Mark Thomas Young is a philosopher of technology whose recent work takes place within the emerging field of maintenance and repair studies and examines questions surrounding the relationship between technology and time.
Focusing initially on the case of smartphones, Mark's research aims to investigate how these metabolisms are contested and negotiated by a range of different actors, spanning from tinkerers, design activists to corporations and third-party parts manufacturers in the informal economy.
By focusing on how repairability as a design value plays out today within global supply chains, ecologies of spare parts, tools and the circulation of knowledge, this study aims to elucidate the wider contexts behind recent pushes for the sustainable design and consumption of consumer electronics.