2024
Digitox seminar November 2024
This seminar will explore theoretical and methodological pluralism in disconnection research and how young scholars perceive this emerging research field
Time and place: Nov. 13, 2024 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
This seminar is devoted to the collaborative work of a group of young scholars in the field of disconnection research. The group covers a broad range of approaches and includes researchers from different countries and continents.
The group's collaborative article Mapping a pluralistic continuum of approaches to digital disconnection was published in Media, Culture and Society earlier this year (2024) and is already regarded as a key contribution.
The seminar will engage participants in discussions on the nature of the research field, how different approaches diverge and converge, and the implications for the future of disconnection studies.
Join us for a fun and lively session!
Participants
- Morgan Quinn Ross, Assistant Professor, Oregon State University
- Julius Klingelhöfer, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)
- Alicia Gilbert, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
- Mora Matassi, Northwestern University
- Sara van Bruyssel, Ghent University
About the digitox seminar series
Digitox welcomes academics and students to digital seminars, usually monthly.
If you are interested in attending, please send an email to Trine Syvertsen to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
We allow time for discussion and questions. We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Organiser
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
Digitox seminar June 2024
This seminar will introduce the forthcoming collection The Digital Backlash and the Paradoxes of Disconnection followed by a conversation about the digital backlash in the Nordic countries.
Time and place: June 12, 2024 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
Kristoffer Albris introduces The Digital Backlash and the Paradoxes of Disconnection (forthcoming, Nordicom, details below).
The presentation is followed by a conversation about the digital backlash and disconnection in the Nordic countries with Stine Lomborg (Denmark), Linus Andersson (Sweden) and Mehri Agai (Norway).
Participants
- Kristoffer Albris is an associate professor at The Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS) and the Department of Anthropology.
- Stine Lomborg, Professor at the University of Copenhagen
- Linus Andersson, Associate professor at Halmstad University
- Mehri Agai, PhD candidate at the University of Bergen.
- Trine Syvertsen (digitox, uio.no) will chair the panel conversation
- Karin Fast (digitox, Karlstad University) will chair the seminar
About the book
The Digital Backlash and the Paradoxes of Disconnection
The digital backlash can best be described as a kind of “Zeitgeist”: as a moment in history in which the norms about digital behaviour, consumption, and habits are being questioned, and where the hype of early the digital era beginning in the 1990s, are being challenged.
Through calls for more restrictive, or more ‘mindful’, uses of digital technologies, ‘mobile-free’ schools, work regulations along the lines of a ‘Right to Disconnect’ framework, the rise of new entrepreneurs in the growing ‘digital detox’ industry, as well as critiques of the role of Big Tech companies – society is deliberating on the stakes of the digital for the human condition.
This book offers a collection of empirical and theoretical analyses of the digital backlash as it manifests across national, institutional, and everyday contexts.
To be published open access by Nordicom this summer/early autumn.
Edited by: Kristoffer Albris, Karin Fast, Faltin Karlsen, Anne Kaun, Stine Lomborg and Trine Syvertsen
Chapters by: Rasmus Helles, Stine Lomborg, Karin Fast, Trine Syvertsen, Malene Hornstrup Jespersen, Kristoffer Albris, Linus Andersson, Ingrid Forsler, Carina Guyard, Gunn Enli, Yukun You, Sne Scott Hansen, Maja Klausen, Alessandro Gandini, Victoria Andelsman Alvarez, Mehri Agai, Lucas Cone, Signe Sophus Lai, Faltin Karlsen, André Jansson, Ana Jorge, Kari Spjeldnæs.
Digitox seminar May 2024
In this seminar, Lise-Marie Nassen and Mariek Vanden Abeele will explore theories, perspectives, and definitions in disconnection research.
Time and place: May 7, 2024 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
The topic of digital disconnection serves as a meeting point for researchers from different fields. However, recent contributions have begun to discuss research on this topic as a distinct subfield, assessing epistemologies, conceptualisations and theories. More such work is on its way.
In a recent contribution in Media, Culture and Society, eight young researchers maps digital disconnection research along a "pluralistic continuum" and argue for multidisciplinarity and complementarity.
In this seminar, we have invited two contributors working in different parts of the field to offer their perspectives on the theoretical and conceptual evolvement of disconnection research.
Lise-Marie Nassen studies digital well-being, specifically the relationship between digital disconnection and psychological well-being. In her talk, she will draw on the recently published review article: Opt-out, abstain, unplug. A systematic review of the voluntary digital disconnection literature.
Mariek Vanden Abeele investigates digital culture through a combined lens of media psychology and media sociology. In her talk, she will explore the potential for theory-building in the intersection of mobile media and disconnection studies.
