Hayes, 2018); and third, about her aspiration for the week, which was to finally “write her second book,” which has since come out as Stop Staring at Screens: A Digital Detox for the Whole Family (Goodin, 2018). As for the daily schedule, I cannot even begin to describe the “full program of activities” we were offered. In addition to a daily program of optional early morning walks (“in silence” with the masseria’s eccentric owner Jan King); three meals (prepared by King and her exquisite cook); two yoga (or tantra) classes (taught by a sweet but not-​so-​experienced teacher flown in from Britain, except on Thursday when she had the afternoon off); and an optional massage at one’s own expense by a local ayurvedic therapist, we were offered a plethora of other (not quite so) optional activities, parts of which were presented to us at our doorstep upon our return to our room at night, every night. A book to be read—​Tanya’s first, OFF. Your Digital Detox for a Better Life (2017), “a little book with a big message” quizzed the next day; a gratitude jar to fill; poetry to be memorized; a notebook to make notes in; mindful coloring books 7 For the Masseria, see “Home” (Masseria Della Zingara, 2020). 8 For the many labels of Tanya Goodin, see www.tanyagoodin.com. 9 On the problematic of using the children trope in the discourses on the digital detox, see Hesselberth (2018).

260  Rethinking Disconnection (each one their own) to be mindfully colored; a bought-​for-​the-​occasion jigsaw puzzle to be resolved jointly; instant pictures to be instantly taken (“have you taken your pictures yet?”); a pool to swim in; bikes to ride; a hike!; and a city trip to be made together (“no phone, no navigation, no clock, no guide, remember?”). Evenings were filled with endless chatter at the dining table, mostly about British television shows; one retreatant initiated a film screening; another prepared a talk at the other retreatant’s request. Duration: six days (five nights). The retreatants: eight in total, all but one female, middle-​to upper-​class, British (except for me), though of different descent), some of whom were drawn to the retreat because of the digital detox, others treated to it by their children because of it (“my partner got a very nice Louis Vuitton bag, but they know I like new experiences more”); yet others just needed a break. Costs: 995 euros for a shared room +travel expenses +optional massage +city dinner (+shopping). In many ways at the other far end of the continuum were the retreats of Plum Village, a monastic practice center in the south of France composed of three separate monasteries—​(called hamlets): Lower Hamlet, Upper Hamlet, and New Hamlet, beautifully located in the lusciously green, but rainy Bordeaux area in the south of France, at an approximate distance of 4 to 18 km from one another.10 Each hamlet is the home base of a fully self-​contained community of monastics and resident lay practitioners, divided by gender, who “live, eat, practice, work and relax as a spiritual family” (Plum Village, 2020c). The hamlets meet at least twice a week, usually on Thursdays and Sundays, to enjoy a teaching or practice mindfulness as a community. In total, over 200 resident monks and nuns live and practice at Plum Village, which is generally open to visits (retreats) throughout the year, both short and long (though COVID-​19 has changed that and the center has been closed for visitors since March 2020; retreats are now offered online). While on retreat at Plum Village I joined the monastic community for periods of two, five, and three weeks and had a chance to participate in its activities of simple living, eating, walking and sitting meditation, teachings, and community work—​“everything in a spirit of meditation,” as the site reads, “whether it is walking to the bathroom, washing the dishes, or listening deeply to the sound of the

10 For a full list of monastic practice centers in the Plum Village tradition, see “Monastic Practice Centers” (Plum Village, 2020b).

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  261

bell” (Plum Village, 2020e). On a typical day at Plum Village I would be woken up at 5 a.m. by the wake-​up bell and join the community for sitting meditation (6 to 7 a.m.), breakfast (7:30 a.m.), a dharma talk (9:30 to 11 a.m.), walking meditation (11:30 to 12 p.m.), lunch (12:30 p.m.), service meditation (3 to 4 p.m.), a light dinner (6 p.m.), and again sitting meditation or another collective practice in the evening (8 to 9:30 p.m.), after which noble silence began until after breakfast the next day.11 The exception was Monday, Lazy Day—​“a deep practice”—​when no scheduled activities were offered.12 Generally, everyone at Plum Village is encouraged to stay within the monastery for the duration of the retreat, especially when staying one or two weeks, and even on lazy days. Furthermore, “to contribute to the collective energy of practice” all retreatants are requested to participate as much as possible “by joining in all the scheduled activities” (2020a), and to “give your cell phone and Internet a retreat” as well (2020d), an advice to which most visitors tended to adhere. Other than that, the schedule, like that of Yoga Rocks, generally left enough time to rest, connect, play, relax, and come back to oneself.13 The food—​ “prepared by the monks and nuns with much love and mindful work” (2020d)—​was simple, vegan, and where possible locally sourced (not least at the monasteries’ own organic “happy farms” (2020g), with oats and some fruit in the morning; and soup, rice, and steamed veggies for lunch and dinner. Meals were often enjoyed in silence the first 20 minutes or so, to enable a “deep contact with the miracle of food and the people around us” (2020f). The retreatants: varying between 80 and 400 per hamlet per week during regular seasons—​of all walks of life, genders, ages, nationalities, colors, and classes. Duration: varying with a minimum of one week (seven days, six nights) per retreat, always starting on Friday. Costs: between 330 euros (for camping or bunk bed) to 600 euros (for a shared double room) per week +travel expenses; with the options to volunteer, to donate for someone else’s retreat, or to apply for a reduction when one’s means are limited.

11 For a sample daily schedule, see “Sample Schedule” (Plum Village, 2020e). 12 On Lazy day, see “Practicalities” (Plum Village, 2020d), italics in-​text. 13 The exception are the special retreats when the schedule is slightly more intensive, like the Health Retreat, the Educators Retreat, the Ecology Retreat, and the 21-​day Retreat that I attended, which takes place biannually and is especially encouraged for more experienced practitioners (monastic and lay).

262  Rethinking Disconnection

Therapeutic Disconnection? A Reflection Now, as already becomes clear from this brief walk-​through, there is a tremendous difference between a profit-​oriented venture like Time to Log Off, and the incentives of a (monastic) practice center like Plum Village—​with Yoga Rocks holding somewhat of a middle ground: between the slight decadence of copious three-​course meals and food wasted, and the simplicity of plain vegetables, rice and oats; between bunk beds and (made-​up) double beds in single rooms; between jam-​packed schedules designed to circumvent the retreatants’ ennui and a schedule that allows for enough space and time to actually touch on emptiness; and for that matter, between a host who arguably has taken on mindfulness and “all things yogic” pro tem to brand their persona (and therewith their product), and those who have developed a practice that is steady and (often) lived through, devoting (parts) of their lives to it. There are clear variations and notable differences too, in the kinds of retreatants that are drawn in, and in the ways in which they arguably pass through. While variations are rarely so extreme, one could overstate the difference like this: There are retreatants who merely seem to consume a retreat as a product—​“a new experience,” i.e., of digestible chunks of mindfulness entertainment, bite-​sized and picture perfect; a form of conspicuous leisure (Veblen, 2016 [orig. 1899]) if you will, that never gets them “beyond the threshold of the eversame” (Adorno, 2001a: 191) because they are stuck in a program that never sets them loose and confronts the retreatant with nothing, and to which they nonetheless keep returning to spend money on, simply because it is comfortable. At the other far end, and again the difference is rarely so extreme or absolute, there are those retreatants for whom the retreat really offers an opportunity to nurture inner growth, and to look in deeply “in order to transform both our individual difficulties and the difficulties in our society,” as the site of Plum Village suggests (2020a). Significantly, the incentives of the organizers and the aspirations of the retreatants need not necessarily be aligned. I have seen retreatants everywhere who had deep revelations about the nature of their burnout or their media use. I have also observed retreatants gulp down the offerings as instant commodities no matter where, fleeing the resorts in a frenzy on free afternoons to go on shopping sprees, eating cheese and meat and drinking wine to make up for the vegan food (and no alcohol, of course), because they simply did not know what to begin with themselves, reporting of it at the end of day.

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  263

A certain entrepreneurialism, moreover, seems unavoidable in all the retreats that I attended—​which all were relatively mainstream, welcoming, and above all, remunerated, whether they are offered for profit or at a cost price.14 I would be hard-​pressed to conclude, therefore, that an entrepreneurial approach cannot also be committed to one, even Goodin’s, who dedicates her book Off to her children and whose voice in Time to Log Off, I would say, is a welcome one in the world of corporate and digital tech. Surely, a monastery like Plum Village is not run like a company—​which also has its “downsides,” the most notable one perhaps being the apparent lack of efficiency in the most trivial of daily activities, which over years I have learned to appreciate as a good friend to practice with (i.e., my own solutionism and impatience). But (!): There is a little bookshop in each of the hamlets that over the years has become more and more professionalized (even if opening hours remain erratic and the way it is run still appears somewhat disorganized). The shop is stocked with books by Parallax Press, a nonprofit publishing house founded by Thich Nhat Hahn that prints books and other media in mindful living and applied Buddhism, including his own. Besides books, dried plums, and some bare essentials (toothpaste, tampons, water bottles), the shop now also sells t-​ shirts, postcards, cookies, ice creams, incense, meditation pillows, bells, and all kinds of other little souvenirs—​arguably producing a revenue that makes the activities of Time to Log Off (an online shop) and Yoga Rocks (a small local business in site-​branded t-​shirts), disappear into thin air.15 I was once recounted the story of how, upon his arrival in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh soon realized that it would not be an option to go around for alms (offering blessings in exchange for food as Buddhist do in the Far East), and that—​in order to survive as a spiritual community there—​something other than mere blessings had to offered, indeed “traded,” in return; which is presumably how the organized retreats began. After all, no different from the hosts of Time to

14 There are exceptions to this in the West as well, of course, like for example the vipassana courses in the Goenka tradition—​a relatively more demanding 10-​day silent meditation retreat that are taught across Europe free of charge and are run by volunteers (themselves prior retreatants). Here, voluntary donations at the end go toward paying for future students. Interesting though this phenomenon is in light of the present discussion, retreats like these fall beyond the scope of this present article. 15 I even once caught a young sister saying, cynically albeit with a generous and gentle smile, “welcome to Plum Village factory,” likening the community’s on-​site production of souvenirs to an assembly line.

264  Rethinking Disconnection Log Off and Yoga Rocks, the monastics too, are dependent in part on the revenues generated by the retreats for their livelihoods. To reduce the problematic of the retreat within our present-​day culture (its role in society so to speak, its significance for critical thought) to the tension between entrepreneurialism and idealism, consumerism and dedication, or to distinguish between “good” retreats and “bad” ones, or “right” ways of doing them and ways that are “wrong,” therefore seems far too reductive. Indeed, we need another model, another paradigm, to critically consider the retreat. Which brings me to the controversy surrounding retreat culture that opened this chapter. As part of today’s leisure industry, “the retreat” shares many of the characteristics Theodor Adorno once attributed to the notion of “free time” in the 1970s (2001a [orig. 1977])—​regardless of whether they are organized for-​profit or offered at cost price. Like the idea of free time, the idea of retreat is “a continuation of the forms of profit-​oriented social life,” an “oasis of unmediated life within a completely mediated total system, that has itself been reified” (Adorno, 2001b: 189). Like free time, moreover, the time of the retreat is heteronomous time—​“time subject to constraints not of one’s making” (Shippen, 2014: 127): a period of seclusion, a daily schedule—​ whatever we believe our intentions may be. Like free time, then, the retreat seems “shackled to its opposite” (p. 187), that is: to all that from which one seeks to retreat (withdraw), be it the pressures of labor precarity, our always-​ on culture and the current economy of attention, and/​or, for that matter, the inconveniences of urban or (heteronormative) family life (to retreat into “nature,” to take time “for oneself ”). What in Adorno’s reading goes for free time’s relation to wage labor, equally holds true for the retreat’s relation to all of the preceding. Where wage labor is predicated on the internalized assumption that one should “not be distracted or lark about,” the retreat, like free time, “must not resemble work in any way whatsoever, in order, presumably, that one can work [or connect better, or be a worthier spouse] all the more effectively afterwards” (pp. 189–​190). This makes of the retreat, or therapeutic disconnection if you will, a form of social control beyond our self-​determination, part and parcel of a society that not only “foists upon you what your free time [retreat] should be” (p. 190), but above all that it should be put to (good) use. A similar line of reasoning can be found in Purser and Loy’s (2013) critique of mainstream mindfulness and the idea of therapeutic disconnection

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  265

(or healing) so central to the retreat. Purser writes in McMindfulness, that mainstream mindfulness, decontextualized from its foundation in Buddhism and its social ethics, has become “the new capitalist spirituality”—​ a form of psycho-​politics (Han, 2017) that “slots neatly into the mindset of the workplace,” and is “perfectly attuned maintaining the neoliberal self ” (2019: 19). Along similar lines Slavoj Žižek has called “Western Buddhism” the “hegemonic ideology of global capitalism.” He writes: “Although ‘Western Buddhism’ presents itself as the remedy against the stressful tension of capitalist dynamics, allowing us to uncouple and retain inner peace and Gelassenheit, it actually functions as its perfect ideological supplement” (Žižek, 2014: 65, 66). Like mindfulness, the retreat in this reading, becomes “a therapeutic solvent,” “a universal elixir” (Purser, 2019: 20), a form of “stoic self-​pacification” (p. 25) that helps us to auto-​exploit ourselves (in the name of self-​care). Moreover, Forbes adds in Mindfulness and its Discontents: “Instead of relinquishing the ego, McMindfulness promotes self-​aggrandizement; its therapeutic function is to comfort, numb, adjust, and accommodate the self within a neoliberal, corporatized, militarized, individualistic society based on private gain.” This logic of “mindfulness for me,” Žižek writes is “arguably the most efficient way for us to fully participate in capitalist dynamics while retaining the appearance of mental sanity.” Significantly, Purser (2019) likens neoliberal mindfulness to a “disimagination machine” (p. 37), a term he borrows from Henri Giroux, who in his turn takes it from Didi-​Huberman. “To change the world, we are told to work on our selves—​to change our minds by being more mindful, nonjudgemental and accepting of the circumstances. In this way, neoliberal mindfulness functions as a machine of disimagination” (p. 37). A disimagination machine, Giroux writes (2013: n.p.) in a good old historical materialist fashion, is both a set of cultural apparatuses extending from schools and mainstream media to the new sites of screen culture, and a public pedagogy that functions primarily to undermine the ability of individuals to think critically, imagine the unimaginable, and engage in thoughtful and critical dialogue: put simply, to become critically informed citizens of the world.

Like Purser and Giroux, in his critique of “free time,” Adorno (2001a) too, laments the stifling of the imagination that results from free time’s prescriptive

266  Rethinking Disconnection logic, i.e., the fact that it imposes on people how nonworking hours should be spent (i.e., on a hobby, to go out camping, sunbathe, relax, or: go on a retreat!) and the uses to which these hours should be put (i.e., the recuperation of our productive forces). Under the strict division of labor and the sort of conditions of heteronomy, Adorno writes, free time, however, also gives way to boredom, i.e., when our desires are satisfied and new ones are not triggered yet. It is worthwhile to quote Adorno at some length here: If people were able to make their own decisions about themselves and their lives, if they were not caught up in the realm of the eversame, they would not have to be bored. Boredom is the reflection of objective dullness. As such it is in a similar position to political apathy. The most compelling reason for apathy is the by no means unjustified feeling of the masses that political participation within the sphere society grants them [ . . . ] can alter their actual existence only minimally. Failing to discern the relevance of politics to their own interests, they retreat from all political activity. (Adorno, 2001a: 192)

Boredom, Adorno writes, is “objective desperation.” But, he writes, it is also indicative of “the defamation and atrophy of the imagination (Phantasie).” It is free time’s truncation of the imagination, Adorno suggests, that deprives people of their faculty to imagine things/​life otherwise. “This is one good reason,” Adorno concludes, “why people have remained chained to their work, and to a system which trains them for work, long after that system has ceased to require their labour” (p. 193). What, then, to make of the retreat in this context? It is here, I feel, that the comparison between free time and the retreat no longer fully holds. For, while there may be a kernel of truth to the idea that the organized retreat, too, may prohibit people from imagining how their time/​retreat could be spend otherwise—​or, more generally, how life could be otherwise—​this is only a partial truth. For as a gesture of withdrawal, I have argued elsewhere, to (go on) a retreat is by no means an apolitical gesture. In fact, Joost de Bloois and I argue, “with the condition of ‘no exit’ becoming ever more universal in the Global West,” to withdraw, retreat, disconnect, or resign has “become the political gesture” of our times, constituting a radical “break with modern and contemporary conceptions of what counts as ‘(the) political’ ” (2020: 10; also see Hesselberth, 2020). It goes beyond the

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  267

scope of this article to fully unpack this argument with its politics of withdrawal) here; suffice it to say that in my reading of it, there is nothing apolitical about the retreat. To elucidate my point, I will briefly return to Adorno before moving on to the organized retreats I attended. Crucially, Adorno’s observations on free time and the division of labor originate from a place and time of retreat—​a place of refuge where he himself seems (in fact: feels) unburdened by (some of) its challenges. Adorno is well aware of this, as he reflects on the privilege he enjoys as a university professor, which grants him the “rare opportunity to follow the path of his own intentions and to fashion his work accordingly” (p. 189). It is from this retreat from society—​not completely severed from it, but temporarily disconnected—​that he can see the glitches of his times and conjure up ideas about, indeed: Imagine, what role the imagination could (but ceases) to fulfill. It is this disconnect/​retreat, in other words, that enables him to imagine things/​life otherwise. The (organized) retreat, I suggest, fulfills a similar function in our times, albeit in part and somewhat differently. On the one hand, I have shown, the retreat shares many of the characteristics Adorno attributes to “free time,” in the sense that it works prescriptively. On the other hand, however, I suggest, the retreat also enables the dis/​connect by way of which such prescriptive workings can potentially become undone. The role and function of the daily schedule, one of the hallmarks of the organized retreat presumably modeled after spiritual retreats like those of Plum Village, is key here. Clearly premediated to unshackle retreatants from their daily routines and responsibility, the daily schedule has a clear prescriptive working: It will tell you where to be when, what to do, when to eat and when to sleep; food and sheltering are provided for, albeit at designated hours.16 As such, it is undeniably an example of heteronomy—​time beyond our self-​determination, the opposite of independent, autonomous, and free.17 Heteronomous though it may be, or, in effect, precisely because of its heteronomy, the daily schedule also allows for the mind to be emptied of external stimuli and responsibility, at least in potential, and it is in this emptiness that new imaginings can emerge. Just as it takes Adorno a retreat/​disconnect from society to see its shortcomings and imagine the place imagination could fulfill, it takes the different way of 16 The struggles retreatants have with this principle, me included, are staggering—​another paper could be devoted to this . . . 17 The free, here, it that of freedom, not free time, a distinction Adorno time and again stipulates.

