The hipster’s dilemma: What is analogue or digital in the post-digital society?

Abstract

This article sets out to explore the phenomenon of willing digital disconnect by reconsidering and reworking some of the central ideas that currently fall under the umbrella of technological non-use. The presupposition of binary divisions between the dichotomies ‘users’–‘non-users’ and ‘analogue’–‘digital’ is put into question as the article explores the taking up of predigital technologies and the explicit and implicit disengagement from contemporary digital technologies. In short, this article asks: What does the contemporary revival of analogue technologies reveal about the social and material processes that constitute ‘use’, and what are the implications for the conceptual division of the terms analogue and digital? To answer these questions, the article draws on assemblage theory to describe the material and expressive performativity of social structure – that is, how individuals interact with technology. Empirical evidence comes from three illustrative cases where predigital technologies have replaced an existing digital alternative. Results emphasize the importance of understanding the material and expressive reconfigurations that underline technological use in a post-digital society in order to move beyond binary concepts such as analogue/digital or use/non-use as well as concepts such as the digital divide.