Participants
- Lise-Marie Nassen is a PhD fellow at the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research (KU Leuven).
- Mariek Vanden Abeele is Professor at the research group for Media, Innovation and Communication Technologies, Department of Communication Sciences, Ghent University. Mariek holds a 2020 ERC Starting Grant on Digital Well-being.
- Trine Syvertsen (digitox, University of Oslo) will chair the seminar.
Digitox seminar March 2024
In this seminar, Maja Klausen and Sne Scott Hansen will explore issues related to the (dis)connecting body.
Time and place: Mar. 7, 2024 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
This seminar discusses digital disconnection in relation to the human body, and more specifically with respect to the ill body and the tracked body. What potentials are there for these bodies to disconnect in times of datafication, and what “work” does it take to reconnect when facing involuntary disconnection?
Maja Klausen’s research examines aspects of digital patienthood including relations to the datafied welfare state. Through qualitative methods she explores how patient roles, experiences and imaginaries are transformed in meetings with digital technologies and the increasingly datafied public health sector.
In her talk, “Patienthood and the (im)possibilities of disconnection”, Maja will share findings and thoughts from interviews with patients living with chronic illness and point to how the at times unruly, chronically ill body limits, hampers, and shapes practices of disconnecting.
These empirically grounded perspectives on life within and disconnected from chronic care infrastructures point to disconnection as a research agenda within critical digital health studies.
Sne Scott Hansen’s research investigates intersections of the human body, communication, and the digital. In the seminar, she will speak under the heading “Disconnecting the communicating body: On the human work of articulation, maintenance, and repair in the use of personal tracking devices”.
Findings will be presented on how users navigate recurring processes of digital disconnection with wearable devices by doing manual repair work to reconnect. Scott Hansen argues that as humans we are dealing with moments of disconnection all the time when we try to integrate digital tracking devices with the body.
Looking at the work that, oftentimes unnoticed, goes into repairing breakages to maintain the connection with our wearable devices tells us something about the nature of our relationship with digital tracking technologies and the degree of human agency in such relations.
Participants
- Maja Klausen is Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Department of Design, Media and Educational Science. She is involved in the Digital Consultation-project funded by Velux Foundation and the Datafied Living-project funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark.
- Sne Scott Hansen is PhD Fellow at the Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen and the ERC-funded Datafied Living project at the University of Copenhagen. She is part of the Center for Tracking and Society.
- Karin Fast (digitox, University of Karlstad) will chair the seminar.
Digitox seminar February 2024
In this seminar, Sara Van Bruyssel and Zeena Feldman explore commodified disconnection practices and explore issues related to privileges and social inequalities.
Time and place: Feb. 7, 2024 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
Sara Van Bruyssel focuses on digital wellbeing. In her presentation, she will zoom in on commodified digital disconnection and explore the tensions that can arise when disconnection is entered into market dynamics that reproduce societal inequalities and privileges. See the recent article in Convergence.
Drawing on her research about digital detox retreats, self-help books and apps, Zeena Feldman will talk about the material conditions of the UK’s disconnection marketplace. She complicates the widespread assumption that digital disconnection is a project of and for the elite, and explores how the registers of choice and privilege operate in contemporary disconnection practices.
Participants
- Sara Van Bruyssel is a third year Phd candidate at the Department of Communication Sciences of Ghent University in Belgium.
- Zeena Feldman (kcl.ac.uk) is Associate Professor in Digital Culture at King's College London and director of the Queer@King's research centre.
- Yukun You (digitox, uio.no) will chair the seminar
2023
Digitox seminar December 2023
In this seminar, Sara Katie Day Good and Mehri Agai present studies on technological resistance in schools and youth disconnection.
Time and place: Dec. 5, 2023 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
In this seminar, Katie Day Good will explore the unequal landscape of opportunities to disconnect from digital technologies in schools.
Discussing emerging youth- and teacher-led movements in the U.S. to refuse and restrict the use of certain educational and social media technologies in schools, Good will highlight educational institutions as primary sites of struggle over technological influence and user agency in the digital era.
She argues that technology refusal is an important conceptual addition to digital literacy education and scholarship.
The second presenter is Mehri Agai, who will present research on youth disconnection practices. Agai will unpack the intricate ways disconnection is woven into the fabric of daily digital navigation for young people. Through an emic approach, utilizing digital diaries, she will demonstrate how personal records can provide insight into the subtle complexities of digital disconnection.