268  Rethinking Disconnection being in time and being together that the retreat enables to envision the place that alternate ways of being in time and being together may fulfill within the political imagination of our times.18 This, in conclusion, brings me to the retreat as an (un)critical imaginary and the etymology of the noun “retreat” that I opened this chapter with. As a gesture of withdrawal, the popularity of organized retreats signals some of the fissures in our existing reality (stress, burnout), opening up different time and space, and ways being together in and through which change may take place. This, to me, makes of the retreat one of the most central figures of what, elsewhere (Hesselberth, 2017), I have called the paradox of dis/​connectivity that marks our times.

Going Full Circle: Quarantine and the Online Retreat (a Very Brief Coda) As I embarked on writing this article the world was shaken in its grounds by the COVID-​19 pandemic. The quarantine imposed a retreat from public spaces into the private sphere of the home, as well as a retreat from work, the repressing rhythm of which would soon pick up again, arguably in an even more rigorous manner. The organized retreats I had planned to go to were all cancelled, and in due time relocated online. I am not sure what to make of the online retreat, which has a politics and aesthetics of its own, that would require a separate investigation. Perhaps it is because the online retreat emerged simultaneously with the “new normal” of working from home and the aesthetics that came with it (the most notable being called Zoom)—​or because my own research on dis/​connectivity originated from the advent of the totalitarian logic of online connectivity and my own need to retreat, but the online retreat seems somewhat contentious to me. More important for our purpose here, and the question I have asked while writing this chapter, is what kind of retreat the quarantine was—​not the one as we came to know (the new normal), but the one prior to that: the first few weeks where we simply had no idea yet (of what would come, of how to do it, of how to be in time and space differently); the panic of harvesting food, the liberty of 18 The function of these schedules, in other words, is to release the retreatants from their daily responsibilities, duties, and distractions that come with the sheer need take care of and feed oneself, so that other ways of being with oneself and the world around us may become possible/​ imaginable.

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  269

having to figure things out for ourselves, the quiet of no appointments, the challenges of having to be or become a family again. The chapter you have read is in many ways not the one I had intended to write because of quarantine. But it is not about quarantine. All the way through I realized this would have to be, once again, another article.

References Adorno, T. W. (2001a). Free time. In The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture (pp. 187–​197). London & New York: Routledge. Adorno, T. W. (2001b). The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. 2nd edition. Edited by J. M. Bernstein. London & New York: Routledge. Chapman, J. (no date). Retreat Culture: It’s time to believe in ourselves again! Available at: https://​www.thechapmanguides.com/​articles/​wellness-​retreats-​time-​believe/​ (Accessed: July 13, 2020). Crawford, M. B. (2016). The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction. Reprint edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. DDB Stockholm (2015). “The Catch-​Up Grant,” DDB Stockholm. Available at: http://​ ddb.se/​work/​communication/​the-​catch-​up-​grant (Accessed: July 23, 2020). Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the societies of control. October. The MIT Press, 59(Winter): 3–​7. Deleuze, G. (2011). Control and becoming: A conversation between Toni Negri and Gilles Deleuze [orig. 1990]. The Funambulist Magazine, February 22. Available at: https://​thefunambulist.net/​law/​philosophy-​control-​and-​becoming-​ a-​conversation-​between-​toni-​negri-​and-​gilles-​deleuze (Accessed: October 20, 2019). Forbes, D. (2019). Mindfulness and Its Discontents: Education, Self, and Social Transformation. Black Point, Nova Scotia and Winnipeg, Manitoba: Fernwood Publishing. Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. In Martin, L. H., Gutman, H., & Hutton, P. H. (Eds.). Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by A. Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Giroux, H. A. (2013). The politics of disimagination and the pathologies of power. Truthout (Section: New Analysis). Available at: https://​truthout.org/​articles/​

270  Rethinking Disconnection the-​politics-​of-​disimagination-​and-​the-​pathologies-​of-​power/​ (Accessed: July 26, 2020). Goodin, T. (2017). OFF. Your Digital Detox for a Better Life. London: Ilex Press. Goodin, T. (2018). Stop Staring at Screens: A Digital Detox for the Whole Family. London: Ilex Press. Han, B.-​C. (2015). The Burnout Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Han, B.-​C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Translated by E. Butler. London & New York: Verso. Hayes, M. (2018). How to quit your tech: A beginner’s guide to divorcing your phone. The Guardian, January 13. Available at: https://​www.theguardian.com/​technology/​2018/​jan/​13/​how-​to-​quit-​your-​tech-​phone-​digital-​detox (Accessed: July 9, 2020). Hesselberth, P. (2017). Discourses on disconnectivity and the right to disconnect. New Media & Society, 20(5): 1994–​2010. doi: 10.1177/​1461444817711449. Hesselberth, P. (2018). Connect, disconnect, reconnect: Historicizing the current gesture towards disconnectivity, from the plug-​in drug to the digital detox. Cinema&Cie: International Film Studies Journal, 30(XVII): 105–​114. Hesselberth, P. (2020). On leaving academia and the need to take refuge. In Hesselberth, P., & De Bloois, J. (Eds.), Politics of Withdrawal: Media, Arts, Theory (pp. 147–​160). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Hesselberth, P., & De Bloois, J. (2020). Towards a politics of withdrawal? In Hesselberth, P., & De Bloois, J. (Eds.), Politics of Withdrawal: Media, Arts, Theory (pp. 1–​12). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2007). Dialectic of Enlightenment. 1st edition. Edited by G. S. Noerr. Translated by E. Jephcott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Masseria Della Zingara (2020). Home, Masseria Della Zingara. Available at: http://​ masseriadellazingara.com/​(Accessed: July 26, 2020). Odell, J. (2019). How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House. Oneworld Retreats (2016). “Oneworld Retreats,” Facebook. Available at: https://​ne-​ np.facebook.com/​OneworldRetreats/​posts/​10153946333420844 (Accessed: July 13, 2020). Pendrill, K. (2015). “Television-​Themed Retreats,” TrendHunter. Available at: https://​ www.trendhunter.com/​trends/​binge-​watch (Accessed: 23 July 2020). Plum Village (2020a). “About Plum Village Retreats,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​plumvillage.org/​retreats/​visiting-​us/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020).

Retreat Culture and Disconnection  271 Plum Village (2020b). “Monastic Practice Centres,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​ plumvillage.org/​monastic-​practice-​centres/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020). Plum Village (2020c). “Our Hamlets,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​plumvillage. org/​retreats/​visiting-​us/​hamlet/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020). Plum Village (2020d). “Practicalities,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​plumvillage. org/​retreats/​visiting-​us/​practicalities/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020). Plum Village (2020e). “Sample Schedule,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​ plumvillage.org/​retreats/​visiting-​us/​sample-​schedule/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020). Plum Village (2020f). “The Art of Mindful Living,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​ plumvillage.org/​mindfulness-​practice/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020). Plum Village (2020g). “The Organic Happy Farms,” Plum Village. Available at: https://​ plumvillage.org/​community/​happy-​farm/​ (Accessed: July 22, 2020). Purser, R. (2019). McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality. London: Repeater. Purser, R., & Loy, D. (2013). Beyond McMindfulness, HuffPost. Available at: https://​www. huffpost.com/​entry/​beyond-​mcmindfulness_​b_​3519289 (Accessed: July 26, 2020). Retreat Culture (n.d.). Retrieved from https://​www.trendhunter.com/​protrends/​ retreat-​culture. Shippen, N. (2014). Decolonizing Time: Work, Leisure, and Freedom. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. “The Must List: Foodie Retreats” (2018). Yoga Journal (303): 26. Time to Log Off (2020). “Digital Detox Retreats | Yoga Retreats,” Time to Log Off. Available at: https://​www.itstimetologoff.com/​digital-​detox-​retreats/​ (Accessed: July 23, 2020). Trendhunter (2015). “Retreat Culture –​Brands Align with Spiritual Principles for Millennial Appeal,” Trendhunter. Available at: https://​www.trendhunter.com/​ protrends/​retreat-​culture (Accessed: July 13, 2020). van Dijck, J. (2013). The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. 1st edition. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Veblen, T. (2016). The Theory of the Leisure Class. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Villadsen, K. (2007). Managing the employee’s soul: Foucault applied to modern management technologies, Cadernos EBAPE.BR. Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola Brasileira de Administração Pública e de Empresas, 5(1): 01–​10. doi: 10.1590/​ S1679-​39512007000100002. Weiner, E. J. (2015). Deschooling the Imagination. Abingdon, Oxon, & New York: Routledge.

272  Rethinking Disconnection Yoga Rocks (2020a). “Agios Pavlos & Triopetra,” Yoga Rocks Retreats. Available at: https://​www.yogaholidaysgreece.com/​agiospavlos/​ (Accessed: July 23, 2020). Yoga Rocks (2020b). “Home,” Yoga Rocks Retreats. Available at: https://​www. yogaholidaysgreece.com/​(Accessed: July 22, 2020). Yoga Rocks (2020c). “Retreats & Teachers: New Schedule 2020,” Yoga Rocks Retreats. Available at: https://​www.yogaholidaysgreece.com/​yoga-​rocks-​new-​schedule-​ 2020/​(Accessed: July 22, 2020). Yoga Rocks (2020d). “Your Hosts,” Yoga Rocks Retreats. Available at: https://​www. yogaholidaysgreece.com/​hosts/​ (Accessed: 22 July 2020). Žižek, S. (2001). From Western Marxism to Western Buddhism | Slavoj Žižek. Cabinet Magazine (2: Mapping Conversations). Available at: http://​cabinetmagazine.org/​ issues/​2/​zizek.php (Accessed: 26 July 2020). Žižek, S. (2012). The Buddhist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism. Saas Fee, Switzerland (European Graduate School Lectures). Available at: https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=qkTUQYxEUjs (Accessed: July 26, 2020). Žižek, S. (2014). Event: A Philosophical Journey Through a Concept. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.

11 Networked Intimacies Pandemic Dis/​Connections Between Anxiety, Joy, and Laughter Jenny Sundén

The most important advice government authorities have given people across the globe to slow down the spread of COVID-​19 is the practice of “social distancing.” In many places where the virus’ spread has been severe, or on the verge of becoming severe, people have been told to self-​quarantine, to stay home, to “shelter in place.” Such advice and regulations have spurred rather radical forms of self-​isolation as many have stopped going to work and other public spaces, stopped visiting family and friends, perhaps even been forced to refrain from going outside altogether. These physical modes of confinement have also resulted in quite vivid digital forms of being close and coming together, highlighting how digital intimacy is an intrinsic part of the social fabric in ways that become critical in spaces of physical disconnection. Simply put, to keep bodies physically apart is not necessarily the same as being socially distant with regard to others. The idea of the social as not merely consisting of face-​to-​face encounters is of course not new. The use of media technologies has continuously tied people together at a distance, from letter writing, personal ads, and phone calls, to the use of networked digital media, creating new forms of relational spaces. With the development of the Web in increasingly social and participatory registers, in tandem with progressively more powerful devices, connections, and networks, digital modes of sociality have proliferated. In a continuous movement through social media platforms and social media feeds, private messaging functions, and hookup apps, everyday forms of intimacy have an undeniable digital dimension (cf. Andreassen et al., 2018; Dobson et al., 2018).

Jenny Sundén, Networked Intimacies In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0012

274  Rethinking Disconnection It is also currently becoming clear that practices of social distancing—​that is, practices of physical distancing, a disconnect in physical connectivity, and a slowing down of the body in its trajectories and ways of moving—​ have resulted in an intensification of digital connectivity. As people distance themselves from each other, forging a disconnect by creating space between bodies and by staying in place, they simultaneously connect and reconnect digitally like never before. Then again, such digital connections and reconnections take shape through devices and networks that are everything but stable. As many aspects of everyday life move online, ranging from the professional to the private to the intimate and beyond, the ways in which digital devices are flawed and fragile become palpable. The chapter begins in the midst of such powerful breaks in physical closeness paired with digital intensity and digital fragility; it provides a discussion of breaks and disconnections as a mode of understanding intimacy in a state of exception. It also traces the transformation of relational spaces in a pandemic as intimacy becomes rewired through different kinds of disconnection and reconnection. A break can imply many different things. It can be a question of damage, the very place where something is fractured or broken into pieces, such as the cracks breaking open an already broken world, or the sense of a heart breaking. It can be the end of something, a breakup, a disconnection, a break in relation. It can also be an interruption, a pause, a breathing space, even a vacation. But it can equally be an opportunity, or a breakthrough. In this chapter, I use these understandings of the break to mobilize a vocabulary—​of digital breaks, interruptions, pauses, and new openings—​to open up a discussion of digital, fragile intimacy. Taking the cue from Lauren Berlant (1998: 284), I approach intimacy in terms of affective attachments which may take conventional forms underpinned by particular fantasies (such as friendship, the couple, the family), but which do not need to be organized in any particular way: What if we saw it emerge from much more mobile processes of attachment? While the fantasies associated with intimacy usually end up occupying the space of convention, in practice the drive toward it is a kind of wild thing that is not necessarily organized that way, or any way. It can be portable, unattached to a concrete space: a drive that creates spaces around it through practices.

Networked Intimacies  275

While Berlant’s thinking had little to do with digital connectivity at the time, her ways of theorizing intimate (and wild) mobile attachments not limited by concrete spaces has come to resonate with research on “mobile intimacy” (e.g., Hjorth & Lim, 2012; Lasén, 2015). Mobile devices routinely put locations in motion and turn the ground on which digital connectivity is based into a question: “Where are you?” Maurizio Ferraris (2014) speaks of this question as one of mobile ontology, a transformation of presence and certainties in the shift from wired to wireless and mobile technologies. As will become clear in this chapter, digital intimacy within the pandemic is less than mobile, but becomes attached (anew) to specific locations, such as the home. The chapter opens with a discussion of digital intimacy as not merely a matter of using digital devices as mediators of intimate relations, but how the notion of digital intimacy is equally a matter of being intimate with fragile, digital objects. With regard to such object intimacy and an “always on” lifestyle, I focus, in particular, on the layering of anxiety and anticipation within networked connections and disconnections, and a potential intensification of such affective tendencies in pandemic spaces. Secondly, I move on to discuss more hopeful openings in the current moment; how anxiety and distress may become punctuated by pockets of humor, pleasure, and joy. I consider the dynamics between physical disconnection and digital intensity during a pandemic by looking at discussions of dating and hookup apps, and in particular at instances of quarantine humor in hookup cultures. This humor stems from impossibly contradictory spaces of self-​isolation, desire, and longing, in relation to which the swift logic of the swipe is cut short and transformed into a disconnect in the shape of a delay. I end the chapter by turning to an example of Swedish, queer quarantine humor and a discussion of partial disconnections, or selective connectivity in difficult times in the interest of self-​care.

Fraught Technologies, Fragile Hearts Mobile phones are mundane, yet peculiarly intimate objects, often close at hand and close to the heart. If kept close to your body, you may feel its vibrations when the sound is off, drawing your attention to bags or pockets. Sometimes you feel the vibrations even in their absence, as a phantom limb

276  Rethinking Disconnection acting up based on the familiarity of the sensation. It is a kind of object intimacy shaped by how it is intrinsically entangled with social networks of friends and lovers. You may take it to bed as an accomplice in flirtations and love stories, its texting and self-​shooting capabilities fueling relational intensity at a distance. You might fumble and reach for it in the morning for easy access to world news and friend news alike, its bright screen lighting up your sleepy face. During a pandemic, this intimacy with digital devices is in a sense intensified, as everything from workplace meetings to birthday celebrations to expressions of affection (beyond the immediacy of one’s home) are reduced to the digital. Telephones have certainly been players in matters of the heart for quite some time. As Ariana Kelly (2015: 43) puts it in an account of the phone booth, “Telephones became conspirators in our lives, participants in our loves and losses, necessarily implicated in the communications they conveyed.” A mobile phone is similarly more than a medium or a facilitator of human relations, it is also a vibrant part of networked connectivity, actively shaping how people form intimate attachments and connections. Such “infrastructures of intimacy” become particularly visible and visceral when they are broken (Paasonen, 2017; Wilson, 2016). In fact, as Lin Prøitz et al. (2017: 61) argue, “Heartbreak and grief, as experienced in and through mobile media practice, heighten the broken aspects of this infrastructure, especially its social and tacit dimensions.” Mobile phones are intricate components of heartache and heartbreaks, whether these refer to breakups and broken relations, or a heart breaking due to a broken world. During a pandemic, they are also at risk of becoming objects of contagion, their sticky surfaces a possible carrier of viral transmission. Research on digital intimacy is rife with accounts of an anticipatory digital media culture in which everyday lives are characterized by an “always on” mode of constant connectivity (boyd, 2012; see also Nansen et al., this volume). As digital devices can potentially be connected around the clock, there is also a rather powerful norm around digital connectivity to be always connected. In her study of transnational family communication, Mirca Madianou (2016: 198) discusses what she calls ambient co-​presence, “a peripheral, yet intense, awareness” of the actions and daily rhythms of others enabled by the affordances of social media platforms. Through a continuous flow of social media updates, ambient co-​presence can be emotionally reassuring, especially “when considering the anxiety that often emerges in its

