Disconnecting from Communication Technologies

Special Report: Disconnections
By Francis Jauréguiberry
English

Going off-line is a pattern that seems to reflect a need to regain control over communication technologies. It is always sporadic and usually partial. People go off-line to get away from too much unwanted information, from constant demands on their attention, from a continual sense of urgency, from management pressure and control, or from a sense of being under surveillance. In these circumstances, going off-line equates with finding space to breathe, creating a distance, getting back to one’s own pace and having time of one’s own. But it also perfectly illustrates a salient feature of the hypermodern individual, the person who is not content just to keep up with accelerating modernity (through an instrumental capacity to act rationally upon reality and a thirst for change and novelty), but instead questions it thanks to an enhanced capacity for reflection on choices and the unease that this can bring.

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