The time and date for the seminar is December 5, 1400-1500 (Norwegian time)
Digitox seminar October 2023
In this seminar, we discuss AI, sustainability and the environment - and how it connects with disconnection studies
Time and place: Oct. 25, 2023 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
Media and communication industries often present themselves as clean and green, but do, in fact, contribute significantly to environmental problems. In this seminar, we discuss issues of sustainability and climate change and their relevance for disconnection research.
The first presenter is Benedetta Brevini, author of the recent book Is AI Good for the Planet? In the book she exposes the environmental cost of AI and argues for a 'green tech literacy' to raise awareness about overconsumption and the importance of responsible energy consumption.
Christian Schwarzenegger will present research on disobedient practices such as repairing, non-use and disconnection. Drawing from qualitative interviews, he discusses to what degree such practices can be understood as a form of activism with the impetus to shape digitization and datafication in a more sustainable way.
Participants
Benedetta Brevini is a journalist, media reformer and Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Sydney. She is currently Visiting Professor at New York University.
Christian Schwarzenegger, is a Professor for Media & Society at the University of Bremen.
Trine Syvertsen, chair of the Digitox research group, will chair the seminar.
The seminar is on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 1500-1600 (Norwegian time).
Digitox seminar September 2023
In this seminar, we discuss research on how journalists and book publishers handle connection and disconnection.
Time and place: Sep. 19, 2023 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
How is the world of publishing and journalism affected by constant connectivity? How are professional values transformed? How do journalists navigate private and professional concerns?
Diana Bossio will present the forthcoming book The Paradox of Connection - How Digital Media is Transforming Journalistic Labor. Using a framework of online connection and disconnection,The Paradox of Connection examines how journalists’ practices are formed, negotiated, and maintained in dynamic social media environments.
Kari Spjeldnæs presents research on trade publishers in the era of ubiquitous connectivity and radical change. Keywords are: Attention, ambivalence and algorithms. What do publishers think about the future of reading and changing professional responsibilities?
Participants
Authors of The Paradox of Connection. How Digital Media is Transforming Journalistic Labor
Diana Bossio (swinburne.edu.au) is Associate Professor of Media and Communication at Swinburne University (presenter)
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon (cla.umn.edu) is an Associate Professor and Cowles Fellow in Media Management at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication.
Avery Holton (faculty.utah.edu) is an Associate Professor in Communication at The University of Utah
Logan Molyneux (klein.temple.edu) is an Associate Professor in Journalism at Lew Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University.
Other participants
Kari Spjeldnæs (www.kristiania.no) is a PhD Fellow at Kristiania University College/The University of Bergen and a member of the Digitox research group.
Hallvard Moe, UiB, Digitox research group, will chair the seminar.
The seminar is on September 19, 2023, 13:00 - 14:00 (Norwegian time).
Digitox seminar April 2023
At this seminar, Professor Brita Ytre-Arne will talk about her forthcoming book, Media Use in Digital Everyday Life.
Time and place: Apr. 18, 2023 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
About the seminar
In her new book, Ytre-Arne explores the influence of ubiquitous connectivity on daily routines. Media Use in Digital Everyday Life (books.emeraldinsight.com), will be published open access by Emerald this spring.
This seminar offers an opportunity to hear about the book and comments from colleagues.
Through the conceptual approaches of media repertoires and public connection, the book discusses the intensified communicative dilemmas characterising our digital everyday lives.
Media Use in Digital Everyday Life asks how our relationship with media has changed. After the proliferation of smartphones, social media and ubiquitous connectivity, what has happened to the ways we navigate across social domains and structure our daily routines?
Time and date for the seminar is April 18, 2023 at 14:00 - 15:00 (Norwegian time).
Participants
Following Brita Ytre-Arne's introduction to topics on digital disconnection in her new book, Mariek Vanden Abeele and Stine Lomborg will comment, relating to their fields of disconnection research.
Brita Ytre-Arne (uib.no) is a core member of the Digitox project and professor at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen.
Mariek Vanden Abeele (ugent.be) is Associate Professor in Digital Culture at Ghent University in Belgium, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences.
Stine Lomborg (comm.ku.dk) is Associate professor at the Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen.
Kari Spjeldnæs (kristiania.no) (Kristiania University College and Digitox) will chair the seminar.
Digitox seminar February 2023
Digital disengagement and resignation in times of media overload
This seminar deals with urgent questions pertaining to media overload, resistance and inequality in times when big tech companies exercise increasing influence on everyday life. Focusing on citizenship, labour and organizational contexts where digital engagement is compulsory, the presenters offer critical insights on who has the possibility and power to “opt out” of digitality.
Time and place: Feb. 14, 2023 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
At the seminar, Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake will present their new book, Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out button (2022). In addition to a general introduction, they will focus on two particular areas: digital disengagement and citizenship; and digital disengagement and digital labour.