Networked Intimacies  277

absence” (Madianou 2016: 196). If constant digital connectivity is the normative expectation, a refusal to connect, to respond, to update, to like, and to share creates plenty of room for anxiety and worry. In pandemic spaces, failure to reach someone dear to you, perhaps especially if they belong to a particularly vulnerable group in the population, may make your heart race, along with your imagination. When considering the norm of constant connectivity, it is useful to remember how disconnection is something that lives within every connection. It forms the backbone of digital connectivity in ways that make it difficult to distinguish voluntary from involuntary disconnection (cf. Adams & Jansson, this volume). Networks and connections are bound to fail, reception can be patchy, devices might break or glitch, run out of power, or be left behind. Such technological failures produce a kind of anxious anticipation that may make you hold your breath, forcing you to pay attention to the materiality and fragility of digital media (Sundén, 2015). Network failures and other technological malfunctions further implicate a loss of control over technologies, systems, and devices as well as an existential disconnect in relation to others as you are cut off from networked sociality (Karppi, 2018; Paasonen, 2015, 2017). It could be argued that there is a particularly salient affective tendency within digital connectivity, one that interlinks anxiety and anticipation in relation to disconnective practices. Such affective entanglements are played out differently on different social media platforms and applications, mainly due to variations in how they reveal and conceal the presence of users, but also due more generally to the rhythms of networked exchanges. One example is the possibility of “read receipts” in iMessage, unless these have been disabled. The read receipts insert a dimension of insecurity and nerves in the rhythm of textual messaging, turning it into something other than the content exchanged. As Benjamin Haber (2019: 1077–​1079) points out, while the context of the textual exchange is critical, “message receipts tend to invite an anxious anticipation of response and a felt pressure to reply.” As these read receipts are voluntary, they contribute to a form of unevenly distributed openness. The Facebook Messenger application takes this interplay between anticipation and anxiety one step further as read receipts are mandatory, turning messaging practices into an endless dance of “I can see she has read my message. Why hasn’t she responded yet?” Then again, the openness of the disconnect, of the not yet, may not only be tied to anxiety, but also to a

278  Rethinking Disconnection particular sense of more joyful anticipation in the direction of something yet to arrive. In her examination of anxiety and drive in affective networks, Jodi Dean (2015) argues that when digital media use intensifies, so does the anxiety around networked forms of communication. The more you open yourself up to devices and networks, the more there is to worry about. As messages are sent; social media updates posted; comments, likes, and shares set in motion, you may ache anxiously for responses and reactions. In both psychoanalytical theory and affect theory, anxiety is often understood as lacking an obvious object (unlike fear, or phobia). Dean follows Jacques Lacan and his understanding of anxiety as a form of excess or surplus enjoyment: “Anxiety about networked media is, in this view, anxiety about enjoyment” (Dean, 2015: 89). Within such anxious modes of relating and communicating, in which distress and enjoyment are interestingly layered, it is not only difficult content that could be anxiety inducing. What interrupts joy, or heightens as sense of anxiety, could also have to do with the absence of contact and connection; the failures to comment, like, and share, or the refusal to reconnect. In short, in networked communication, interruptions and disconnections can be transformed into anxiety, while at the same time bringing a form of enjoyment. In a somewhat bewildering blend of anxiety, anticipation, joy, and pleasure, ways of worrying paradoxically become ways to enjoy. This is not to argue that everybody would form anxious attachments to digital devices, which would speak against the ways in which affect is inherently unpredictable and volatile. But it is to suggest that the mechanisms of social media platforms—​the rhythms of updates, likes, and shares—​invite and reward anxious ways of connecting and enjoying. Pandemic digital media dynamics further seem to heighten how digital devices were already fraught technologies of love and joy, anxiety and despair. Digital devices may become objects of comfort, opening up physical spaces of self-​isolation to vibrant networks of family and friends. Glasses of wine “after work” are lifted in salutation to numerous screens as Friday night drinks with friends are consumed, as Sherry Turkle (2011) has it, “alone together.” But as opposed to Turkle’s rather pessimistic picture of digital sociality and intimacy, such interventions or interruptions in the endless use of teleconferencing tools for professional ends (by those privileged with the ability to work from home) provide welcome respite and a different quality to life in a state of exception. The very same devices become equally objects of anxiety and worry as they

Networked Intimacies  279

come entangled with newsfeeds and social media flows that figure the spread of the virus and its consequences; the deepening cracks in the health sector, the rapidly increasing number of patients in intensive care, the number of deaths. But this interplay of anxiety and anticipation may also be working in reverse, as the unfolding of global events, no matter how disastrous, also has its own thrills. Following such news closely along with the real-​time drama they imply is not necessarily void of joy, but rather holds its own form of enjoyment. As Dean argues, ways of worrying becomes ways to enjoy as the pace of updates from a web of newsfeeds becomes evidence of a real-​time global spectacle in crisis mode. Staying informed and, to an extent, living in the very space of national and international news reporting and debate, may also provide a sense of comfort (perhaps in particular as some countries diverge quite drastically from others in how the pandemic is handled by the authorities). Taking part in a range of perspectives and insights across national borders and epidemiological communities becomes a mechanism of coping with an ever-​changing reality in which many provide their points of views, but nobody has the final answer or the solution. A digital device may in one instance provide a form of solace in its capacities of holding the line or the channel open to family, friends, and lovers. In the next, it might instead give evidence of world economies crashing, of mass layoffs and amplifying precarity, of borders closing and borders being patrolled, of rising nationalism and racism, and of escalating violence in those homes and families that have been forced to create their own closed borders. When turning on your phone feels like it marks the end of the world, the intimacy with devices is at risk of becoming charged with a kind of anxiety that holds very little enjoyment. When opening up your phone is a way of opening yourself up to the fact that the world is already a radically different place, and one that will keep changing dramatically, the only sensible thing to do may be to take a break, to disconnect, to at least momentarily turn away from those platforms and networks that are simultaneously providing you with a lifeline. Such disconnective practices are in a sense similar to those involved in digital detoxing and digital dieting as they can be motivated as matters of health and well-​being (see Hesselberth, this volume; Enli & Syvertsen, this volume). At the same time, a digital disconnect in a pandemic that is all about the digital is in a sense more radical. To sustain yourself, your energy,

280  Rethinking Disconnection your ability to move and to engage, taking a moment to catch your breath, to breathe deeply, becomes an act of self-​care. Indeed, anxiety around digital connectivity may also be of a social kind, as the expectation to stay in touch digitally with others can be pressing and tricky to navigate (a situation which is not helped by how teleconferencing tools and spaces can be both numbing and exhausting). Digital media in pre-​pandemic spaces has primarily been understood as something which extends, enhances, and intermingles with physical modes of closeness. This layering of digitality and physicality is quite different from a situation when sociality and intimacy shift into purely digital forms and formats. If the digital is all there is, to disconnect from or otherwise refuse digital connections with others becomes a negation or a turning away from sociality itself.

Disconnection and (Queer) Longing Other ways of taking a break from anxious digital connectivity and the real-​ time unfolding of a global disaster is to get grounded physically, or to seek out the kinds of digital connections that bring pleasure and joy. One interesting realm in this respect is hookup culture and the use of hookup apps, a practice that builds on digital connectivity paired with physical intimacy and closeness. Needless to say, this dynamic is in times of “social distancing” going through a rather profound transformation as people are reluctant to meet up, but still needing to connect. Even amidst a viral outbreak of epic proportions, the desire for love, lust, and connection is far from subdued. Hookup apps such as Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr are reporting a clear intensification in app traffic since the COVID-​19 outbreak. For example, early during the pandemic (in the last week of March), Bumble reported a 21% increase in both messaging and video calls in the US context, the average video call stretching over 14 minutes, which, as Brittany Wong (2020) points out, “is pretty impressive, given that these are essentially cold calls between perfect strangers.” During these calls, the space of the home becomes the backdrop for first impressions and first conversations in interesting ways, an option to curate (or not to curate) that which comes into view along with other aspects of one’s digital self-​presentation. Across these apps, users have been served sensible in-​app public service announcements clearly at odds with their business mission. Tinder is

Networked Intimacies  281

flagging up “Your wellbeing is our #1 priority”; Bumble urges people to take their dates virtual; and Grindr’s tagline reads “Stay home, stay connected,” which quickly moves into “Staying safe at home can still be sexy. You are your own best sex partner, so take some time to practice self-​care.” It was precisely this focus on the benefits of autoeroticism during a pandemic that made an official set of unusually candid safe sex and COVID-​19 guidelines from the New York City Department of Health go viral—​from Twitter, to The New York Times, to Vogue, and beyond: “You are your safest sex partner,” which was accompanied with advice to wash both your hands and your sex toys with soap and water for 20 seconds before and after sex.1 The short document goes on to acknowledge safe practices in sex work, digital sex, oral sex, anal sex, and pornography, things that are not usually part of government communication. But exceptional times call for exceptional measures. The reactions from hookup app users have been nothing short of pitch perfect. On Twitter, @kaitlynmcquin (aka Kaitlyn McQuin) saw an opening to slow and careful build-​ups that supposedly belong to a bygone era, a tweet which became particularly viral: You know who’s really gonna suffer during this social distancing? Dudes on dating apps Welcome back to courtship, Brad. Welcome back to talking to a gal for WEEKS prior to meeting. We’re pen pals now, my dude. We bout to get Jane Austen up in here. Now, write me a poem. (Twitter, March 15, 2020, 73.9K retweets, 487.6K likes)2

Writer and advice columnist Beth McColl (@imteddybless) similarly saw a potential in the current moment for tense and intense long-​distance romantic connections: “does anyone want to start a fraught and passionate long-​distance romance while we ride this thing out? Bored of cleaning and working and sitting inside. i’m ready do PINE” (Twitter, March 17, 2020, 1 For the complete Sex and COVID-​19 guidance, see “Sex and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-​19),” New York City Department of Health, March 27, 2020: https://​www1.nyc.gov/​ assets/​doh/​downloads/​pdf/​imm/​covid-​sex-​guidance.pdf. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). 2 The number of likes, retweets etc. in the social media posts referred to in this chapter were recorded on June 10, 2020.

282  Rethinking Disconnection 817 retweets, 5.8K likes). Based on a viral social media dynamic, which was further fueled by popular news media reporting, pandemic hookup culture quickly got involved in a humorous, collective imaginary around longing, aching, and desiring at a distance. For who would not be ready to “pine” in a time like this? The physical disconnect forced by the virus here creates a potential relational space for slower paced love affairs, or the fantasy thereof, an art supposedly lost in relational geographies of high-​paced swiping based on proximity and physical appearances. Such slower connectivity becomes grounded in a disconnection that takes the shape of a delay or a postponement, a future promise of an opening in between connection and disconnection (cf. Yuan, this volume). The tongue-​in-​cheek quality of these posts make them read partly as jokes but with a serious edge, contributing to a turn toward bittersweet laughter as a form of connection in crisis times. Others went more full-​on romance, providing a different light in the tunnel of impossible physical dates and hookups. One particularly viral example of such distant romancing is the video of a dinner on separate rooftops in Brooklyn (arranged by drone) where photographer Jeremy Cohen (@jerm_​cohen) asked his neighbor Tori Cignarella out on a date after spotting her dancing on her roof. The video “Quarantine cutie” in three parts (the ask, the dinner, and the walk side by side with him in a plastic bubble) posted on March 29 has about 9 million views on Twitter and more than 30 million on TikTok, testifying to its resonance at a moment when being single and physically disconnected can be challenging indeed. In a turn to hookup apps catering more specifically to queer users, such as Lex and Grindr, there is similar evidence of humorous, flirty, but also more explicitly sexual and sex-​positive ways of navigating intimacy without physical contact (Myles et al., 2021). Lex—​a lo-​fi, text-​based dating and social app for women, trans, genderqueer, intersex, two spirit, and nonbinary folks—​ raised awareness of self-​isolation through an Instagram post with a “social distancing starter pack” to deal with the “queerantine.” The care package includes a vibrator, a bottle of Purell (a brand of hand sanitizer), a sweatshirt that says GAY, vitamin C, a copy of the novel In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (about a particularly passionate and abusive relationship between lesbian lovers), and “Carrot Ginger soup by a hot babe you met on Lex” (Instagram, March 13, 2020, 6K likes). What more could a girl possibly need while in lockdown, except of course the reason that brought her to Lex

Networked Intimacies  283

in the first place? The “queerantine” has further inspired playful ways of getting it on, such as when the Brooklyn-​based writer Ana Valens brought a nude swap challenge to Lex: “Social distancing sucks, but I’m sure your tits don’t xo . . . Let’s exchange some of our best bedroom shots” which rendered her some 2.5K heart-​shaped likes (reposted on Lex’s Instagram with permission, March 14, 2020). Such an invitation to heat things up and turn a physical disconnect into glowing digital connectivity is bound to get some image-​based traffic from more than one bedroom. Lex is an interesting social media network to consider in terms of connection and disconnection as this app started out and thrived for years as an Instagram account called Personals. Personals draw from the long history of queer print culture by reimagining the personal ads section in On Our Backs (which in the mid-​1980s was the first women-​run magazine to feature lesbian erotica in the United States), bringing this vintage form of communicating desire to life in a new shape. The activity on the account quickly outgrew its capacity and the idea of an app was set in motion. On Lex, you lead with text, and selfies come second (as you can chose to link to your Instagram account), which breaks away from the workings of other dating and hookup apps where the profile picture is everything. The initial attraction is sparked by a skillful use of language, something which the Lex founder Kelly Rakowski describes as “a thoughtful process” with “time to slow down and reflect on who you are and what kind of relationship you’re looking for” (Grozdanic, 2019). In relying on a text-​based interface, the users of Lex need to be articulate about their desires and their vulnerability. Such textual points of initial contact may in fact be better suited for the slower erotic stir of the quarantine, as they invite engagement beyond the image-​ based immediacy of the swipe (even if there is indeed the option of going straight for the nude swap). Lex thus not only remediates the personal ad and its central place in lesbian community making (cf. Livia, 2002), but also lets it reverberate in the medium of the hookup app, playing up textual connectivity and seduction in ways that disrupts the social media obsession with images and aesthetics. On Lex, the community may thus be used to distance and a slower form of connectivity, or a partly disconnected connection. Sarah Murray and Megan Sapnar Ankerson (2016) even suggest that designing for “lesbian contact” in geosocial networking apps is a process that needs to consider not only the social dimension of space, but also simultaneously the social dimension

284  Rethinking Disconnection of time and temporality as an important undercurrent of lesbian connections and sexuality. They explore the design of Dattch (which became Her and was the first attempt to create an app tailored to the connective needs of queer women) and how the speediness of technology start-​up culture may be at odds with dominant perceptions of lesbian sexuality as moving at a different, more lingering pace. In the user data of Dattch, they found that at least for some women, a slower more cautious rhythm of imagination and desire was more important than immediate connectivity. This is not to suggest that queer women would not seek out hookups built on proximity and immediacy, but it is to draw attention to how time, tempo, and timing are elements in hookup cultures that have not been accounted for in apps structured through the immediacy of the swipe and geographical closeness. In pandemic crisis times when everything, by necessity, needs to slow down, and when immediacy and proximity no longer is a readily available option, turning to such alternative app designs could be a way to cope with physical distancing and disconnection.

Queering the Quarantine Embedded in these accounts of desire as longing—​or of a disconnect in the shape of a charged postponement—​is an unmistakable sense of humor. If people are not allowed to touch, to move freely, to explore, to meet up for the unforeseeable future, at least there are ways of laughing together at this collective misery. The absurdity of the situation becomes perhaps even more pronounced in those quarters of hookup culture which indeed are based on proximity and physical encounters, such as on Grindr (a hookup app primarily catering to queer men, even if women, trans, and nonbinary people have been allowed since 2017). Grindr builds on a “zero feet away” geolocative logic of instant gratification regularly imagined to be in line with urban gay male desires (Batiste, 2013). At a moment when the only one being zero feet away is yourself, or possibly somebody quarantining with you, Grindr and its user-​created blog Bloop turns to queer quarantine humor in an article called “Grindr Chat: Quarantine Edition,” featuring snippets of in-​ app chat exchanges.3 For clearly, even if the “zero feet away” logic has been 3 “Grindr Chat: Quarantine Edition”: https://​www.grindrbloop.com/​zine/​2020/​grindr-​ chats-​quarantine. (Accessed: June 10, 2020).

Networked Intimacies  285

disrupted in the face of COVID-​19, this does not necessarily stop everybody from trying: “Wanna play?” “Don’t get me wrong you’re hot, just not ‘risk the fate of the world’ hot”

Or consider this fantasy of at least being able to appreciate the attractiveness of those uniformed men that patrol the streets: “I hope the national guard officer who gets stationed outside of my apartment is hot” “Girl”

Within the context of self-​isolation, anxiety and distress may be fueled by intense digital connectivity, but equally disrupted by networked forms of pandemic humor as laughter provides a sense of relief and release as everything seems to come tumbling down. The material for such laughter appears unlimited as humorous creativity has taken on the topics of toilet paper, meticulous handwashing, social distancing (such as the non-​handshake handshake), and the act of avoiding touching one’s own face. In times of uncertainty and crisis, it may indeed be moments of such networked enjoyment which makes the air easier to breathe, if only momentarily. In the excerpts from the Grindr chat above, a flirtatious act at the ends of the world intermingles with a collective appreciation of incidental urban “hotness” between interlocutors who instinctively know the rhythm of the joke. There are of course many ways in which to humorously “queer” the quarantine, the strategy here being to turn the attention to the mildly racy and indecent. Humor and laughter is of course commonly used as a tactic to cope with a ludicrous reality, in particular for subordinated groups. Uses of charged humor have helped groups on the margins to turn tears, anger, and anxiety into laughter—​from African American humor playing with racism, to rude queer high camp, or even Holocaust jokes told within Jewish families (e.g., Gilbert, 2004; Krefting, 2014). Considering this legacy of laughing at power, laughter may provide a breathing space of sorts where the pressing heaviness of the world becomes lighter to bear. Laughing in the queer quarantine is not so much laughing at or making fun of those more powerful (even if that, too, could be the case, as privilege in terms of gender, sexuality, race, and class

286  Rethinking Disconnection becomes a layer of viral protection), but rather about playing up the small pleasures that remain, sexual or otherwise, for comic effect. Quarantine humor comes deeply entwined with death and fear of uncertainty and contagion, which in the wake of the HIV/​AIDS pandemic is a well-​trodden territory in queer circles. The seriousness of the matter may make laughter seem unlikely, or out of place. But by cutting short the affective circulation of anxious anticipation powered by incessant social media use, it may be exactly what is needed as a mode of survival (cf. Sundén & Paasonen, 2020). In his study of how people navigate digital media through disconnection, Ben Light (2014) argues that there is power in what he calls disconnective practices, such as unfriending, untagging, backchanneling, editing, hiding, and selective sharing. These kinds of disconnections create breaks with platform economies and its imperative of public visibility and come to function as a critique of the kind of social media dynamics which feeds on expansive friend circles and public sharing. Such disconnective practices are thus a kind of partial disconnection, or selective connectivity. Connection and disconnection is not a binary, not an opposition, often not even a choice. Connections are in a sense always partial, always at risk of being disrupted, but also seemingly without end. Selective connectivity as a conscious strategy can be a matter of seeking out those connections that temper networked anxious anticipation and intensify pleasure and joy. As a way of ending, I want to use this dynamic of partial disconnection and selective connectivity to intensify joy by turning to an example of Swedish quarantine humor in the registers of queer camp and drag, namely the YouTube phenomenon “Hbtqul: ER röst i karantänen” (“Lgbtease: YOUR voice in the quarantine”).4 In the wake of COVID-​19, Hbtqul consists of the (temporarily unemployed) actors Per Öhagen and Razmus Nyström, who delightfully unleash their drag personas on camera every day: one a sassy, pale, skinny, ashy blonde; and the other a voluptuous, witty, colorful redhead. The videos posted during the first month (from March 21, 2020) stretch from 3 to 13 minutes, their form largely improvisational, and the comedy hinging on the chemistry between the two, their vanity, their rude yet affectionate interplay, and their flirtatious connection with the camera and the audience. It is an understated humor of sorts, one which resides in moments of fleeting

4 “Hbtqul –​ER röst i karantänen” YouTube channel: https://​www.youtube.com/​channel/​ UCGNRhEvfLi0l5-​nHSYUTJXg. (Accessed: June 10, 2020).

