Social media and smartphones are criticised for being addictive,
destroying personal relationships, undermining productivity, and
invading privacy. In this book, Trine Syvertsen explores the phenomenon
of digital detox: users taking a break from digital media or adopting
measures to limit smartphone and social media use. Based on studies,
documents, media texts and interviews with media users, Syvertsen
discusses how media industries intensify the quest for attention, how
companies and governments team up to get everybody online, and how the
main responsibility for managing online risks and problems are placed on
the users' shoulders. She provides a rich account of how users reduce
their online engagement through time-limitations, restrictions on
smartphone use, productivity apps, and use of analogue media. Syvertsen
shows how digital detoxing has much in common with other forms of
self-help such as mindfulness, decluttering and simple living and places
digital detox within a culture of self-optimisation. But digital detox
is also about sustaining face-to-face conversations, better
work-life-balance, a deeper connection with nature and more meaningful
interpersonal relationships. With a wealth of examples, analyses and
stories, Digital Detox is a valuable guide to why digital detox and
disconnection has become a topic, how it is practised, what it says
about the state of media industries and how people express resistance in
the 21st century.