Speaking under the headline “Digital Disconnection and Digital Resignation at Work”, Christoffer Bagger will present findings from his recently defended PhD thesis. What exactly happens to digital disconnection when media usage is compulsory, as in the context of work? And what power does this give organizations in terms of facilitating digital disconnection?
Adi Kuntsman is Reader in Digital Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Previous publications include Selfie Citizenship; Digital Militarism: Israeli Occupation in the Social Media Age (with Rebecca L. Stein); and Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion (with Athina Karatzogianni).
Esperanza Miyake is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Journalism, Media & Communication at the University of Strathclyde, UK. Alongside news media outputs (New York Times, Newsweek Japan) and consultancy on data ethics and privacy, she has authored the book The Gendered Motorcycle: Representations in Society, Media and Popular Culture.
Christoffer Bagger is Research assistant at the Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen. His research centers on the intersection of digital media, work and organization. His PhD thesis, The Medium in The Middle: Workplace from Meta, enterprise social media and the boundary between the personal and the professional, was successfully defended in 2022.
The seminar is chaired by Karin Fast from Digitox/Oslo University and Karlstad University.
Digitox seminar January 2023
Responsibility and regulation: Political paradoxes
This seminar is an opportunity to discuss political aspects of digital disconnection. Empirical research will be presented on attempts to regulate and politicise disconnection, wellbeing and the attention economy, and the political implications of disconnection discourse.
Time and place: Jan. 18, 2023 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
At this seminar, we have invited Niall Docherty to talk about a chapter in his forthcoming book. The chapter is titled 'Sinful Scrolling: Discourses of shame and responsibility on social media and their productive political effects'.
Niall is a Lecturer in Data, AI, and Society at the University of Sheffield, and has also been a post doc at Microsoft Research, read more here
The second presenter is Gunn Enli, who will present research on 'Regulation of platforms, screen time and work life – current trends in the Nordics, Europe/the EU and the USA'. Gunn is a Professor at the University of Oslo and a member of Digitox.
The seminar is chaired by Karin Fast from Digitox/Oslo University and Karlstad University.
Time and date: 18 January 1400-1500 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
We allow time for discussion and questions.
We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
2022
Digitox seminar November 2022
What do we know about digital disconnection in society? Existing and planned surveys, cross-national collaboration.
Qualitative methods dominate digital disconnection research, but more quantitative data are emerging. This seminar will present information from recent surveys mapping motives and strategies for disconnection, revealing age and social differences. Plans for international collaboration on survey data will be presented.
Time and place: Nov. 23, 2022 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this seminar, colleagues are invited to share information about existing and planned surveys in the field of digital disconnection. Plans for future collaboration will also be discussed.
Minh Hao Nguyen will talk about the recent survey she conducted in Switzerland end of 2020 and the US mid-2020. See also the recently published article Everyday disconnection experiences: Exploring people’s understanding of digital well-being and management of digital media use
Malene Hornstrup Jespersen is planning a survey for the Distract project (The Political Economy of Distraction in Digitized Denmark). Together with Hao she will share plans for a cross-national comparative project.
Trine Syvertsen will chair the seminar and present information about existing and planned surveys by the Digitox project and collaborators.
Participants:
Minh Hao Nguyen is a MSCA Fellow at the University of Zurich and an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam.
Malene Hornstrup Jespersen is a PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen.
Trine Syvertsen is a Professor at the University of Oslo
Time and date: Wednesday, November 23, 1500-1600 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
- Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
- About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar October 2022
Dis/Connect final workshop and presentation of results
This seminar/workshop offers an opportunity to reflect on the value of collaborative research. Results are presented from the Dis/Connect project, replicating studies in Portugal initiated by the Norwegian digitox project. Studies of disconnected locations and young people's disconnective practices are presented.
Time and place: Oct. 28, 2022 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM, Zoom - digital
The goal of the Dis/Connect project is to produce cross-national, comparative qualitative research, which is rarely accomplished due to cultural, administrative and linguistic differences. The project is funded by the European body EEA Research Grants.
The project is chaired by Ana Jorge, CICANT, Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal.
Digitox seminars are usually one hour. This event is longer, but feel free to attend for a shorter time.
1000 -1100 Welcome. The dis/connect project, short introduction.