Networked Intimacies  287

comic timing, on or off the beat, as they compete for the best angle to the camera combined with an equally hilarious musicality in the light and rough editing. For the journalist Johan Hilton, in a tribute to these videos in the national newspaper Dagens Nyheter, “there is a quiet absurdism to the improvised and slightly directionless conversations where much of the comedy emerges from the gazes and the small distortions.”5 But there is also certain loudness to the duo in the aesthetics, the sexual innuendo, the physical comedy, and the underlying madness and surreal quality of the space of the quarantine itself. They argue and tease each other, fumble with the technology, try on outfits and wigs, perform dramatic readings of Swedish poets, drink (to “even things out a bit”),6 and try canned foods, such as vegetarian pea soup (“Are you supposed to chew?” “You can if you want to, but you don’t have any gag reflexes do you, so you can just SWALLOW”).7 The conversations cover everything from fat-​ shaming, ageism, classism, heterosexism, vegetarianism, and environmentalism, to dick-​sucking, makeup tips, the glycemic index, advantageous camera work, good lighting, and alcoholic self-​medication. The matters can be rather dark yet treated with campy lightness. They discuss first times and first sexual encounters and what in hindsight may have been abuse and lacking in consent, paired with the sexual shame attached to growing up a gay boy and the damaging effects of the patriarchy, after which there is a seamless switch to, “If you want a world class blowjob, I’m sitting right now on Södermalm, Skanstull, just come over. Follow Ringvägen and I’ll be waiting at the fast food stand. And I’m having my knee pads on.”8 Camp—​which in the treatment of Esther Newton (1979[1972], 109) is specifically linked to drag culture and characterized by incongruity, theatricality, and humor—​provides these videos with “a system of laughing at one’s incongruous position instead of crying” in the sense that “the humor 5 The original quote, in Swedish: “det finns en stilla absurdism över de improviserade och lite riktningslösa samtalen där mycket av komiken uppstår i blickarna och de små skevheterna.” 6 “För att jämna ut lite”. Hbtqul, del 1 (pilot). https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=h8_​ zSfZKepg. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). 7 “Ska man tugga också?” “Det får du göra som du vill. Du har väl inga kräkreflexer, så det är ju bara SVÄLJA”. Hbtqul, del 5: “-​du vill att jag ska mata dig. -​mm. -​På riktigt.” https://​www. youtube.com/​watch?v=erbH_​RCoZEg. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). 8 “Om ni vill ha en avsugning i världsklass så sitter jag just nu på Södermalm, Skanstull, det är bara att komma. Gå längs Ringvägen, så står jag vid Sibyllan. Och jag har knäskydden på mig”. Hbtqul del 7: “När blev hon med rött hår av med oskulden?” https://​www.youtube.com/​ watch?v=9_​RPvmkpxTw&t=604s. (Accessed June 10, 2020).

288  Rethinking Disconnection does not cover up, it transforms.” Camp humor becomes a survival mechanism, a form of queer resistance in a world where gender and sexuality are strictly policed. The campiness of Hbtqul has everything to do with theatrical and incongruous juxtapositions of gender, but also of the quarantine itself as an absurdly impossible space for queer cultures and performances that thrive in the physical presence of a community. Due to a disconnect with public spaces and performance venues, the home becomes a stage of sorts, here set against the backdrop of closet doors, glamorous garments on hangers, and a bed. As the days go by, the walls of the small apartment in which the two quarantine seem to be closing in on a situation of (lack of) social distancing which is slowly making them lose their mind. There are plenty of COVID-​19 references in these videos, from discussions of safe sex with face masks in the missionary position, to sensual hand washing, to bad coughing habits: loud coughing “Ok, cut. I mean please cover your mouth. You have to fucking cough into the elbow” “I just swallowed some saliva down the wrong pipe, nothing else. Bitch!” “Miss Corona virus!” “Bitch!” “Bitch please! This is no joke, this is absolutely nothing to joke about” “This was saliva down the wrong pipe for all of you watching. There is no shame in having Corona, but this wasn’t Corona”9

Between a global crisis in a world coming apart at the seams and an ever so slightly claustrophobic domestic space, camp humor can provide an outlet for laughing instead of crying at the impossibility of the present. The strange space of the quarantine here becomes a playful juxtaposition of privacy and publicness, isolation and community, the domestic and the theatrical. Or as Stephen Vider (2013) argues in writing about gay male domesticity in the 1960s, camp humor has been used to reimagine the gay home, not as a site 9 Högt hostande. “Ok, bryt. Men snälla täck munnen. Du får ju för fan hosta i armvecket.” “Jag svalde lite saliv i fel strupe, det var inget annat. Bitch!” “Miss Corona Virus!” “Bitch!” “Bitch please! Alltså det här är ju inget att skämta om, det är absolut inget att skämta om” “Men detta var saliv i halsen för alla som tittar. Det är ingen skam i att ha Corona, men det här var inte Corona”. Hbtqul, del 14: Karamell till Åke L. https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=ZNA3kTgHVVc. (Accessed June 10, 2020).

Networked Intimacies  289

of closeted deviance, but as a place of playfulness, pleasure, and community out of synch with domestic gender norms of the era. In the wake of the 1970s gay liberation and popular slogans like “out of the closets, into the streets,” gay male cultures have primarily been figured along the lines of a politics of public visibility incommensurable with the privacy of the home. But by considering how the home was never a sealed private space in queer cultures (or elsewhere), but one that Vider insists would be better understood as a portal to the public for social and sexual connections, the renewed focus on domesticity and private spaces in the pandemic can be approached from a different angle. In the campy appropriation of the home by Hbtqul, it becomes a space of lightness for dress up, makeup, and make-​believe, right at the threshold between worlds.

To Conclude This chapter forms a contribution to research on disconnection in digital media studies in general—​and to what could be called pandemic digital media studies in particular—​by zooming in on transformations of intimacy and relational spaces in a time of a viral, global crisis. Set against the backdrop of practices of “social distancing,” I explored different forms of breaks and disconnections to advance an understanding of the affective power of digital devices. Disconnection is that which makes possible a connection on an ontological level. Without a disconnect, or a break in relation, it would simply be impossible to connect, to form a meaningful connection. To say that connectivity builds on dis-​connectivity is to consider how the disconnect, or the possibility of the disconnect, is that which shapes connections and gives connectivity its affective charge and social weight. Breaks and interruptions reveal the premises and promises of digital connectivity, what these connections mean, and also how they feel. Disconnection, then, is neither a negation, nor a lack, but rather something productive which brings together things that are supposedly separate, a generative force that underpins connectivity and networked intensity. I traced the disconnect through a range of digital media practices, from fragile digital intimacy and nerves on edge, to partial disconnections and selective connectivity in the interest of taking the edge off. I argued that the idiosyncrasies of devices and social media platforms foster an affective

290  Rethinking Disconnection approach to network connectivity riddled with anticipatory anxiety, something which is at risk of becoming intensified in pandemic spaces. As a form of attention, such nervousness takes shape through breaks, interruptions, and postponements as responses and events unfold. During a global, viral outbreak, such edginess runs the risk of becoming intensified as digital devices are turned into both lifelines and conveyors of death. Anxiety has a troubling openness, as it feeds on uncertainty. In his work on intimate networked publics of Black queer men, Shaka McGlotten (2013: 13) understands the affective structures of anxiety as a heightened and speculative form of attention, an anticipatory awareness oriented toward indeterminacy and protection against future race-​based harm. But even if anxiety may be understood as lacking an object, this does not necessarily mean that anxiety is everywhere, or that it is nowhere at all. But rather, as Sara Ahmed (2004: 66) argues, “we could consider how anxiety becomes attached to particular objects, which come to life not as the cause of anxiety, but as an effect of how it travels.” Anxiety, here, is something which intensifies by moving between objects, by traveling quickly between an increasing number of things to worry about. It takes shape as a kind of attention which also forms an approach or an attachment to objects. Digital devices may not be the source of anxiety, but rather, this heightened awareness which feeds off of the unknown is something that characterizes particular approaches and attachments to devices, as anxiety travels and moves because of them. I also discussed transformations of intimacy within pandemic hookup cultures. When the bodies of others are transformed from potential objects of desire to possible vectors of contagion, intimacy and intimate connections are similarly altered. The relational spaces of hooking up have shifted, from being underpinned by geolocative or mobile media that put bodies in motion across public and private spaces, to how devices and bodies increasingly need to stay put, enclosed and confined by the privacy of the home. This physical disconnect shaped through practices of social distancing proved to give rise to a humorous, collective imaginary around longing and desiring at a distance, something which became particularly salient in queer hookup contexts. Indeed, queer desires may be weirdly compatible with physical disconnection, slow connectivity, and self-​isolation, as they have a history of being shaped through longing in ways that have everything to do with the digital. People with queer (or otherwise non-​straight) identities or orientations have

Networked Intimacies  291

long used digital media as modes of connecting, in particular those living in rural areas (Liliequist, 2020) as well as in places of intense homophobia, or where homosexuality is a punishable offense (Tudor, 2018). Against the background of historical exclusion from dominant forms of intimacy, queer longing is longing for connection, for recognition, for belonging, for community, or as José Muñoz (2009: 1) puts it, “queerness is a longing that propels us onward.” For Muñoz, queerness does not exist already, but is rather something that puts bodies in motion, aching for a different world. Queer connectivity thus comes steeped in histories of longing, which by necessity is tied to patience and persistence. Elizabeth Freeman (2015[2007]: 299, emphasis in original) traces the various components in queer longing and belonging, as both “the longing to be, and be connected, as in being ‘at hand’ ” and also “the longing to ‘be long,’ to endure in corporeal form over time, beyond procreation.” A hookup and dating app like Lex seems perfectly tailored to provide a pandemic machinery for both such longing to be, readily “at hand” to open up for connection and the longing to connect, as well as a way to extend and to endure over time, to provide a slow simmer, or a steady burn. Or as this Lex user put it: “Gonna fire up the Lex app and find me a future wife who I’m forbidden from meeting in person or touching for the next four to nine months and it’s going to be EARTH SHATTERING” (reposted on Lex’s Instagram with permission, March 24, 2020, 2.8K likes). In the midst of these stories of longing, I observed the development of a comedy of erotic postponement as humorous creativity tapped into the impossible space of the quarantine. Queer quarantine YouTube humor in the registers of drag and camp provided a temporary interruption of anxiety-​ ridden social media use, a breathing space and a space for laughter within the bounds of everyday life in a state of exception. Although seemingly trivial in a context of global crisis, to make space for collective joy and pleasure can be a radical act and an antidote to both individualist isolation and public feelings of fear, anxiety, and sadness (cf. Segal, 2018). It might also be refreshingly unproductive, or productive to a different degree, in that it contains a certain resistance to normative models of productivity and time use. Although laughter may provide temporary relief from society, or spaces of rebellion, it is also unpredictable in both how it feels and in what it does. With Susanna Paasonen, I argue that there is significant affective and political volatility to laughter (Sundén & Paasonen, 2020). Laughter may release tension, but

292  Rethinking Disconnection equally build it up. It can be comforting yet uncomfortable as it connects but also separates bodies linked together in networks. For who gets to laugh in the (queer) quarantine, and about what, or whom? Humor is affectively risky terrain, but likely indispensable in pandemic times and spaces. Networked laughter may not mend a world or a heart breaking, but it might provide spaces—​for disconnection and reconnection—​in which to catch one’s breath, and to slow down the pulse and the pace with which digital connections are made.

References Ahmed, S. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Andreassen, R., Nebeling Petersen, M., Harrison, K., & Raun, T. (Eds.) (2018). Mediated Intimacies: Connectivities, Relationalities and Proximities. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Batiste, D. P. (2013). “0 feet away”: The queer cartography of French gay men’s geo-​ social media use. Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 22, 111–​132. Berlant, L. (1998). Intimacy: A special issue. Critical Inquiry 24(2), 281–​288. boyd, d. (2012). Participation in the always on lifestyle. In Mandiberg, M. (Ed.), The Social Media Reader (pp. 71–​76). New York: New York University Press. Dean, J. (2015). Affect and drive. In Hillis, K., Paasonen, S., & Petit, M. (Eds.), Networked Affect (pp. 89–​100). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dobson, A.S., Robards, B., & Carah, N. (Eds.) (2018). Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Ferraris, M. (2014). Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone. New York: Fordham University Press. Freeman, E. (2007/​2015). Queer belongings: Kinship theory and queer theory. In Haggerty, G., & McGarry, M. (Eds.), A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies (pp. 295–​314). Malden, MA: Blackwell Press. Gilbert, J. R. (2004). Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Grozdanic, S. (2019). Lex, the lo-​fi lesbian dating app where “selfies come second.” Sleek Magazine, November 27. https://​www.sleek-​mag.com/​article/​lex-​the-​ lesbian-​dating-​app/​. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). Haber, B. (2019). The digital ephemeral turn: Queer theory, privacy, and the temporality of risk. Media, Culture & Society 41(8), 1069–​1087.

Networked Intimacies  293 Hilton, J. (2020). DN:s kritiker väljer fem karantänfavoriter vecka 13. Dagens Nyheter, March 29. https://​www.dn.se/​kultur-​noje/​dns-​kritiker-​valjer-​fem-​ karantanfavoriter-​vecka-​13/​. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). Hjorth, L., & Lim, S. S. (2012). Mobile intimacy in an age of affective mobile media. Feminist Media Studies 12(4), 477–​484. Karppi, T. (2018). Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kelly, A. (2015). Phone Booth. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Krefting, R. (2014). All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lasén, A. (2015). Digital self-​ portraits, exposure and the modulation of intimacy. In Carvalheiro, J. R., & Tellería, A. S. (Eds.), Mobile and Digital Communication: Approaches to Public and Private (pp. 61–​ 78). Covilhã, Portugal: Livros LabCom. Light, B. (2014). Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Liliequist, E. (2020). Digitala förbindelser: Rum, riktning och queera orienteringar. PhD thesis. Umeå: Umeå University. http://​umu.diva-​portal.org/​smash/​get/​ diva2:1417242/​FULLTEXT02.pdf. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). Livia, A. (2002). Camionneuses s’abstenir: Lesbian community creation through the personals. In Campbell-​Kibler, K., Podesva, R. J., Roberts, S. J., & Wong, A. (Eds.), Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice (pp. 191–​206). Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information. Madianou, M. (2016). Ambient co-​ presence: Transnational family practices in polymedia environments. Global Networks 16(2), 183–​201. McGlotten, S. (2013). Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect, and Queer Sociality. New York: State University of New York Press. Muñoz, J. E. (2009). Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press. Murray, S., & Sapnar Ankerson, M. (2016). Lez takes time: Designing lesbian contact in geosocial networking apps. Critical Studies in Media Communication 33(1), 53–​69. Myles, D., Duguay, S., & Dietzel, C. (2021). #DatingWhileDistancing: Dating apps as digital health technologies during the COVID-​19 pandemic. In Lupton, D., & Willis, K. (Eds.), The COVID-​19 Crisis: Social Perspectives. New York: Routledge. Newton, E. (1979/​1972). Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

294  Rethinking Disconnection Paasonen, S. (2015). As networks fail: Affect, technology, and the notion of the user. Television & New Media 16(8), 701–​716. Paasonen, S. (2017). Infrastructures of intimacy. In Andreassen, R., Nebeling Petersen, M., Harrison, K., & Raun, T. (Eds.), Mediated Intimacies: Connectivities, Relationalities and Proximities (pp. 103–​116). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Prøitz, L., Hjorth, L., & Lasén, A. (2017). Textures of intimacy: Witnessing embodied mobile loss, affect and heartbreak. In Andreassen, R., Nebeling Petersen, M., Harrison, K., & Raun, T. (Eds.), Mediated Intimacies: Connectivities, Relationalities and Proximities (pp. 60–​72). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Segal, L. (2018). Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy. London: Verso Books. Sundén, J. (2015). On trans-​, glitch, and gender as machinery of failure. First Monday 20(4). http://​firstmonday.org/​ojs/​index.php/​fm/​article/​view/​5895/​4416. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). Sundén, J, & Paasonen, S. (2020). Who’s Laughing Now? Feminist Tactics in Social Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Tudor, M. (2018). Desire Lines: Towards a Queer Digital Media Phenomenology. PhD thesis. Huddinge: Södertörn University. http://​urn.kb.se/​ resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-​36125. (Accessed: June 10, 2020). Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books. Vider, S. (2013). “Oh Hell, May, why don’t you people have a cookbook?”: Camp humor and gay domesticity. American Quarterly 65(4), 877–​904. Wilson, A. (2016). The infrastructure of intimacy. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41(2), 247–​280. Wong, B. (2020). This is what dating is like during the coronavirus pandemic. The Huffington Post, March 27. https://​www.huffpost.com/​entry/​dating-​during-​ coronavirus_​l_​5e7b8e01c5b64ef9d36f2237. (Accessed: June 10, 2020).

