Digital networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter have revolutionized everyday human interaction by facilitating the search for, and access to, information, entertainment, and social connection. But with the rise of digital surveillance and data extraction for profit, more people are seeking not just to disconnect from technology but to fully disentangle themselves from the widespread social, economic, and political networks of digital communications. Disentangling offers an interdisciplinary global analysis of this growing trend toward disconnection. Moving beyond technological disconnection, this volume proposes the term "disentangling" as a lens for re-thinking the structures of our digital world and categorizing the ways in which people reject, avoid, or rework their digital networks. Across twelve chapters, contributors explore the existential issues stemming from digitally entangled lives, including cultural capital and digital "detox" retreats, and investigate how geographies of disconnection relate to wider societal challenges. Additional chapters explore connections between digital disconnection and other forms of disconnection, including death, sleep, and the abandonment of human settlements. The volume closes with a reflection on connectivity in the post-pandemic society and how we might rework our connections to fit a "socially distanced" world. Blending philosophy and sociology with media geography, Disentangling offers a crucial reflection on how we might unravel our digital dependence by reasserting resilient boundaries between ourselves and the surrounding political, economic, cultural, and technological systems.

About the Author
Andre Jansson is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Karlstad University, where he is also director of the Geomedia Research Group. Paul C. Adams is Professor of Geography and Director of Urban Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the founder of the Media Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers. His research bridges between media studies, communication theory and human geography.

Reviews
This collection offers a brilliant series of reflections on our increasingly ambivalent response to the digital tendrils that captivate and capture us. The result is a profound and riveting meditation on the fate of sociality in our increasingly networked world. * Mark Andrejevic, Monash University *
In today's hyperconnected world, it is imperative to understand the geographies, experiences, and impacts of digital disconnection. Disentangling offers an important intervention for anyone seeking to understand what it means for people and places to switch off. * Mark Graham, Oxford Internet Institute *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197571880
Author Andre Jansson
Format Paperback
Page Count 344
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 404g
Dimensions(mm) 142mm * 212mm * 22mm