Against the Digital? Multi-Method Investigations Into Digital Disconnection Practices and Discourses
Public PhD defence by Malene Hornstrup Jespersen.
The past decades have seen a rapid digital transformation and growing concerns about the adverse effects of constant connectivity. Drawing on four curated datasets and a multi-method approach, this thesis investigates how people experience and manage digital technologies in everyday life, with a focus on practices of digital disconnection and the rise of digital critiques.
It analyzes these phenomena at multiple levels. A historical analysis investigates the values associated with public critiques of digitalization over time. Two survey papers investigate experiences with digital use and disconnection behaviors, in Denmark and internationally. The final paper presents a methodological framework to study subjective experiences of attention and distraction.
Collectively, these studies inform public debates and regulation of digital technologies, contribute empirically and conceptually to the study of digital disconnection, and show how a multi-method, multi-perspective approach can reveal the complex ways people relate to digital technologies in everyday life.
Assessment committee
- Associate Professor Frederik Georg Hjorth, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (chair)
- Associate Professor Laura Nelson, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Associate Professor Mariek Vanden Abeele, Ghent University, Belgium
Supervisors
- Associate Professor Kristoffer Langkjær Albris, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (principal supervisor)
- Professor Morten Axel Pedersen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (co-supervisor)