12 Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection Paul C. Adams, Vivie Behrens, Steven Hoelscher, Olga Lavrenova, Heath Robinson, and Yan Yuan

Normal academic life is a series of gatherings: lectures, colloquia, seminars, meetings, conferences, discussion sessions, study groups, graduation ceremonies. These gatherings range in size from meetings of two or three collaborators to academic conferences attracting thousands of participants. Scholarship involves attending gatherings every day (like a grade school class); once in a lifetime (like a graduation ceremony); and on weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles. While the stereotypical scholar is a solitary figure accompanied by a lab full of test tubes or by predecessors speaking through the pages of books, real academic life is in fact a string of human encounters: large and small, banal and special, frequent and infrequent, one-​on-​ one and collective. These face-​to-​face meetings have an inestimable value to scholarship at all levels. This is why COVID-​19 led to a profound alteration of academic life: “Social distancing” brought the cancellation of all sorts of physical gatherings, cutting to the heart of teaching, research, collaborating, mentorship, and collegiality, and prompting communication innovations that will outlast the epidemic. This chapter is an auto-​ethnography conducted by six academics at various levels, reflecting on how academic lives were shattered and partially reassembled in the spring of 2020. The pandemic created a natural experiment involving suddenly enforced dependence on media to reproduce academic gatherings that had previously existed as physical face-​to-​face meetings. COVID-​19 preempted face-​to-​face communications, entangling people in more intense mediated communications, with profound implications for various academic stakeholders. Mediated communications had to offset classes converted to “distance learning” format, canceled conferences, Paul C. Adams, Vivie Behrens, Steven Hoelscher, Olga Lavrenova, Heath Robinson, and Yan Yuan, Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection In: Disentangling. Edited by: André Jansson and Paul C. Adams, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197571873.003.0013

296  Rethinking Disconnection and postponed scholarly exchanges. The purpose of this study is to explore questions of space, place, pedagogy, and scholarship during this moment of crisis, comparing and contrasting our varied vantage points on the natural experiment as it transformed the learning process, the academic community, and our lives. We are a convenience sample of only six persons, but together we demonstrate the breadth and diversity of academic experiences during this period of disruption. Vivie Behrens was completing the final semester of her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), double-​ majoring in Humanities and Fine Arts. Heath Robinson is a graduate student in the second year of a PhD program in Curriculum and Instruction at UT, working as a Teaching Assistant and in a supervisory role with regard to teacher certification. Paul Adams is a tenured Professor of Geography at UT. Steven Hoelscher was also a tenured professor at UT and Chair of the Department of American Studies; he is now Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts. Olga Lavrenova is a research scientist employed at the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INION RAN), at the National University of Science and Technology (MISiS), and at the Humanities Institute of Television and Radio Broadcasting (GITR) in Moscow, and also teaches first-​year students at the Moscow State University branch in Yerevan, Armenia. Yan Yuan is Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in Wuhan, China. We make no claim to be a comprehensive sample, but we believe our reflections illuminate key changes wrought on academic life by the pandemic in a few different places. We bring to bear our varied expertise to reflect critically on issues relating to media appropriation and mediatization in our own lives. We reflect on how digital connections created or augmented for the purpose of scholarship paradoxically involved disconnection. Our lives are diverse (in terms of age, academic achievement, and nationality) so our personal reflections show many ways in which spatial reconfigurations of communications can be appropriated to intensify distanciated forms of scholarly interaction. Distanciation is the stretching out of social interactions in space and/​or time, the achievement of social goals by coordinating actions at a distance, and it is a central facet of modernization (Giddens, 1995). COVID-​ 19 revealed counterintuitive aspects of distanciation processes. By studying

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  297

technologically assisted reconnection of academic lives we reveal how mediatization brings about both closeness and distancing, bonding and separation, connection and disconnection. While digital communication always demonstrates such contradictory elements (see other chapters in this volume), COVID-​19 provided a “snapshot” of these elements in relation to the lives of scholars at a wide range of levels. Our collaboration therefore reveals how, at a time when many scholars felt unusually cut off, lost, and disoriented, media affordances were appropriated to create opportunities for reconnection and reorientation. It also shows how efforts to achieve distanciated academic relations connected each of us to academic networks while producing forms of disconnection we experienced as complications, limitations, or side effects of attempted connection. Connection and disconnection are not merely material, technical phenomena; our auto-​ethnographic narratives reveal that they involve social reconfigurations, and emotionally charged relations between differently positioned actors. Efforts to reconnect academically with others (sharing, teaching, learning, mentoring, collaborating, critiquing, and so forth) can fail to connect us in the way we intend, giving rise to a troubling sense of being out of touch. These efforts to rebuild infrastructure, routines, social relations, and selves will have lasting effects even after COVID-​19 becomes more normalized, affecting academic life in the future. We therefore hope to shed light on the paradox of disconnected connection in general, with the COVID-​19 crisis in academic life as a precipitating event. We start by introducing theories that enliven and direct our project, relating to mediatization’s acceleration in 2020. This is followed by a section “Different Lives, Lived Differences” in which we introduce ourselves, reflect on the peculiarities of our different roles and positions in the academic community, and provide examples of paradoxes involving disconnected connection. The following sections explore three themes: (a) the normalization of “lurking” in academic interactions; (b) difficulties socializing with friends, colleagues, and family while remaining in quarantine; and (c) incidental voyeurism and interveillance involving unintentional exposure of the backstage portions of academic lives. In the conclusion, we stress the individuality of our media appropriation strategies while underlining their, and our, involvement in paradoxes of disconnected connection.

298  Rethinking Disconnection

Mediatization Processes in a Time of Crisis Richard Zoglin offers a point of departure with his observation that national “crises are often identified by the media innovations they engender” (2020). On this account, the COVID-​19 pandemic, and 2020 in general, will be recalled as the formative moment for digital conferencing technologies like Zoom and Google Classroom. These technologies were adopted by millions of new users in the early months of 2020 to offset the impacts of “social distancing” in education, even as online ordering and doorstep delivery services got a bump from the virus outbreak, their diffusion having been facilitated by the outbreak. Academics worked at un-​distancing their social worlds, despite physical distance, adopting digital media in ways that were more intense and comprehensive than in the past, to maintain connections to students, colleagues, advisors, and advisees. This led to wide-​ranging alterations in media uses, spatial activity routines, social and organizational norms, and expressions of self-​identity. Changes in education over the next decade will owe something to COVID-​ 19 and the associated innovations in “social distancing.” The term “social distancing” is placed in quotes because it strikes us as a bit of a misnomer. The changes in question actually involve introducing physical distance between people; this physical distance, imposed to protect health, is subsequently overcome by technology, permitting a kind of virtual social proximity, though it is far from a seamless replacement.1 Quite often the technological measures taken to overcome physical distancing end up creating new kinds of social proximity but also forms of social distance, presenting complex and unanticipated outcomes. The COVID-​19 pandemic and the academic community’s response are thus an interesting opportunity for scholarship at the junction of media theory and geography, in the emerging subdisciplines of media geography and geomedia studies (Adams et al., 2014; Mains et al., 2015; Fast et al., 2017). Part of what makes this situation worthy of research is its intersection with mediatization, the incorporation of media into daily routines and social life, a “transformative logic” that is “part of a wider transformation of social 1 The term “social distance” was not used to describe the increased space between bodies as a means of slowing disease transmission until the mid-​2000s. In the 20th century it indicated fissures between social groups, such as those of class, race, and sexual preference, and in the 19th century it referred to differences in social rank and status (Scherlis 2020).

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  299

and cultural life” (Couldry, 2008: 376). The study of mediatization generally addresses how “social institutions and cultural processes have changed character, function and structure in response to the omnipresence of media” (Hjarvard, 2008; see also Couldry & Hepp, 2013: 192). Mediatization research looks at social transformations occurring over long time scales, in routines of work, leisure, worship, and commerce, based on the affordances of the media at people’s disposal. Responses to COVID-​19 accelerated these processes of mediatization, disrupted existing processes, and precipitated new ones. In making these claims, we are not thinking of media as extraneous elements impacting on geography or society. Instead, we are assuming that part of what defines media are the ways in which they are appropriated by individuals involved in differently situated groups, in particular places, communities, and societies. Media adoptions related to COVID-​19 are therefore a sociotechnical process. In making this argument our work responds to what Couldry and Hepp (2013: 196) refer to as the social-​constructivist tradition within the study of mediatization, which holds that the mediatized worlds of various social actors offer “multilayered experiences, disconnection being one of them” (Kaun & Schwarzenegger, 2014). Disconnection can be a voluntary choice, like deciding to “leave” Facebook, or an involuntary state of affairs, like having one’s computer crash. The COVID-​19 crisis was not only a test of what happens when mediatization is accelerated, but also a demonstration of people’s media appropriation in response to their perceived needs for connection and disconnection. Unexpected forms and moments of connection and disconnection reflected the sociotechnical (and therefore neither entirely volitional nor entirely deterministic) nature of the mediatization process. Media are integral to this moment in history insofar as they facilitate people’s projects and objectives, becoming drawn into or enrolled in particular processes of mediatization. These acts of media appropriation (or non-​appropriation, depending on the individual and situation) depend on what can potentially be done with each particular medium, in other words, its affordances. Affordances must be seen as more than just the kinds of information a medium can communicate well. Affordances also include the ways that the content is presented, the effect it has on the audience, and the room it allows for tailoring the impact of one’s message. One medium might lend itself to

300  Rethinking Disconnection the implication of authority, while another might lend itself more to a sense of personal contact and individual interest. One medium might only have a few different ways of conveying information, while another allows a wide range of variations (Collins et al., 2000). Returning to Zoglin’s observation that national crises are associated with particular media innovations, we can now offer a more nuanced interpretation of the current moment. It is a crisis involving new forms of mediatization, and these are acts of media appropriation in which people are forced to confront the affordances of new media, for example, suddenly shifting to teach “in” Zoom or Google Classroom (Koeze & Popper, 2020) while still embedded in the norms and habits of face-​to-​face teaching. These rapid shifts have produced countless moments of frustration when the software and hardware did not behave as desired or expected. Of course, people do not always behave as expected, either. The result has been a recurring sense of rupture in social relations, what we refer to as disconnection, and its trickiest manifestation: disconnected connection.

Different Lives, Lived Differences Before moving on to explore general, shared aspects of the paradox of disconnected connection, let us share a manifestation of this paradox from each of our lives, starting with the youngest of us. Vivie Behrens was finishing her dual Bachelor’s degrees in Fine Arts and Humanities in spring 2020, but the end of semester was not the culminating moment she had imagined. Stunned by the realization that her four years at UT would end without a graduation full of hugs, without a monumental physical gathering, she struggled against an odd sense of guilt that she must enjoy her achievement in a solitary fashion rather than sharing it with others (see also Kafka, 2020: 6). “I’m trying not to let these moments of joy feel wrong, but integrate them into the definition of the moment, letting myself have bits of my college life back without punishing myself for feeling giddy in the presence of profound pain.” The paradox she encountered was how to experience a rite of passage that should have been a time of connection but had become a time of disconnection, wishing to bond with her classmates but feeling cut off from the community a student in similar circumstances called the “family I didn’t have at home” (Ellis, 2020).

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  301

Paul Adams was meanwhile facing the challenge of converting his undergraduate lectures, which he had developed over two decades, into a distance-​ learning format. This meant relying heavily on the university’s learning management system (LMS) called Canvas, and supplementing quizzes, “hand-​outs,” and asynchronous lectures on Canvas with synchronous lectures on the video conferencing tool, Zoom. The latter had unfamiliar affordances that challenged his self-​identity as a professor. For example, Zoom gave him a new ability to watch himself while he was talking to his students, and to turn this mirror-​like function on or off: “Sometimes I feel more engaged if I can hide myself from myself, and just slip into the illusion of looking at students face to face. Other times, particularly in a class made up of black rectangles, I find it helps to have that ‘black mirror’ in operation.” The latter term was a reference to the dystopian Netflix series named after the screens of digital devices and suggesting that aspects of ourselves are revealed by those devices. “If I can see my face I have a better idea of my own energy, and I keep it shifting . . . from complexification to simplification, from critique to encouragement, from questions to suggestions, and so forth.” One’s digital mirror image on a screen may be a useful affordance but, at the same time, it can produce alienation from one’s habitual self-​presentation. Ironically, reconnecting to students involved connecting for the first time to a “live” image of oneself as instructor. Olga Lavrenova, teaching and conducting research from her home in a suburb of Moscow, also had to shift to new ways of doing things in mid-​ semester. Her household began to incorporate multiple members and activities that were not entirely compatible: “While I was giving lectures in one room, my younger foster son, who studies at college and still lives at home, was doing physical education exercises under the teacher’s command by Zoom in another room. The sounds of his workout often disturbed my concentration.” Rather than going their separate ways in the morning, she and her foster son now had to remain within acoustic range of each other all day long, their activity spaces overlapping. Such unaccustomed closeness can lead to tension and frustration, and potentially to a deterioration in one’s sense of emotional connection. Here disconnected connection means unaccustomed physical closeness, a sense of crowding, and discomfort combined with multiple overlapping remote communications. Yan Yuan’s living situation also precipitated a mix between connection and disconnection. Two decades earlier, she had chosen to live close

302  Rethinking Disconnection to her husband’s workplace, which was far from the campus where she taught. This introduced a form of disconnection into her life because Chinese universities are generally organized by the Danwei (work unit) system promoted in China during the age of planned economy, which combines work and life in the same space. Living off campus had originally meant giving up many benefits of Danwei, including easy access to recreational facilities, housing services, health services, and library services. It was not until the onset of COVID-​19 that the university’s VPN service was upgraded to the point that off-​campus employees could access university services online without limitations, a benefit noticed particularly by those using Apple computers. Thus, social distancing associated with the pandemic led to upgrading, and thus normalization, of remote connection to the university, which in turn let Dr. Yuan be connected more fully to work despite the location of her home far from campus. Physical disconnection therefore led in this case to improvements and increased equity in functional connection to educational infrastructure. Heath Robinson was working on his PhD proposal when COVID hit, and suddenly his academic mentors were less accessible. “I haven’t had the opportunity to share my work on the dissertation with the co-​chairs of my committee—​I love the freedom, but I do worry that I may have wandered too far from the campsite.” His dissertation supervisors were busy with classes and their lives that had suddenly become problematic, in ways suggested by the experiences of Adams and Lavrenova. They were dealing with unexpected labor intensification that affected many academic professionals just after COVID hit (Kornbluh, 2020). So ordinary moments of informal interaction between Robinson and his mentors—​such as long conversations in book-​lined offices, caffeine-​fueled discussions at the local coffee shop, and small talk over the partitions between grad cubicles—​had been swept away without replacement, generating a disorienting sense of premature autonomy as a scholar. Here, disconnected connection took the form of connecting to a body of knowledge while being disconnected from the mentors who would normally have provided some guidance into and through that knowledge. As chair of his department and as incoming Associate Dean of Liberal Arts, Steven Hoelscher would soon be in the position to set policies regarding distance learning in the college. On his plate would be the need to

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  303

mediate between departments, faculty, other deans, and higher university administrators. Everything now is formal, like “what time do we set up this meeting.” The informality of place is what I’m missing. Everything has to be scheduled. I’m hoping that the university will give us a lot of flexibility, so that people who want to teach hybrid can, and people who are afraid to even come to campus at all can just do it totally on Zoom. I feel weird even making the argument to give faculty the option of going totally online, because I’m always such a place-​based teacher. It goes against everything that I feel is important. I shudder at the thought of this being like the beginning of an absolute Brave New World of massive online teaching.

As a decision-​maker, he was supportive of physical distancing to reduce disease transmission but, as an experienced and highly successful instructor, he feared that distance learning would undermine essential aspects of education. His concern reflected discomfort with what Hjarvard calls the “virtualization of social institutions” (2008, 129): Would protecting educators from a health risk create unanticipated risks for the educational process? These glimpses into experiences of teaching and learning during the COVID-​19 crisis point to several forms of disconnected connection: reaching the culmination of an undergraduate degree but experiencing a moment of apartness rather than togetherness, lecturing to one’s own digital mirror image in an attempt to reconnect with students, living so closely with a family member that one feels a need for distance, building an identity as a graduate student but finding that role models have become distant and inaccessible, struggling to administratively balance health risks and institutional risks. These tensions show various facets of disconnected connection, resonating with the central paradox that efforts to overcome (physical) disconnection, by reconnecting (digitally), can produce their own peculiar (social, psychological, organizational, and pedagogical) disconnections. There is a sense in these introductions of being a scholar, whatever the level, who is neither here nor there, but rather caught between here and there, dislocated and disoriented. Faced with the call for “social distancing” we turned to digital communication technologies, but rather than closing the gap and overcoming the disconnected aspects of our various lives, our

304  Rethinking Disconnection spatial reconfigurations and technological appropriations often introduced new gaps. Emotional, psychological, social, practical, and ethical distances intervened, and we felt guilty, alienated, distracted, lost, or apprehensive. In the following sections, we deepen this argument that the connections we forged in the time of COVID-​19 placed us relative to other members of the academic community in ways that connected us through space to others (colleagues, students, mentors, teachers), yet, paradoxically, also functioned as forces of disconnection. These new forms of disconnection took on a life of their own. Now we turn to three topics that illustrate these ideas: (a) the lurker and the normalization of lurking, (b) the struggle to bring social interactions online and maintain a coherent sense of self in relation to significant others, and (c) the power dynamics of voyeurism intruding into academic life and blurring the line between personal and professional relations.

Digital Lurkers Although situated in radically different ways with regard to power and authority, undergraduate students, graduate students, professors, and administrators all participated in appropriating digital teaching and learning tools in spring of 2020. Their various appropriations evolved through top-​down and bottom-​up appropriation processes, including what we could call the rise of silent spectatorship. People retreated from online participation in all sorts of mediated situations, reducing their ability to be seen and heard, and moving toward the behavior dubbed “lurking” (Beaudoin, 2002). This behavior mirrored an emergent social media norm, in which one avoids attracting attention to oneself, for example, in order to engage in online “stalking,” social surveillance of another without their knowledge or consent (Marwick, 2012; Levy, 2015). While the motivations and emotions of student lurkers are different from those of social media lurkers, both are digitally connected as eyes and or ears but disconnected in ways that reduce their availability to others. Over the first few weeks of online classes, between mid-​March and mid-​ April, Dr. Adams observed the evolution of his classroom dynamic on Zoom. Immediately after Spring Break, when distance learning was a novelty, about half of the students’ faces could be seen onscreen in Zoom class meetings. Within a couple of weeks, many of these faces had been replaced by names in gray rectangles—​all that remained when students turned off their cameras.

