Publisher Description

It is said that the ontology of data resists slowness and also that the digital revolution promised a levelling of the playing field. Both theories are examined in this timely collection of chapters looking at time in the digital world. Since data has assumed such a paramount place in the modern neoliberal world, contemporary concepts of time have undergone radical transformation. By critically assessing the emerging initiatives of slowing down in the digital age, this book investigates the role of the digital in ultimately reinforcing neo-liberal temporalities. It shows that both "speed-up" and "slow down" imperatives often function as a form of biopolitical social control necessary to contemporary global capitalism. Problematic paradoxes emerge where a successful slow down and digital detox ultimately are only successful if the individual returns to the world as a more productive, labouring neoliberal subject. Is there another way? The chapters in this collection, broken up into three parts, ask that question.

Author Biography

Anne Kaun is associate professor in media and communication studies, director of studies at the Baltic and East European Graduate School – BEEGS and programme director of the master's programme in media, communication and cultural analysis at Sodertorn University. She is the author of Crisis and Critique. A History of Media Participation.

Christian Pentzold is associate professor of media and communication studies with a focus on
media society at ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Sciences. Prior to
joining the University of Bremen in 2016, he was a lecturer at Technische Universität Chemnitz.

Christine Lohmeier is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg. Her research interests are transcultural communication, media in everyday life, memory studies and qualitative approaches in general and ethnographic research methods in particular.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction
Anne Kaun, Christine Lohmeier & Christian Pentzold: Making time for digital lives: Sketching the field and history of resisting dominant temporal regimes

Part I: Making time for….Disconnection

Chapter 1 Tim Markham
Subjective Recognition in a Distracted World: The Affordances of Affective Habuts and Temporal Discontinuities

Chapter 2 Ingrid Forsler & Carina Guyard
Screen time and the young brain – a contemporary moral panic?

Chapter 3 Magdalena Kania-Lundholm
The waves that sweep away: older Internet non- and seldom-users' experiences of new technologies and digitalization

Chapter 4 Christian Schwarzenegger & Manuel Menke
Who are the New Men in Grey? Making sense of time, time-theft and temporal autonomy in the (non-)use of digital media

Part II: Making time for… Synchronization

Chapter 5 Martin Hand
Making Time, Configuring Life: smartphone synchronization and temporal orchestrationIntroduction

Chapter 6 Roxana Morosanu Firth, Sean Rintel & Abigail Sellen
Everyday time travel: Temporal mobility and multitemporality with smartphones

Chapter 7 Hannah Ditchfield & Peter Lunt
Re-Configuring Synchronicity and Sequentiality in Online Interaction: Multicommuniciation on Facebook Messenger

Part III: Making time for… Commodification

Chapter 8 Alex Beatti
Move slow and contemplate things: an app that drops users out from distracting aspects of the internet

Chapter 9 Mikolaj Dymek
'Life Hacking' Everyday Temporality – Project Managing Digital Lives of Tasks

Chapter 10 Carla Ganito & Catia Ferreira
Managing the flow of time: Disconnection through apps

Review

This thoughtful book explores how we actively construct, negotiate and transform digital timescapes. In particular, it highlights how practices of non-use, disconnection and resistance can be read as expressions of critical hope that enact versions of a concrete utopia. The book thus provides us with original and riveting material with which to challenge the cultural imperative of a fast-paced modernity.Judy Wajcman, author of Pressed for Time and The Sociology of Speed -- Judy Wajcman

Long Description

It is said that the ontology of data resists slowness and also that the digital revolution promised a levelling of the playing field. Both theories are examined in this timely collection of chapters looking at time in the digital world. Since data has assumed such a paramount place in the modern neoliberal world, contemporary concepts of time have undergone radical transformation. By critically assessing the emerging initiatives of slowing down in the digital age, this book investigates the role of the digital in ultimately reinforcing neo-liberal temporalities. It shows that both "speed-up" and "slow down" imperatives often function as a form of biopolitical social control necessary to contemporary global capitalism. Problematic paradoxes emerge where a successful slow down and digital detox ultimately are only successful if the individual returns to the world as a more productive, labouring neoliberal subject. Is there another way? The chapters in this collection, broken up into three parts, ask that question.

Review Text

This thoughtful book explores how we actively construct, negotiate and transform digital timescapes. In particular, it highlights how practices of non-use, disconnection and resistance can be read as expressions of critical hope that enact versions of a concrete utopia. The book thus provides us with original and riveting material with which to challenge the cultural imperative of a fast-paced modernity. Judy Wajcman, author of Pressed for Time and The Sociology of Speed -- Judy Wajcman

Review Quote

This thoughtful book explores how we actively construct, negotiate and transform digital timescapes. In particular, it highlights how practices of non-use, disconnection and resistance can be read as expressions of critical hope that enact versions of a concrete utopia. The book thus provides us with original and riveting material with which to challenge the cultural imperative of a fast-paced modernity. Judy Wajcman, author of Pressed for Time and The Sociology of Speed

Details