Research presentations:
- Studies of offline locations and venues
- Studies of connection/disconnection among pilgrims
- Ana Jorge, comments by Trine Syvertsen, Faltin Karlsen
1100 Break
1115 Research presentations, continued:
- Studies of young people, digital media use and disconnection experiences
- Patricia Dias, comments by Brita Ytre-Arne
1145 Discussion. Remarks on the value of comparative research.
1200 Short presentation of On & Off, a new project with collaborative elements (Sofia Caldeira)
Wrap-up
Time and date: Friday, October 28, 2022: 1000-1230 (Norwegian time, CEST)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar September 2022
Typologies in disconnection practices
The affordances of the smartphone and digital wellbeing are recurring topics in disconnection studies. The two scholars in this seminar have conceptualized disconnection practices in everyday life into typologies on digital wellbeing and affordances, respectively.
Time and place: Sep. 21, 2022 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Zoom - digital
The speakers at this seminar explore mobile use, digital culture and young people from various perspectives.
Kate Manell is a Research Fellow at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, at The Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. She has published on smartphones and balancing connected life, focusing on the challenges and possibilities inbound to the mobile's digital affordances.
Mariek Vanden Abeele is an Associate Professor in Digital Culture at Ghent University in Belgium, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. She combines media psychological and sociological perspectives to understand better digital media use's role in everyday life and society, and she is especially interested in mobile media use.
Kari Spjeldnæs (Kristiania University College and Digitox) will chair the seminar.
Time and date: 21 September 1000-1100 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar March 2022
Doing disconnection
Can digital disconnection be done through the smartphone? Studies on conscious practices to balance digital life with offline life contribute to our understanding of intrusive media. We have invited two young scholars to share findings from recent research on mobile apps and feature phones.
Time and place: Mar. 23, 2022 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this seminar, we have invited Hannah Kanz from the University of Freiburg. In her ongoing PhD project, she looks at different disconnection practices ranging from the setting of digital detox camps to everyday routines. In her talk Nokia-Lifestyle. Doing Disconnection with feature phones, Hannah Kanz conceptualizes the use of feature phones as a socio-cultural practice and argues to view disconnection as a continuous process. Based on qualitative interviews she discusses first analytical ideas on the roles materiality and affordances play in daily routines of disconnection.
This is followed by a presentation from Yukun You from the University of Oslo and Digitox. She is working on a PhD project called ‘Staying away from your smartphone? The digitalization and gamification of digital detox’, exploring the design of disconnection phone features, gamified detox apps, and users’ engagement with them in everyday life. This presentation is based on her first app study on a productivity app and gamified timer – Forest. Drawing upon disconnection studies and gamification studies, using the app walkthrough method, she investigates the game mechanism and game elements that are carefully designed and used to help users limit their screen time and the implications.
Hannah Kanz studied European Ethnology and History at the Universities of Innsbruck and Belfast. Since 2020 she is a research associate and PhD candidate at the Institut of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology (University of Freiburg). Her research interests include media refusal, negotiations of the good life and parenting culture.
Yukun You studied advertising and media and communication from marketing and academic perspectives at the Universities of Shanghai and Lund. Since 2021 she is a PhD Candidate at the University of Oslo, Department of Media and communication. Her research interests include digital disconnection, screen cultures, digital and social media, smartphone apps, gamification, self-regulation cultures, media audiences/users, domestication theory, and technology affordances.
Kari Spjeldnæs (Kristiania University College and Digitox) will chair the seminar.
Time and date: Thursday, March 23, 2022: 1300-1400 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar February 2022
Information abundance and responsibilization: Key concepts in disconnection research reconsidered
As digital disconnection scholarship is moving forward, what have we learned about key ideas such as information overload and the responsibilization of media users? This seminar presents new research on abundance and responsibilization from different parts of the world.
Time and place: Feb. 24, 2022 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this seminar, professor Pablo Boczkowski will present a new perspective on information overload, drawing on his recent book Abundance - On the experience of living in a world of information plenty. The book focuses on the interpretations, emotions, and practices of dealing with information abundance in everyday life. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and survey research conducted in Argentina, the book inquiries into the role of cultural and structural factors that mediate between the availability of information and the actual consequences for individuals, media, politics, and society.
Professor Gunn Enli from the Digitox project will discuss who is responsible for digital overload. She argues that both the industry and the politicians point to users as responsible for self-regulating and crafting personal media policies. Based on qualitative interviews with Norwegian politicians, she discusses the political shift towards responsibilization and why politicians seem to lack regulatory strategies to cope with the new challenges of information overload.
Brita Ytre-Arne (University of Bergen and Digitox) will chair the seminar.
Time and date: Thursday February 24, 2022: 1400-1500 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar January 2022
Speculative dis/connectivity. A box of pills curing mobile dependency? A 'smartphone' made of stone? To look critically at current and prospective detox practices, we have invited two groups who explore this topic through speculative design and prototype development.
