Abstract
In this contribution, I do not engage in digital disconnection merely as an empirical phenomenon but as a way of seeing digital culture and as a heuristic. I do not ask whether or not digital disconnection is possible, is good or bad, or should be advocated or overcome. Instead, I adopt Eva Illouz’s framework of a negative sociology of social bonds to explore what it would mean to study digital culture from the perspective of negative choice. The conceptual framework is illustrated with three empirical cases that show what it would mean to engage in a negative sociology of digital culture. The shift in perspective from positive bonds to the choice to disengage, not use, or exit certain fora makes visible how digital culture is not only increasingly characterized by polarization, but also how disconnection emerges as a civic virtue that puts the individual user’s responsibility at the forefront.
Highlights
Media, regarded as representations and industries and deeply ingrained in our everyday lives, have from the outset been considered important for how we maintain relationships, build institutions, and social cohesion (Couldry, 2020; Murdock, 2018)
Adopting Illouz’s (2019) framework and drawing on my empirical materials, I argue that negative bonds in digital culture that have emerged in the form of digital disconnection during the pandemic are characterized by disconnection as uncertainty, as a civic virtue, and as responsibilization
Turning toward negative bonds to analyze digital culture makes visible the ways in which sociality today is dominated by uncertainty and individual responsibility rather than recognition of others and the common grounds that are shared in society, which finds expression in the diagnosis of an epistemic crisis (Dahlgren, 2018)
Summary
Media, regarded as representations and industries and deeply ingrained in our everyday lives, have from the outset been considered important for how we maintain relationships, build institutions, and social cohesion (Couldry, 2020; Murdock, 2018). Digital disconnection emerges as a form of negative choice, the decision to not use, participate, or contribute to digital platforms through user-generated content or just being there that is typical of the current moment of hyperconnected modernity.
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