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  305

By the end of the semester, his students had become silent and invisible lurkers, heightening the challenge of teaching. What I see is a grid of black rectangles with names. The rectangles rearrange from time to time as someone arrives in the class and the rectangles shrink in order to add a row, or someone loses their connection and the rectangles expand to fill the gap. Questions dangle for many seconds until someone “unmutes” him or herself and hesitantly offers a response. The pauses are longer, and the online “room” is deader than a normal classroom.

Lavrenova confronted similar limitations to Zoom as a teaching environment. It was difficult to give lectures in Zoom, because even those students who turned on their cameras did not react to what they heard. I tried to ask questions to initiate a discussion, but the students paused for a long time. Then a couple of people would turn on their microphones and answer listlessly. One such discussion took at least 15 minutes, so I decided not to waste time on it . . . As soon as students drop out of the Professor's field of view by switching to online learning, they have a lot more opportunities to slip away.

While the potential benefits of online teaching can be seen in that it allowed her to overcome distance, teaching Armenian students from the suburbs of Moscow, her observation indicates that such potentials were undercut by lurking. She worked to recapture student attention by creating a quiz for the end of each class session: Students had to use Zoom’s chat function and reply to two questions via private chat message. “Approximately 80% of students answered. The rest were not really present, but nothing could be done about it.” Students wanted to create the impression of participation, but one out of five had drifted away from the class, either physically or to use other digital activities. In cyclical fashion, disengagement by students (nonparticipation, passivity, silence, disappearance) can undermine an instructor’s energy; as his or her energy declines, more students disengage, and the class dissipates. Behrens experienced this phenomenon on very different terms. On March

306  Rethinking Disconnection 30, she wrote of her first Zoom class: “It still felt like our regular class discussion, still felt productive, and actually was sort of interesting to be staring at everyone’s face at the same time. Some people I honestly could barely recognize. I realized that sitting alongside each other I haven’t been able to see everyone’s face. Having class actually felt like I was getting a piece back of something I felt like I was losing.” Meeting online for the first time offered the new opportunity to scrutinize her classmates’ faces, making the experience more engaging than meeting in a classroom. A week later, however, distraction and inhibition began to erode engagement in the virtual setting: I found myself looking things up, checking e-​mails and messages, or distracted by my dogs or people walking in and out of the room. I actually really enjoyed/​engaged with the readings for today, just reluctant to discuss. I definitely have felt a hesitance to speak in class as often or openly as I usually do, partially because of the Zoom interface—​it’s hard to focus when you can hear yourself echoing—​and also because I live in a shared space. Talking about difficult, complex topics like white nationalism does require being in a contained, trusting space like the physical classroom, and the virtual environment doesn’t ensure that security. (April 6)

The physical situation in her parents’ home was distracting, and it made her self-​conscious, although she and her parents share many political views. “I feel for many students that may be experiencing a similar reservation due to the possibility of being overheard by family members or roommates who may not share their perspectives or may feel threatened by certain topics.” This is not a simple matter of dissolving the barrier between public and private space; the college classroom and family home are both private spaces. Attending university classes with one’s parents in the next room brings together different kinds of private space. The class’s contextual integrity (Nissenbaum, 2009) had been disrupted, resulting in context collapse (boyd, 2007; Marwick & boyd, 2011). Perhaps inevitably, Behrens’s class involvement became more passive. By the third week of class, she wrote: “class today muted, camera off, ate lunch during the first part of class and lay on my bed for the rest. Class feels more like an entertaining podcast, like something to keep your mind occupied and to use in conversation, but doesn’t seem like something you have to diligently focus on. I should probably turn my camera back on.” Her final observation

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  307

indicates an uneasy sense that the situation calls for something more than silent spectatorship. In the physical classroom, a student is liable to be called on by the teacher, hailed in the Althusserian sense, called to account for him or herself (1971). It is possible to become distracted by a text message on one’s phone (or by a paper note someone passes, for that matter), but the teacher can call on you, embodying power and ideology, hailing you as a student. Being present in the class means that not only is one taught facts and skills, but one’s conduct and personal identity are shaped through the “governmentality” of a disciplinary institution (Foucault, 1991). Insofar as an online student retreats from audiovisual presence, this erodes the disciplinary apparatus that would be internalized in the classroom. A clash of norms is evident in the word “should” in the last sentence of the journal entry. It was recorded April 13, only two weeks after the inception of online classes, suggesting it took only a short time for lurking to evolve as the norm, although presumably it still existed in tension with the earlier norms and power relations of the physical classroom. Lurking behaviors must be understood not only as the result of distance learning, but also as signs of the emotional toll of “pandemic life.” The onset of COVID-​19 corresponded with the simultaneous loss of many types of in-​ person social interactions—​personal, familial, educational, and professional. The psychological stress associated with the deprival of physical interactions so quintessential to daily life (and the desire to replace these meaningful connections with digital facsimiles) cannot be underestimated. During the month of April, students and faculty were beginning to come to terms with the fact that they would be living under the isolating conditions of COVID-​ 19 for many more months instead of weeks, and lurking behavior during this period could be connected to the grief and anxiety caused by this realization. As research has shown (Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2010: 702), anxiety is positively associated with psychological distancing, which leads to reduced information technology (IT) use. But in this situation, withdrawal from IT use was difficult or impossible. As teaching methods are adapted to the new digital environment, new procedures will be found for capturing a sense of involvement with students, as Adams noted: It feels less like I’m talking to myself, but still there are eerie silences I need to break somehow. Today I asked for comments on some topic and

308  Rethinking Disconnection got absolute silence. I wondered if they’d all wandered away from their various computers. So I asked for them to send me a thumbs-​up. Many of them did, and that small response was enough at this point to feel that they were still there and I was still teaching my class.

Students were not the only stakeholders in academic life to drift into lurking. Something similar affected faculty. After attending a faculty meeting, Adams observed: Not only do fewer people speak up in a ZOOM faculty meeting but there’s no small talk directly before or after the meeting. It felt sad at the end when people started to disappear and the screen rearranged quickly from about 20 talking heads to less than 10, to a handful of little boxed-​in faces. At that point I clicked “leave meeting” so I wouldn’t have to watch our ranks thin out any more.

Like student lurkers, faculty lurkers may be facing simple exhaustion. Online meetings require much greater attentiveness than in-​person gatherings (Jiang, 2020) because of the attenuated context cues, hidden body language, and heightened sense self-​consciousness, as well as the tendency to read any gap in the conversation as a technical glitch. Instructors on the edge of burnout from the new communicational, social, and pedagogical demands are experiencing “zoom fatigue” (Jiang, 2020). Perhaps this accounts for their lapse into lurking when attending faculty meetings, or perhaps, like Behrens, they are engaged in activities like eating and lying down that are compatible with distanciated interaction, and may be a sustainable adaptation to a day full of back-​to-​back online meetings. Administrators in particular must deal with multiple, long meetings. Hoelscher’s administrative roles at the university forced him to confront the challenge of online conferencing for long stretches of time, and to think about this altered work routine and potential adaptations. He writes: I was on the committee of the International Office [officially called Texas Global] that reviewed faculty proposals to teach study abroad courses, and we had to go through dozens of them. It takes a long time to do that but ordinarily it’s a meeting I enjoy. Typically we’re having lunch while we do this, and then we take a break and come back. There’s cookies and

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  309 coffee; there’s some chitchat. So, it might be five hours, but the discussion is sort of broken up. When it’s on Zoom it’s just there, solid. Something that was long but enjoyable, became long and barely tolerable.

When a social situation is translated into mediated gathering, when it is distanciated, things are lost. Moments of informality (chitchat) and sensory stimulation (cookies and coffee) as well as shared breaks and a sense of comradery, can all fall by the wayside. Online meetings may become purified of all nonwork activities. Paradoxically, removing the distractions associated with in-​place meetings can create an experience so concentrated that participants cannot concentrate. Lacking multisensory aspects and informal communications, the online meeting is bereft of cognitive and emotional appeal. In response, it may be easier to fall back on older media. I was on the hiring committee to hire the new UT-​Press Director. We’d met the first candidates on campus, then the next round we had to do it remotely. Even by then, two weeks into the whole Zoom phenomenon, people on the hiring committee much preferred to do phone calls, just because it becomes so tiring all day long just to go through videoconferencing. People were just feeling tired. I’ve never heard anyone who doesn’t feel that it’s draining.

Here, the participants collectively opted for invisibility. In common between this strategy and lurking was the desire to reduce sensory stimulation. This is a bit paradoxical, since an in-​person meeting would entail even more sensory stimulation, but the nature of sensory involvement in a video conference is exhausting (Sklar, 2020), and cutting back to phone meetings (or Zoom-​ing with the webcam turned off) may facilitate sustained online communication on the part of administrators, professors, and students. Another topic that often comes up is how time and effort can be spared if one does not have to make oneself presentable (Trebay, 2020). A business executive might still feel like dressing up in a blazer to feel normal or natural, but college professors and students often identify with informality. They may see informality as part of their identity, and simply extend that informality into online interactions by staying invisible so they do not have to take a shower, fix their hair, shave, or put on clean clothes. Lurking therefore emerges from embodied practice.

310  Rethinking Disconnection Finally, the “room of one’s own”—​that secure, private space Virginia Woolf defended as essential to creativity (2014 [1929]) (a space generally unavailable to women)—​is all the more important in this time of intense digital networking. Not everyone can retreat to a safe, focused, and physically exclusive space when they go online, and this spatial inequality falls along lines of gender, income levels, and ethnic and racial(ized) groups. Sheltering in place, people have unequal access to private spaces where they can freely express all aspects of their identity, and this power geometry (Massey, 1993) resonates in the virtual geographies of online pedagogy. Lurking reflects unequal access to private space in the physical world, if one has no room to retreat to in order to go online and teleconference without being overheard. In short, disconnected connection includes moments of gathering that are physically distant. Rather than seek to increase involvement and compensate for distanciation with increased interaction, participants often try to reduce involvement. Whether it is because of self-​consciousness in front of one’s housemates and roommates; or because virtual meetings and classes lack socially sanctioned and routinized moments of small talk; or because this form of interaction results in sensory overload; or because being seen requires making the effort to be presentable; or because one lacks the economic, social, and spatial means to carve out an acoustically isolated space for online communication, the result is that online participation tends toward lurking. Technological connection therefore spawns disconnection. Unfortunately this can lead to potential losses affecting intellectual engagement, critical thought, self-​expression, autonomy, consensus building, and a sense of collegiality.

Quarantined Socializing COVID-​19 brought an explosion of online social events, including game nights, happy hours, raves, and even gatherings of make-​believe penguins (Weaver et al., 2020). Enthusiasm for such digital conviviality can still be heard despite the challenges of rapid distanciation: “Where once technology was thought to be the death knell of human social interaction, it is now bringing us together under quarantine. The housebound are nimbly pivoting to virtual social gatherings” (Weaver et al., 2020). But, rather than “nimbly pivoting,” many of us found ourselves clumsily groping, hyperconscious of

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  311

separation as we struggled to connect, fumbling with the weirdness of jerky images and dropped links, re-​creating the disengaged spectatorship mentioned before even when “hanging out” online with friends and family. Robinson’s experience with distanciated socializing demonstrates this ambivalence. In reference to a weekly social event, “friend zoom happy hour,” he notes that the event “started off a little shaky for me. I’m the quiet/​ more reserved friend in the group, so I mostly sat there and listened to my friends talk and chat, still trying to find my rhythm with zoom communication. I also shared the screen with my wife—​she has a big personality so sharing the talk time was difficult.” The shift to online interaction caused him to experience social unease when visiting with his friends, and a repeat of the experience did not lead to total ease: “pretty good time chatting with everyone. Again though, it was hard to get a word in. I felt like a spectator, but we laughed and had a good time so I’m trying to focus on that.” The sense of not quite being oneself, not quite knowing how to relate to others, not quite feeling at ease; these could sap the energy of an online social gathering. He noted ruefully that the struggle to overcome a sense of distance led to overindulgence, and the morning after the online happy hour he felt a bit hungover. Ambivalent emotions are part of active involvement with changing information technology, and they indicate an active appropriation of technologies (Stein et al., 2015: 388). In some cases, distanciated social gatherings can serve as forums for difficult dialogues, tense topics such as how to move the grandparents to a nursing home. Behrens faced such a difficult dialogue when moving back to her apartment in Austin from her parents’ home in Dallas: We talked about our policy on “approved house guests” which includes L.’s boyfriend B., and our friend M. who lives alone in our neighborhood. This aspect brought me the most anxiety—​but we agreed that they must take off their shoes and wash hands immediately after entering, and they can only stay in the main living room—​no kitchen [use] at all (no shared eating/​drinking) and they have to disinfect the bathroom after each use. There couldn’t be anything less awkward about the conversation—​it being on Facetime, it requiring the asking of details about a roommate’s romantic relationship, it being about these bizarre new necessary habits we must all do to ensure all of our health and survival—​it signified this

312  Rethinking Disconnection shift in our previous relative independence, our carefree shared yet separate lives.

If this meeting made the roommate situation awkward, in its closeness, there were also forms of interaction that felt awkward because of distancing. For example, Adams was uncomfortable depending on the phone or WhatsApp to maintain distanciated relationships with loved ones. His communication habits prior to the COVID outbreak did not involve long calls with anyone, and now this was the only way to reconnect with family members from whom he felt disconnected. “I talked to my daughter yesterday and my brother today. I don’t feel much like I’ve visited after I’ve had a phone call, but it’s better than nothing. It’s interesting that the phone conferences with students feel too intimate, but phone calls with family members feel remote and unsatisfying.” Disconnected connection can mean feeling disconnected when technology seemingly offers a means of connection. COVID forced people to reorganize their patterns of engagement with media, what Madianou and Miller call “polymedia” and others have called “media ecology”—​the environment of media opportunities in which people achieve social and professional objectives (2012: 172). This change encompassing a polymedia lifestyle is not necessarily any less disruptive or anxiety inducing than more material changes to one’s physical environment. In both cases, the infrastructure of life must be rebuilt and recharted. The social lives of academics thus suffered a loss even as their professional academic lives also became trickier and more challenging.

Incidental Voyeurism and Academic Self-​Presentation The challenges of online teaching and online socializing may seem entirely distinct, at least initially. In this section we expand the discussion to explore connections between the two. To begin with, we can recall Lavrenova’s online quiz and Robinson’s zoom happy hour: In the first case, an instructor worried that students who seemed to be lurking were in fact completely absent; in the second case, a participant in an online social event overindulged a bit, in an effort to feel a connection. There

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  313

is a common theme in these examples: the imposed distance of digital connection leads to compensatory mechanisms, and these compensations fail to entirely close the perceived gap. The unease that troubles an online party and the unease that troubles an online class are both about self-​conscious reworking of one’s self-​presentation in the face of felt disconnection. In both cases, online connection makes us hyper-​aware of social disconnection, provoking compensatory mechanisms that, paradoxically, exacerbate disconnection. Paradoxes of disconnected connection are also related to voyeurism as a social practice, what has been called interveillance (Jansson, 2015). The tools we use to connect at a distance actually bring us into the intimate lives of others, crossing visually and aurally into their private spaces. Colleagues and coworkers, supervisors and mentors are farther from us than normal, but, since we see into their private lives, the effect of digital reconnection can be a greater level of mutual disclosure than in normal times. This reconfiguration of sensory space may be felt as a threat to personal identity; Professional relationships can be destabilized by the overlap of public and private worlds, public and private sides of oneself. This can have both positive and negative implications. In “Embracing the Chaotic Side of Zoom,” Naomi Fry (2020) writes about Zoom’s “gentler forms of chaos,” including the antics of pets captured on webcams, noises from off-​camera housemates, on-​camera pratfalls, and accidental “Zoombombing” (crossing through a webcam’s field of view). She welcomed such chaos as something refreshing. Similarly, Behrens made note of how such revealing moments actually assisted in creating a connection with her classmates and professors: It’s strange how this forced distance has also created a forced closeness, an invitation to actually see people in the intimate spaces of their own lives, totally removed from the often limited contexts in which we actually know them. In the wake of this universal experience many of the barriers between public and private have dissolved, a computer screen stitching us together across disparate worlds.

Hoelscher experienced the same fascination with these mediated glimpses as Zoom’s incidental voyeurism replaced “social distancing” with unaccustomed closeness: “a secret window into somebody’s life . . . fun to have that

314  Rethinking Disconnection when it’s somebody with a lot of power and prestige.” Yet the holders of power soon mobilized to reconstitute social distance. Very quickly people in power, at least at the university, put up fancy backdrops. What’s lost is that sense of seeing behind the scenes. I don’t see faculty doing that as much. It is interesting how differently people approach how they want to appear on zoom. Some, like the elites of the University, are ready to go. They’re looking right at the camera, the lighting is good, everything works really well. A lot of faculty can barely be seen because behind them is a window, so with the backlight all you see is their shadow. Or, they have the camera angle down like this, because they’re looking at their phone and you see up their nostrils.