Time and place: Jan. 20, 2022 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Zoom - digital
Agata Agnieszka Cypriak Vel Czupryniak and Clementine Rusten, who have graduated from The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, will present the project Z Futures. The diploma project is based on speculative artefacts designed to help us discuss hyperconnectivity as a social issue. Z Futures illustrates how speculative and experimental design methods can be used for research purposes.
Mateusz Halawa and Magdalena Czarnecka from the SWPS University in Warsaw will present the Mobile Stone Lab. This is an art-based research project exploring the intimate entanglements between smartphones and their users, employing the artwork "mobile stones" by the sculptor Wiktoria Wojciechowska. The talk will highlight methodological uses of art and design in arranging experimental, speculative, and performative "detox situations" as a way into the study of everyday personal media use.
Faltin Karlsen from Kristiania University College, and a participant in the Digitox project, will chair the seminar.
Time and date: Thursday January 20 2022, 1400-1500 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
- About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
2021
Digitox seminar November 2021
Material and moral approaches to disconnection
This seminar contributes to critical disconnection studies by offering a counter-hegemonic research agenda as well as by stressing the material and moral dimensions of disconnective practices.
Time and place: Nov. 30, 2021 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
The seminar proudly welcomes Magdalena Kania-Lundholm (Dalarna University, Sweden) as our invited guest. In her talk Why Disconnecting Matters?: Towards a Critical Research Agenda on Online Disconnection, Kania-Lundholm synthesizes the current literature on digital disconnection to develop a typology of disconnective practices as part of a critical research agenda that challenges the hegemonic ideas about connectivity and emphasizes the materiality of the digital. Kania-Lundholm argues that we need to explore and understand the contexts, meanings and conditions under which disconnection becomes relevant. The aim is also to suggest an ontological and epistemological groundwork for politicizing disconnection that is both empirically grounded and theoretically robust.
Next, under the title Digital distancing as spatial and moral practice, Karin Fast (University of Oslo and Digitox) rethinks digital disconnection as digital distancing. With cues taken from interview data produced within the Digitox project, Fast proposes the concept of ‘digital distancing’ as an alternative way to think about people’s efforts to distance themselves – spatially and morally – from connective media as well as the social norms that such media tend to (re)produce.
Mehri Agai (University of Bergen and Digitox project) will chair the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar October 2021
Disconnection as leisure: digital detox locations
Studies of disconnection in travel and tourism are proliferating. This seminar presents results from the project Dis/Connect in Portugal running parallel to Digitox in Norway, in touristic dead-zones and digital detox programmes. We present results from observations as well as interviews with organizers/funders and participants, and invite discussion on the merits and challenges of comparative studies.
Time and place: Oct. 26, 2021 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox seminar, we are happy to have Ana Jorge and others from the Dis/Connect project as invited guests. This is a comparative project to the digitox project and is doing several parallel studies. The presentation is titled: Disconnection as tourism in Portugal: Experiences of space/time.
This is followed by a presentation by Trine Syvertsen (University of Oslo and Digitox) titled: "It is not about the smartphone". Studies of digitally restricted tourism spaces in the Norwegian countryside.
Faltin Karlsen (Kristiania University College and Digitox) will chair the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar September 2021
News avoidance and digital disconnection
This seminar brings recent research on use and non-use of news into the discussion on digital disconnection, asking how these related strands of work can profit from each other.
Time and place: Sep. 29, 2021 11:00 AM–12:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox digital seminar, we are happy to have Tali Aharoni (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) as an invited guest. The presentation is titled: Understanding news avoidance from a texto-material perspective.
In today’s wide-choice media environment, and against the background of the Covid-19 pandemic, audiences’ engagement with the news media has been declining globally. While previous studies have focused on social- and content-related motivations to bypass the news, the physical attributes of news consumption and how they are interpreted by audiences are crucial to understanding news avoidance. Drawing on cross-national interview data, and inspired by the material turn in journalism-studies, I will presenta texto-material conceptualization of news avoidance as directed at both contents and objects, and in relation to different cultural contexts.
This is followed by a presentation by Hallvard Moe and Brita Ytre-Arne (University of Bergen and Digitox) titled Understanding news saturation: A complimentary concept to resolve problems in the debate on news avoidance
In this presentation, we will argue that the concept of “news avoidance” has derailed, and could use some help from research into digital disconnection. To continue to study what people do or don’t with news, we suggest the term “news saturation” which grasps the need for a balanced diet of good quality, and healthy intakes of individually preferred doses over time. With saturation as a complimentarily concept to avoidance, the field of journalism studies is challenged to conceptualize that there is such a thing as too much news, opening new avenues of empirical research and underlining the need for more sophisticated contextualization.
Trine Syvertsen (University of Oslo and Digitox project) will chair the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to get info on mailing lists and zoom links.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar May 2021
The embodiment of reading in the age of digitalization
What happens to concentration and reading comprehension when longer texts are consumed by screens instead of paper? This seminar will draw some headlines from empirical reading research to the field of disconnection studies, contributing to and challenging our understanding of digital detox.
Time and place: May 12, 2021 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox digital seminar, we are delighted to have Professor Anne Mangen (University of Stavanger) as an invited guest. Anne will introduce recent empirical reading research, under the heading «Reading, materiality and embodiment in the age of digitalization».
This is followed by a presentation by Kari J. Spjeldnæs (Ph.D. Candidate, Kristiania University College): «Pros and cons of digital reading for the reader. Notes from a literary review».
The seminar is chaired by Faltin Karlsen from Digitox and Kristiania University College
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link and info on how to join our mailing list
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar April 2021
Disconnection - new forms and approaches
Disconnection continues to find new expressions in our culture, both in the private sphere and on commercial arenas.
Time and place: Apr. 21, 2021 9:00 AM–10:00 AM, Zoom - digital
In this online seminar, we are happy to have Kristoffer Albris from the University of Copenhagen and Annette Markham from the RMIT University in Melbourne as invited guests. Markham is a member of the Digitox Advisory Board.
Albris will give the presentation Selling the Promise of Presence: The Cultural Imaginaries of Digital Detox Businesses in Denmark which concerns the increasing number of companies who offer silent retreats and mindfulness courses to help people with their (over)use of digital devices and platforms. Albris will outline how this emerging industry seek to promote their products in various ways, but most notably by promising potential customers that they can take back control of their own presence in the world.
Annette Markham will present her recent theoretical work around “The Ontological Insecurity of Disconnecting: an Echolocation Theory of Sociality in the Digital Epoch. Focusing on what happens when we disconnect, at the micro sociological level, reveals interesting echolocative communication patterns otherwise not noticed. Disconnection disrupts the continuous stream of call and response patterns of interaction, and examining this as a matter of positioning and locating the self can enrich our understanding of the deep feelings of existential vulnerability associated with being discconnected.
Trine Syvertsen (Digitox project) will chair the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar March 2021
Digital disconnection for whom? Global and social inequalities
In a world of global and social inequalities, for whom is digital disconnection a choice or even a possibility? This seminar presents interventions and discusses research challenges regarding inequality and digital disconnection research.
Time and place: Mar. 18, 2021 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox digital seminar, we are happy to have Emiliano Treré (Cardiff University) as an invited guest. He will present research on the COVID-19 lockdown and deliver a provocation on engagement with context-specific inequalities in the Global South, titled Beyond Disconnective Reductionism: Expanding Contexts, Boundaries and Imaginaries of Digital Disconnection Research.
This is followed by a presentation by Mehri S. Agai (University of Bergen, Digitox PhD candidate), who is doing qualitative research on digital disconnection and social inequality amongst young people in Norway.
Karin Fast (University of Oslo, Digitox project) will chair the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar February 2021
Off the grid: Digital disconnection, technology and social space
Where and how do different people disconnect? How does new technology promote disconnection - to whom? This seminar provides insights into the (unequal) geographies of digital disconnection, by scrutinizing 'locative disconnection' and by locating disconnection sentiments in social space.
Time and place: Feb. 17, 2021 9:00 AM–10:00 AM, Zoom - digital
The seminar starts with a presentation by Alex Beattie (Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington) and Elija Cassidy (Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology).
They theorize that location-based technologies transform the practice of disconnecting from the internet.
Their presentation is titled: “The use of location and technology to make disconnection easier, enforceable and more exclusive”.
Thereafter, Karin Fast (Media and communication, UiO) presents a co-authored paper.
The paper inquires how attitudes toward digital (dis)connection (in different places) play into overarching patterns of taste and cultural distinction.
The title of her paper is: "Disconnection as distinction: A Bourdieusian study of where people withdraw from digital media".
The discussion is chaired by Mehri Agai, UiB and Digitox.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- Send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link and join the mailing list.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox seminar January 2021
How to study disconnection and detox? A panel on challenges and opportunities of larger projects
Research on digital detoxing and disconnection is expanding, but most studies are small. In this seminar, we hear from participants in three of the larger European projects, funded by national research councils and the ERC. The seminar discusses the challenges and opportunities for larger projects in this field.