In a classic work, Alice Marwick described what she called “social surveillance,” using language that is reminiscent of the interactions just described. She drew attention to the use of digital technologies to “gather social information about their friends and acquaintances” and at the same time to “monitor [one’s] digital actions with an audience in mind” (Marwick, 2012: 379, 390). She conceived of social surveillance as a way of engaging with others through digital media that is “characterized by both watching and a high awareness of being watched” (Marwick, 2012: 379). Her subjects derived a sense of connection with others by embracing the voyeuristic tendencies embodied in stalking, gazing, and gossiping. As Jansson points out, this connection is part of a contemporary “quest for autonomy through recognition” that depends on interpersonal media (2015: 85–​86, emphasis original); yet as these media, and what he calls interveillance, become obligatory components of social life and as they facilitate modes of self-​presentation preestablished by the mass media, then both personal autonomy and mutual recognition are rather limited. Social media companies profit from people’s quest for recognition and structure encounters to leave recognition incomplete, so the demand for recognition is never fully satisfied but remains in an ambiguous condition (Jansson, 2015: 86–​87). Zoom may be “stitching us together” but our sudden encounters with the “gentle chaos” of video conferencing are somewhat different from Marwick’s vision of social surveillance and Jansson’s concept of interveillance (2015). In the new world of Zoom education, the

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  315

presentation of self is out of control, both by the individuals interacting online and by the companies that provide the new networking platforms. Academic relations are normally profoundly hierarchical, starting with freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors; moving up to graduate students, climbing to postdocs, adjuncts, and lecturers; then ascending through tenure track faculty to those in lofty positions such as department chairs, associate deans, deans, provosts, university presidents, and regents. Glimpses “upward” into the lives of more powerful persons in this hierarchy disrupt the hierarchy by revealing people’s common humanity, bringing them down in stature to normal people with oddly familiar lives. Glimpses “downward” into the lives of less powerful persons may do little to disrupt these hierarchies, since greater informality is unlikely to alter the status of a freshman or sophomore student, but it can still have an impact. When someone is interacting onscreen with a baby, or a younger sibling, or a dog, this disrupts the norms of academic life that facilitate hierarchical relations. This exposure, which we could call “accidental interveillance,” intrudes on the vertical academic universe by asserting norms from an alternate universe—​the horizontal universe of social media. The chaos this introduces into academic life is paradoxical: Physical distancing forces the use of digital conferencing, and the affordances of the existing platforms expose us to backstage realities of people up and down the ladders of power and authority, which in turn creates a level playing field of mutual voyeurism, and our habituation to social media means that we slip into that sort of closeness rather habitually. However, this accidental interveillance produces a kind of mutual recognition that destabilizes academic identities. In other words, the dean of the college becomes something like a Facebook friend, or perhaps a bit closer to an “actual” friend since Facebook is superficial and curated whereas Zoom reveals the intimacy and chaos of daily life. This momentarily slips aside one form of recognition and substitutes another. Such slippage was avoided, in part, when university personnel in positions of power uploaded sleek digital backdrops, and precisely adjusted camera angles and lighting. In short, watching each other through digital media collapsed visual distance, permitted physical distance, and both disrupted and reinstituted hierarchical social distance. The unaccustomed intimacy associated with Zoom and other video conferencing platforms is partly caused by their visuality, but that is not the only source of such intimacy. A simple phone call can feel oddly intimate when

316  Rethinking Disconnection it takes the place of a face-​to-​face meeting in an office. Adams reflected on communications with a graduate student whose thesis he was supervising. I had a phone conference with J. to talk about her thesis . . . I’m doing my best to help her focus and move forward. Is this harder by phone? I’m not sure it is. Perhaps it brings me closer, and removes the desk which would have been between us, which makes the connection oddly intimate . . . I sat outside to talk because my wife was in the kitchen teaching one of her students how to read. There was a lot of loud laughter and talking, so the backyard was a better place to sit while I talked with J. Still, that was a different kind of graduate advising experience because it was chilly in the shade and warm in the sun, so I kept migrating back and forth between a sunny chair on the far side of the yard and a shady chair on the porch.

Part of what made graduate mentoring by phone oddly intimate was the elimination of architectural codes that would be imposed by sitting in an office on opposite sides of a desk; another part had to do with the informality of lawn chairs and the physicality of sunlit patches in the backyard. The situation felt more like a weekend conversation with a family member than handling grad student business. Yuan was in a similar situation, and noted that the shift to phone conferences with graduate students slowed their progress toward completion of their degrees. When media are used to both enable and overcome physical distance, both including and excluding people (Adams, 2009: 87–​107), the result can be very different from the use of physical gathering places to include and exclude participants. Yuan found that invitations to participate in PhD committees at other universities increased during the COVID “lockdown,” perhaps because the lockdown eliminated most of the differences between local faculty members and remote faculty members when it came to ease and convenience of graduate committee participation. At the same time, conferences, which had previously been open to anyone interested in attending online, actually became more exclusive because the mushrooming attendance became unmanageable and passwords were implemented to control (virtual) attendance. This shows the problem with lurkers as one manifestation of a more general reworking of inclusion and exclusion: technology brings together eyes and ears, but conventional means for

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  317

the embodied inclusion and exclusion of participants no longer apply, so new means must be invented.

Discussion The sudden reworking of spatial routines under the impact of COVID-​19 involved both connection and disconnection, things and people that were suddenly out of reach, things and people that were suddenly too close for comfort, situations that felt intrusive, and situations that felt distressingly remote. In many cases, the same phenomena—​faces, words, people—​seemed both too close and too far away, approaching and retreating, depending on how one looked at the situation. For Behrens, the last semester in college took on a bittersweet and emotionally ambivalent quality. For Robinson, life as a graduate student became noticeably unmoored from mentors and even from friends. For Adams and Lavrenova, teaching strategies had to be recalibrated to incorporate unfamiliar technologies and recalcitrant students. For Hoelscher, there were difficult administrative trade-​offs to consider between risks of proximity and risks to collegiality. In these various ways, academic life during the COVID-​19 pandemic involved disconnected connection—​a combination that can seem paradoxical and puzzling. We recognize that our stories reflect privilege in various forms. Professors are lucky to have jobs that can be taken online, even if doing so means an obligation to rebuild research projects and courses to fit distanciated interactions. The fact that we have all survived the pandemic, whether in Texas, Moscow, or Wuhan, attests to our fortunate status within our respective societies. The two student-​authors were also fortunate relative to other students because they were able to complete or continue their studies despite social distancing, without running into major technological, economic, and social obstacles. Not all college students and professors were so fortunate during this pandemic. Some students had to buttress their family’s income when parents were laid off, by working while also continuing to attend online courses (Casey, 2020). Our good fortune allowed us to turn the experience into research, but it also set us apart from others who were not so fortunate. Many instructors and students found themselves lacking the technological means to continue academic life as they had, whether this meant needing a better computers, broadband access, a webcam, or a different

318  Rethinking Disconnection work space. Two of Dr. Yuan’s graduate students came from homes in the Chinese countryside and “during the pandemic, they couldn’t find proper internet connection in their home villages, except going to the Internet bars in the nearby town.” Some teachers in the United States had to teach from their cars, sitting in library parking lots where they could gain access to public wireless systems (Kang, 2020). In China, Russia, and the United States, students without in-​home Internet service were at a great disadvantage, and some required an extension of their time to completion of the degree. The economic and technical capacity to continue one’s education in the face of coronavirus were unevenly distributed, and our experiences related here reflect only the least intrusive aspects of such problems. In all cases, the coauthors of this paper also benefited from prior preparation for digital networking. We had all, to various degrees, prepared for this situation by engaging with digital technologies as “early adopters,” and as researchers interested in pedagogy, geography, and communication. Our situation was less constraining than that of many teachers, tutors and teaching assistants in elementary and middle schools in the United States and elsewhere, who found themselves suddenly having to hold the attention of children onscreen, at an age when many children have difficulty focusing their attention even in a controlled environment, let alone in a house full of pets, siblings, and parents, some of whom were also Zoom Conferencing. While we all benefited in these ways, we nonetheless believe the paradoxes of disconnected connection we have identified are present in the lives of less fortunate persons, as well.

Conclusion The COVID-​19 crisis led to practices called “social distancing” in various parts of the world. While these methods were effective at slowing the spread of the disease, the term confuses the nature of the intervention. People put physical distance between themselves and others, but they attempted to maintain close personal and professional social relations despite distance. This technological response could be called social un-​distancing because it involves selective appropriation of media to overcome physical distance and reconstitute social connections that would otherwise be lost. In an

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  319

acceleration of the historic process of distanciation, an increasing number of social situations were lifted out of the places in which they would have occurred. They “took place” through space with the aid of communication technologies. The newly mediated connections inevitably included experiences of disconnection, if only because each instance of distanciation disrupted preexisting processes of mediatization and initiated new ones. This rapid reconfiguration of social geography constituted a profound challenge for people trying to live their lives, maintain social connections, and continue working. It also poses a theoretical challenge for scholars in media geography and geomedia studies. Our reflection on the crisis-​induced reworking of distance reveals disconnection as integrally linked to connection, and vice versa. We have shown voluntary disconnection (like turning off one’s webcam and muting one’s microphone) and involuntary disconnection (like feeling lost and adrift in one’s studies, and struggling to connect with one’s students and colleagues). We have shown odd and unexpected reconnections (like the voyeurism afforded by Zoom’s “chaotic” side or being involved in a greater number of distant PhD defenses) as well as the re-​distancing of particular connections (such as implementing password-​based access to colloquia, putting up a digital background behind one’s digital ZOOM image to hide the messy bedroom where one networks). Disconnection has entered into our lives as a form of disruption. A professor lecturing or facilitating a discussion in a physical classroom is quite often completely focused on the lecture process, depending on inspiration and improvisation. The face-​to-​face instructor energetically feeds on the reaction of the audience like a performing artist. In conditions of distance learning, the instructor loses many of these opportunities. Knowledge must be given without getting as much feedback in return, particularly if lurking becomes the norm, which can impoverish not only the subjective quality of teaching and learning, but also the objective quality and quantity of the knowledge that is shared. Our reflections show specific acts of appropriation, including the professor capturing a sense of who is “there” in his or her class, the student discovering that class is more enjoyable lurking and eating on the bed, the professor advising a grad student by talking on a phone in the backyard, the grad student straying “too far from the campsite,” and surreptitious glances at the home worlds of university administrators. Disconnected connection is

320  Rethinking Disconnection therefore experienced differently, by differently-​situated social actors, each of whom appropriates certain media according to his or her wants and needs. In this moment of crisis, when media uses are unstable and contested, and mediatization is undergoing radical change, these banal acts of media appropriation throughout academia reveal the numerous paradoxes of disconnected connection. While far from comprehensive, our exploration shows that the media defining this crisis, such as Zoom and Google Classroom, require extensive efforts of appropriation, as instructors and students bring the technologies and applications into their daily lives, both personal and professional. Whereas the functionality of digital conferencing software seems intuitively obvious, academic users of the software are in the midst of a slow appropriation process that will involve much negotiation and innovation, as well as a certain amount of lost (and hopefully regained) social aptitude. This involves shifting and rebalancing relations between stakeholders who are differently situated in academic hierarchies, and it demands redoubled attention to issues of equity, voice, and participation in both the virtual classroom and the virtual office.

References Adams, P. C. (2009). Geographies of Media and Communication: A Critical Introduction. Malden, MA: Wiley-​Blackwell. Adams, P. C., Craine, J., & Dittmer, J. (Eds.) (2016). The Ashgate Research Companion to Media Geography. London and New York: Routledge. Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (Notes towards an investigation). In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: Verso. Beaudoin, M. F. (2002). Learning or lurking?: Tracking the “invisible” online student. The Internet and Higher Education, 5(2): 147–​155. Beaudry, A., & Pinsonneault, A. (2010). The other side of acceptance: Studying the direct and indirect effects of emotions on information technology use. MIS Quarterly, 689–​710. boyd, d. (2007). Identity production in a networked culture: Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. In Buckingham, D. (Ed.), Youth, Identity and Digital Media (pp. 119–​142). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://​www.danah.org/​papers/​WhyYouthHeart.pdf.

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  321 Casey, N. (2020, April 4). College made them feel equal: The virus exposed how unequal their lives are. The New York Times. https://​nyti.ms/​39CsszO. Collins, A., Neville, P., & Bielaczyc, K. (2000). The role of different media in designing learning environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 11(1): 144–​162. Couldry, N. (2008). Mediatization or mediation? Alternative understandings of the emergent space of digital storytelling. New Media & Society, 10(3): 373–​391. Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2013). Conceptualizing mediatization: Contexts, traditions, arguments. Communication Theory, 23(3): 191–​202. Ellis, L. (2020, April 8). 4 colleges, 2 weeks, one choice: How Covid-​19 scattered U.S. higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://​www-​chronicle-​ com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/​interactives/​covid-​closures-​part-​2. Fast, K., Jansson, A., Lindell, J., Bengtsson, L. R., & Tesfahuney, M. (Eds.). (2017). Geomedia Studies: Spaces and Mobilities in Mediatized Worlds. London and New York: Routledge. Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. (Transl. by Rosi Braidotti & and revised by Colin Gordon). In G. Burchell, Gordon, C., & Miller, P. (Eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (pp. 87–​104). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fry, N. (2020, April 27). Embracing the chaotic side of Zoom. The New Yorker. https://​www.newyorker.com/​magazine/​2020/​04/​27/​embracing-​the-​chaotic-​side-​ of-​zoom. Giddens, A. (1995). Time-​space distanciation and the generation of power. In A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (pp. 90–​108). Macmillan Education UK. Hjarvard, S. (2008). The mediatization of society: A theory of the media as agents of social and cultural change. Nordicom Review, 29(2): 102–​131. Jansson, A. (2015). Interveillance: A new culture of recognition and mediatization. Media and Communication, 3(3), 81–​90. Jiang, M. (2020, April 22). The reason Zoom calls drain your energy. BBC Remote Control. https://​w ww.bbc.com/​worklife/​article/​20200421-​why-​zoom-​video-​chats-​are-​ so-​exhausting. Kafka, A. C. (2020). Shock, fear and fatalism. In Coping with Coronavirus: How Faculty Members Can Support Students in Traumatic Times (pp. 4–​7). Chronicle of Higher Education. Kang, C. (2020). Parking lots have become a digital lifeline. The New York Times (May 5). https://​www.nytimes.com/​2020/​05/​05/​technology/​parking-​lots-​wifi-​ coronavirus.html.

322  Rethinking Disconnection Kaun, A., & Schwarzenegger, C. (2014). “No media, less life?” Online disconnection in mediatized worlds. First Monday, 19(11): n.p. DOI:10.5210/​fm.v19i11.5497. Koeze, E., & Popper N. (2020, April 7). The virus changed the way we Internet. New York Times. https://​www.nytimes.com/​interactive/​2020/​04/​07/​technology/​ coronavirus-​internet-​use.html. Kornbluh, A. (2020). Academe’s coronavirus shock doctrine. In Labor and Academe in the Time of Covid-​19 (pp. 8–​9). The Chronicle of Higher Education. Levy, K. E. (2015). Intimate surveillance. Idaho Law Review, 51(3): 679–​694. Madianou, M., & Miller, D. (2013). Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(2), 169–​187. Mains, S. P., Cupples, J., & Lukinbeal, C. (2015). Mediated Geographies and Geographies of Media. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Marwick, A. E. (2012). The public domain: Social surveillance in everyday life. Surveillance & Society 9(4): 378–​393. http://​w ww.surveillance-​and-​society. org. Marwick, A. E., & boyd, d. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13, 114–​133. doi:10.1177/​1461444810365313. Massey, D. (1993). Power-​Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place. In Bird, J., Curtis, B., Putnam, T., Robertson, G., & Tickner, L. (Eds), Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. London: Routledge. Nissenbaum, H. (2009). Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Scherlis, L. (2020, April 30). Distanciated communities: A social history of social distancing. Cabinet online file at: http://​cabinetmagazine.org/​kiosk/​scherlis_​lily_​30_​ april_​2020.php. Sklar, J. (2020, April 24). “Zoom Fatigue” is taxing the brain: Here’s why that happens. National Geographic. https://​w ww.nationalgeographic.com/​s cience/​2 020/​0 4/​c oronavirus-​z oom-​f atigue-​i s-​t axing-​t he-​brain-​h ere-​i s-​w hy-​ that-​h appens. Stein, M. K., Newell, S., Wagner, E. L., & Galliers, R. D. (2015). Coping with information technology: Mixed emotions, vacillation, and nonconforming use patterns. MIS Quarterly, 39(2): 367-​A6. Trebay, G. (2020, April 6). Dressing up for work . . . at home. The New York Times. https://​nyti.ms/​2X9ih3f.

Paradoxes of Disconnected Connection  323 Weaver, C., Yar, S., Wortham, J., & Oswaks, M. (2020, March 19). True tales of quarantined socializing. New York Times. https://​nyti.ms/​3ba80aA. Woolf, V. (2014 [1929]). A room of one’s own. In Gieseking, J. J., Mangold, W., Katz, C., Low, S., & Saegert, S. (Eds.), The People, Place, and Space Reader (pp. 338–​342). London and New York: Routledge. Zoglin, R. (2020, April 23). Welcome to the Skype pandemic. New York Times.

Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Figures are indicated by f following the page number  academic life, 298–304, 314–15, 317–18 acoustic media, 149–56 Active Worlds, 165–66, 172, 173f, 177, 178f, 180–82, 181f, 185 actor-network, 194–95 addiction, 11–12, 61–62, 104–5, 241, 245–46 Adorno, Theodor, 253–54, 262, 264, 265–68 aesthetics, 131, 169, 175–77, 203–5, 211–20, 245, 268–69, 287 affective entanglements, 277–78 agency, 4–5, 6–7, 34, 36–37, 44, 120, 164–65, 172, 186 AI/artificial intelligence, 116, 119–20, 125–26, 128 alarm clock, 151 alarms, 150–51, 153, 154 algorithmic identity/performance of self, 124, 129 analogue media, 50, 189–95, 201–2, 220–21, 246 analytics. See data analytics Anders, Günther, 229–35, 237–38 anonymization, 31, 32, 36 anxiety, 9–10, 139, 189–90, 273–94, 312 Apple Watch, 145–46, 149–56 appropriation of technology, 44, 49–50, 53–55, 57–58, 296–97, 298–300, 304, 311, 318–20 Arendt, Hannah, 13 art, 175–76, 177, 178, 182–83, 213, 242 Ash, James, 167, 169, 175–76 assemblages, 49, 54–56, 92 of disconnection, 54–55 attention, 147, 212–13, 215–16, 218, 229–35, 236–41, 244–47, 248, 253–54, 255–56, 264, 277, 289–90, 318

Aura Sleep System, 150, 153–54 authenticity, 56, 78f, 82, 91–111, 199–200, 220–21, 227–52 autoethnography, 42–43, 167, 168, 253, 295–96, 297 autonomy, 6, 7, 11–12, 127–28, 302, 310, 314 backstage, 117–21, 122, 123–24, 125, 129–30, 297, 314–15 backwardness, 92–93, 95–96, 107, 108 bedroom, 7–8, 12, 62, 69–70, 78–79, 80, 81, 137–44, 149–56, 158–59, 238–39, 245–46, 282–83, 319 Berg, Martin, 147–48 Berson, Josh, 147 bio-hackers, 140–41, 145, 147 biometrics, 29, 30, 32, 36, 145–49 Blue Mars, 165, 166, 167–68, 169, 171, 172f, 176, 182–83, 183f, 184, 184f Bluetooth, 23, 29–30 boredom, 265–66, 281–82 boundary work, 81 Bourdieu, Pierre, 63, 66–68, 72–74, 80, 82, 106, 167 boyd, dana, 27, 32–33, 56–57, 118–19, 276–77, 306 broken connections, 169, 173–74, 201–2, 274, 276 busyness, 76–77, 79, 141–42 capital, cultural, 66, 67, 68–69, 71–72, 73, 74–75, 77, 80, 82 capital, economic, 68–69, 71–72, 73, 77, 158 cell phone. See mobile phone; smartphone Chapman, Kate, 45, 47, 48–49, 50 chatbot, 116, 124, 125

326 Index China, 189–224, 301–2 class relations, 65–66, 68, 70, 72–73 code/space, 80–81 Cohen, Julie, 28, 34 comedy, 126, 285–87, 291 community, 245–46, 283–84, 287–89 academic, 295–96, 297, 300, 303–4 online, 48, 119, 165–66, 171, 185, 197–98, 238, 283–84 spiritual, 260–61, 263–64 computer games, 94–95, 148–49, 176, 197–98 connection digital, 2, 41–42, 64, 117, 129, 312–13 technological, 1–2, 13, 117, 129, 132, 138–39, 156, 310 connective media, 1, 5, 7–8, 13–16 connectivity culture of, 82–83, 253–54, 255–56 queer, 283–84, 290–91 regime, 1–2, 14–15, 67–68 skills, 6 consumption practices, 69, 81, 155, 198–99, 200, 220–21, 231, 233 context collapse, 118–20, 132, 237, 306 contextual integrity, 26–27, 28, 35–36, 306 conversation, 103–4, 116, 124–25, 163, 233– 34, 240, 244, 245, 286–87, 302, 306–7, 308, 311–12, 316 costs of connectivity, 13–14, 23, 35, 45–46, 50–51, 101, 121–22, 158–59 of disconnection, 14–15, 24, 34, 65, 76–77, 259–64 Couldry, Nick, 1, 13–14, 15–16, 299 COVID-19, 12, 13, 253, 260–61, 268–69, 273, 280–81, 284–85, 286–88, 295–323 Crary, Jonathan, 137–38, 142 critical pedagogy, 95–96 culture, hookup, 280, 281–82, 283–85, 290 culture, queer, 283, 287–89 Dadbot, 124–25 data analytics, 6, 33, 61, 126, 137–38, 142–43, 145, 146, 154 data colonialism/colonization, 14–15 datafication, 138–39, 140–41, 148–49, 155– 56, 158–59, 203–5 dating apps, 24, 280–84, 291 death, 8, 9, 10–11, 115–36, 285–86, 289–90

Deleuze, Gilles, 192, 253–54, 255–56 dialectic of connection and disconnection, 2, 15 diaries, 189–224 Digicel, 51–52, 53, 54f digital culture, 190–91 detox, 1–2, 3–4, 11–12, 62, 67, 104–5, 140, 157, 190–91, 227–52, 253–54, 256–57, 259–60, 279–80 divide, 2, 3, 61–62, 65, 82–83 fragility, 274 intimacy, 12–13, 130, 155, 180–82, 233, 273–94, 314–16 (see also intimacy) objects, 168, 169, 170, 275 resignation, 82–83 spaces, 48, 126, 168, 182–83 traces, 115–16, 132, 164–65, 171, 172, 186, 193 unease, 7–8, 63, 74–79, 82–83 disappearance of media, 64 disconnection imperative, 82–83 involuntary, 2, 3, 277, 319 partial, 14–15, 24, 275, 286–87 voluntary, 3–4, 66, 67, 140, 277, 319 disconnective practices, 15–16, 277–78, 279–80, 286 discourse, 7, 11–12, 61–62, 91–92, 93, 94–95, 99–100, 101–2, 105, 140, 142, 149, 156, 157, 179, 190–91, 194–95, 227–29, 247–49 distance learning, 12, 295–323 distanciation, 296–97, 310–11, 318–19 distinction cultural, 61–90, 138–39, 144, 146, 156–59 means of, 62 social, 67–68 Ebert, Chaz, 122 Ebert, Roger, 122 Edensor, Tim, 165, 174, 179 Eight mattress, 154 embodiment, 66, 67–68, 120, 139, 141–42, 145, 167, 168, 216, 309, 316–17 emotion, 74–75, 94, 184–85, 239, 243, 276– 77, 297, 300, 301, 303–4, 307, 311, 317 empathy, 91–92, 101, 233, 239, 240, 247–48 entangling force, 15, 16

Index  327 ETER9, 127–28 exploitation, 5, 14–15, 140, 220–21, 264–65 face-to-face interaction, 12, 13–15, 95, 233, 236, 238–39, 248, 273, 295–96, 300, 301, 315–16, 319 fear of missing out, 7–8, 74–75 FitBit, 145–46 fixity, 47, 80, 158 Foucault, Michel, 253–54, 255–56, 306–7 fragility, 170, 171–72, 173–74, 186, 274, 277 framing, 61–62, 99–100, 118, 120, 129–30, 131, 142, 179, 228, 236, 247–48 freedom, 28, 65–66, 69, 76, 79, 179, 182–85, 186, 202–3, 246, 256–57, 267–68, 302 frontstage, 117–18, 119–20, 122, 125, 128 Fuller, Matthew, 141–42, 158–59   gardening, 100, 243 gathering, 11–12, 295–96, 300, 308, 309, 310–12 gathering places, 53, 309 gender, 142–43, 217–21, 282–83, 285–86, 287–89, 310 geographies of rest, 138–39 geomapping, 44–49 geosurveillance, 2, 6, 23–40 GIS, 46–47, 48, 55–56 globalism, 91, 92–93, 95, 108 Goffman, Erving, 117–21, 122, 123–24, 129–31 Google Earth, 48 Google maps, 30–31, 35 GPS, 23, 29–30, 50 Grindr, 280–81, 282–83, 284–85   habitus, 66, 82, 106, 167 Haiti, 6–7, 41–60 haptic media, 145–46, 150–51, 167 HBTQUL, 286–88 healing, 9, 244, 255–57 health mental, 11–12, 31–32, 104–5, 244, 245, 264–65 monitoring, 1, 140, 142–43, 145–46, 147, 151–52, 158–59 physical, 11–12, 139, 140, 142–43, 145–46, 147, 148, 234, 244, 253–54, 278–81, 298, 301–2, 303

hobbies, 189–224 home, 12, 25–26, 68–69, 71, 94, 104–5, 107, 154, 158–59, 231, 237–38, 239, 256–57, 268–69, 274, 280–81, 287–89, 301–2, 306, 311–12, 317–18 smart, 153–54, 155–56 virtual, 171, 180, 182, 183f hookup apps, 280, 281, 282–85 humanitarian subjects, 96 humanitarianism, 44–45, 46, 47, 96, 97, 101 humanitarians, digital, 6–7, 41, 44–45, 46–47, 48–49, 54–57 humor, 275, 281–83, 284–89, 291–92 hypermedia, 212, 213–16, 219–20   identity, personal, 115–36, 182, 197–98, 218, 219–20, 298, 301, 303, 306–7, 309, 310, 313 immobility, 5–6, 47 immortality, digital, 124, 126–28 impermanence, 170, 186 impression management, 117–20, 125 infrastructure, 5, 6–7, 41–60, 276, 297, 312 digital, 14–15, 130, 168 educational, 301–2 institutional, 41–42 of intimacy, 276 physical, 41–42, 175 social, 41–42, 43 soft, 49 infrastructuring, 42–44 Ingold, Tim, 192, 193, 201–3 interaction. See face-to-face interaction Internet of Things (IoT), 137–38, 140–41, 142–43, 149–50, 153–54, 155–56 intimacy, 12–13, 117–18, 130, 233, 273–94, 313, 314–16 isolation, 237, 240, 273, 275, 278–79, 282–83, 285, 288–89, 290–91   Japan, culture of, 95–96, 195–96, 197–99, 217 journals, 189–224   Kurzweil, Ray, 126   labor, 101–2, 264, 265–67, 302 Larkin, Brian, 49 Lash, Scott, 117, 120–21, 129, 130–31, 132 Lex, 282–84, 291

328 Index Lidow, Derek, 151–52 logistics, 47, 55–56 loneliness, 77, 176–77, 229–30, 237 Louv, Richard, 234–35, 242 lurking, 297, 303–10, 312–13, 316–17, 319–20   malfunctions, 277 Mander, Jerry, 230, 231–32, 237–38, 242 mapping, 33–34, 35, 41–60 Marwick, Alice, 26–27, 32–33, 36–37, 118– 19, 304, 306, 314–15 Massey, Doreen, 4, 5–6 materiality, 165, 168, 169, 193–94, 211–12, 213–14, 219–20, 277 Mavhunga, Clapperton, 51 media affordances, 14–15, 76–77, 189–90, 199, 276–77, 297, 298–301, 314–15 analogue, 50, 189–224 appropriation, 44, 49–50, 53–55, 57–58, 296–97, 299–300, 303–4, 311, 318–20 ensemble, 193–94, 196–201, 214–15 life, 65 locative, 41–60, 290 non-use of, 61–62, 64–65, 69, 76–77, 82 practices, 3, 8, 11, 44, 50, 51, 53–54, 57–58, 61–62, 64–65, 69–70, 77, 80–81, 116, 119, 140–41, 198–99, 214–15, 219–20, 277–78, 286, 289–90 mediatization, 64, 65, 189–90, 215–16, 220, 296–97, 298–300, 318–20 meditation, 9–10, 11–12, 254–58, 260–61 memoirs, 235, 244, 245, 246–47. See also diaries Microsoft band, 145–46 middle class anxious, 80, 158 cultural, 73, 74–75, 78–79, 81, 82–83 economic, 73, 76–77, 78–79 mindfulness, 1–2, 11–12, 81, 82, 190–91, 235, 241, 243, 253–55, 256–61, 262–68 minimization, 6, 33, 36–37, 81 mobile devices, 30–31, 41–42, 44–45, 46, 48, 49–50, 51–52, 56, 57, 61–62, 63, 64–65, 82, 97–98, 99–100, 103–4, 139, 196–97 mobile phone, 61–63, 64–65, 81, 82, 96–102, 103–4, 238–39, 248, 259–61. See also smartphone mobility, 5–6, 47, 51, 56–57, 211

modularity, 205, 207–8, 210 moral geographies, 69–70, 79–81 morality, 11–12, 79, 96 Moravec, Hans, 126–27, 128 motility, 5–6   nature, 4–5, 7–8, 69–70, 78–79, 91–92, 93, 102–9, 212–13, 231–32, 234–35, 241–47, 253–54 network capital, 5–7, 8, 42, 43–44, 48, 57–58 NGOs, 41, 45, 48, 53–54, 96, 97 Nissenbaum, Helen, 26–27, 35–36, 306 non-governmental organizations. See NGOs nostalgia, 174–75, 185, 189–90, 192 notebooks, 189–224 numbers, 201–5   online behaviour, 15–16, 95–96, 117, 121, 124, 205, 300, 304, 307 memorialization, 115–16 socializing, 163–64, 172, 237–38, 310–12 OpenStreetMap (OSM), 41–60 othering, 91–111 outdoorsy identity, 102–7   paper, 190, 201–2, 203–21 Parks, Lisa, 51 participation, 54–57, 94, 138–39, 304, 305–6 patching, 6–7, 8, 42, 43–44, 50, 51, 53 peace, 180–82, 245, 246–47, 256–57, 264–65 pedagogy, 99–100, 295–323 personhood, 125, 129, 131–32 places of disconnection, 63, 77, 79 platformed sociality, 1, 14–15 Pokémon Sleep, 145, 148–49 politics of experience, 91–111 of infrastructure, 41–60 of sleep, 137–62 of withdrawal, 266–67 posthumous bots, 116 digital presence, 116, 117, 119–20, 125–26, 129–30 self, 118, 121–22, 123–24 social media presence, 118, 119, 120, 129, 130–31, 132 power geometry, 4, 5–8 PowerSpy, 30–31

Index  329 presentation of self. See self-presentation privacy, 23–40, 126, 288–89, 306, 308, 310, 312–13 as breathing room, 28, 33, 36 conceptualization of, 25–28 networked, 27 origins of, 25–26 private space, 232, 237, 288–89, 290, 306, 310, 313 proximity, sense of, 189–90, 228, 236, 283–85, 298, 315–17 public, 30, 57–58, 64, 80, 117–18, 120, 122, 129–31, 158, 217–18, 237, 286, 287–89, 306, 313 self, 122, 130–31 transport, 69–70, 78–79, 256–57   quantification, 147–48, 203–5 Quantified Self movement, 147–48 quarantine, 13–14, 253, 268–69, 273, 275, 283, 284–89, 291–92, 310–12   reconnection, 8, 34–36, 175, 229, 235, 240, 242, 247–49, 254–55, 274, 278–79, 291– 92, 296–97, 298, 301, 313, 318–19 remediation, 120–21, 129–30, 155–56, 193– 94, 219–20, 283 resistance, 2–3, 23–40, 69, 82, 179, 190–91, 228, 247–48, 287–88, 291 rest, managing, 137–38, 139, 141–42, 255–56 restaurants, communication in, 7–8, 12, 78–79 retreat culture, 214–15, 253–72 right to be let alone, 25–26 romanticism, 95, 101, 107–8, 179, 190–91, 220–21 romantic relationships, 281–82, 288 routines, 7–8, 12, 76–77, 256–57, 267–68, 298–99 of communication, 12–13, 14–15, 69, 76 of sleep, 145, 156 spatial, 12–13, 317 ruins, digital, 163–88   schedules, 208–10, 256–62, 264, 267–68, 303 seclusion, 3, 255–57, 264 self-care, 142, 155, 156, 253, 254, 264–65, 275, 279–81, 285–86 self-help guides, 81, 140, 142, 157, 227–52

self-presentation, 117–21, 122, 128, 129, 280, 301, 312–17 self-tracking, 140–41, 144, 145–46, 147–49, 211 sense of place, 63, 130, 176, 178, 227–28, 230 sensor technologies, 145–46, 150–51, 153–54 sensory modes, 145–46, 150–51, 152, 155–56, 167, 176, 232, 306–7, 309 sexuality, 182, 273–94 sheltering in place, 310 shopping, 199–200, 262 shouzhang, 189–224 simulation, 9, 91–92, 93, 96–102, 107, 124, 126, 129–30, 153, 171–72 Skype, 94, 239 sleep architecture, 137–62 cultures of, 141–42 cycle, 150–51, 152 hacking, 147, 158–59 hygiene, 142, 146, 147–48, 149, 155 management, 139, 140, 145, 147–48, 149–50, 151–52, 155–56 mediation, 138–39, 144 monitoring, 140, 145, 148, 156 politics of, 142, 144, 157 rhythms of, 138–39, 144 technology, 137–38, 139, 148 tracking, 140, 145, 146, 147–49, 150, 152 slow media, 10–11, 189–224 slowness, sense of, 189–90, 193–94, 211–21 smart bedroom, 153, 154 products, 154–55 smartphone. See also mobile phone attitudes toward, 63, 69–70, 74–77, 75f, 246 geolocation by, 29–30 tracking of, 29–31 uses of, 50–51, 61–62, 138–39, 157, 158, 233, 240 social distancing, 273, 274, 280, 281, 282–83, 290, 295, 298, 301–2, 303–4, 313–14, 317, 318–19 interaction, 120–21, 163, 166, 173, 177, 236, 241, 296–97, 303–4, 307, 310–11 media, 2–3, 27, 34–35, 56, 104–5, 115–36, 156, 190–91, 197–200, 241–42, 273, 276– 79, 281–82, 283, 285–86, 289–90, 304 relations, 11–12, 49, 297, 300, 318–19

330 Index space, 63, 66–67, 68, 70, 74–75, 78–79, 80–83, 163–64, 171, 228, 231, 236–41 sociality, 1, 14–15, 141–42, 273, 277, 278–80 Somnox, 154–55 sound blankets, 152–53 sports events, 69–70, 78–79, 81, 241 status, 5–6, 65–66, 67–68, 76–77, 80–81, 82, 217, 314–15 strategic disconnection, 42, 43–44, 57 surrogate, 116, 122, 129 surveillance, aerial, 41, 48. See also geosurveillance symbolic struggle/battlefield, 63, 80–83   tactics everyday, 6–7, 27, 32–33, 34–35, 64–65, 285–86 territorializing, 64–65, 81 tactile experience, 215–16, 219, 220–21 technological forms of life, 117, 120, 121, 129, 130 malfunctions, 277 technostalgia, 189–90, 192 territoriality, human, 15–16, 63, 81 texting, 94–95, 105–6, 239, 275–76 Thoreau, Henry David, 105, 245 time, 15, 67–68, 76–77, 120–21, 147, 150–51, 169–70, 171, 189–90, 191–92, 203–5, 210, 217–18, 235, 246, 255–57, 264, 266–68, 283–84, 298–99, 303

Turkle, Sherry, 9, 179, 190–91, 233–34, 238–39, 240, 278–79 Twinity, 173, 174f, 180, 181f, 182, 183f Twitter, 118–19, 122, 125, 148–49, 280–81, 282   United Nations, 45, 46 urban life, 1, 30, 35, 51, 53, 106, 166–67, 179, 234, 242, 264 Urry, John, 5–6, 42 utopianism, 165, 179–85, 186   vacation, 7–8, 69–70, 78–79, 238–39, 241–42, 274 Van Dijck, José, 1, 14–15, 82–83, 255–56 virtual worlds, 163–88, 233 Vlahos, James, 124 voyeurism, 97–98, 297, 303–4, 312–17, 319   wearables, 138, 140–41, 144, 145–49, 152, 211 webcams, 309, 313, 317–18, 319 Williams, Simon, 140, 142–45 withdrawal, 8, 64–65, 139, 266–68, 307 World Bank, 48, 53–54, 97 writing, 10–11, 64–65, 190–91, 196, 201–5, 211, 213–16, 273   yoga, 11–12, 253–54, 256–60   Zoom, 12, 35–36, 298, 300–1, 303, 304–10, 311, 312–17, 319, 320