Time and place: Jan. 13, 2021 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox seminar, we are happy to have Mariek Vanden Abeele and Clara Wieghorst as invited guests. Together with Trine Syvertsen they will briefly present their projects and point to challenges and opportunities.
Clara is member of the research team Disconnectivity: Imaginaries, media technologies, politics at Leuphana University of Lüneburg.
Mariek is just starting her ERC-project Digital Wellbeing in a Culture of Ubiquitous Connectivity: Towards a Dynamic Pathway Model (DISCONNECT), read more on the ERC website (scroll down).
Trine Syvertsen is chairing Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
Brita Ytre-Arne is chairing the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link and info on how to join our mailing list
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
2020
Digitox digital seminar December 2020
Atypical media work in the culture of (dis)connectivity
What constitutes media ‘work’ in the current culture of capitalism and under the daily pressures of constant connectivity? This seminar challenges conventional perceptions of work and labour by inquiring media work that takes place under atypical conditions and by conceptualizing digital disconnection as (re)productive work.
Time and place: Dec. 8, 2020 11:00 AM–12:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox digital seminar, we are delighted to have Mark Deuze (University of Amsterdam and Digitox advisory board) as an invited guest.
Mark will outline a theory of atypical media work, under the heading: "Toward a theory of atypical media work and social hope".
This is followed by a presentation by Karin Fast (Media and communication, UiO), which recognizes the "toil and drudgery" of digital disconnection in post-Fordist lives:
"Digital disconnection as (re)productive work"
Gunn Enli (IMK, UiO) is chairing the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please subscribe to the notifications and send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox digital seminar November 2020
Intrusive media and disconnection dilemmas in work and family life
As digital media use is closely interwoven in everyday activities across social domains, dilemmas of disconnection play out in a range of contexts. This seminar features presentations of ongoing empirical research on intrusive media and digital disconnection in work and family life.
Time and place: Nov. 2, 2020 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox digital seminar, we are happy to have Stine Lomborg (University of Copenhagen and Digitox advisory board) as an invited guest.
Stine will speak about an ongoing conceptual and empirical study of productivity tracking: "Everyday AI at the work/life intersection”.
This is followed by a presentation by Brita Ytre-Arne (Infomedia, UiB) on a qualitative interview study with parents on intrusive media and disconnection norms in family life.
Hallvard Moe (Infomedia, UiB) is chairing the discussion.
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please subscribe to the notifications and send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox digital seminar October 2020
The power of design: Intrusive media and design principles
Whether media technology is experienced as inviting or invading, pleasant or disturbing, may very well rest on its design. In this seminar, we discuss different design approaches and design principles that are at play when the designer crafts the foundations of our media experiences.
Time and place: Oct. 14, 2020 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
This time we are happy to have Sebastian Deterding as an invited guest. He works at the Digital Creativity Labs at the University of York, and is also a member of Digitox' advisory board.
In his talk, he will discuss some of the ethical conundrums and problematic issues in the current screen time and digital disconnection discourse.
This is followed by a presentation by Faltin Karlsen (Kristiania University College) under the heading "Design and undesign".
He will discuss design principles that may inhibit unwanted use or raise awareness of how media technology influences our lives.
The discussion is chaired by Karin Fast (IMK, UiO)
Time and date October 14, 13-14 (Norwegian time)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please subscribe to the notifications and send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.
Digitox digital seminar September 2020
Talking about disconnection
The field of disconnection studies is growing, but fundamental questions remain about whether disconnection is possible and what we really talk about when we use terms like 'disconnection'.
Time and place: Sep. 18, 2020 1:00 PM–2:00 PM, Zoom - digital
In this Digitox digital seminar, we are happy to have Taina Bucher (IMK, UiO) as an invited guest.
Taina will speak about her recent article in Media, Culture and Society "Nothing to disconnect from"
This is followed by a presentation by Hallvard Moe (Infomedia, UiB) and Ole Jacob Madsen (Psychology, UiO).
They will speak about their article-in-progress: "What we talk about when we talk about 'digital disconnection'".
Trine Syvertsen (IMK, UiO) is chairing the discussion.
18 september 2020 13-14 (Norwegian time = CEST)
Organizer
Digitox: Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox
About the digitox seminar series:
- Digitox welcomes academics and students to its digital seminars, usually one every month.
- If you are interested in attending, please send an email to trine.syvertsen@media.uio.no to obtain the zoom link and info on how to join the mailing list.
- The format is usually two short presentations, one from an invited guest and one from the Digitox project.
- We allow ample time for discussion and questions.
- We also welcome you to share information about upcoming and current publications and events pertaining to disconnection and detox.