Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement : : In Search of the Opt-Out Button / / Adi Kuntsman, Esperanza Miyake.

• VerfasserIn: Kuntsman, Adi,; Miyake, Esperanza,
• TeilnehmendeR: Miyake, Esperanza,
• Place / Publishing House: London : : University of Westminster Press,, 2022.
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (xiv, 198 pages)

Life is increasingly governed and mediated through digital and smart technologies, platforms, big data and algorithms. However, the reasons, practices and impact of how the digital is used by different institutions are often deeply linked to social oppression and injustice. Similarly, the ability to resist these digital impositions is based on inequality and privilege. Challenging the ways in which we are increasingly dependent on the digital, this book raises a set of provocative and urgent questions: in a world of compulsory digitality is there an opt out button? Where, when, how, why and to whom is it available? Answering these questions has become even more relevant since the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the book puts forward the concept of 'digital disengagement' which is explored across six key areas of digitisation: health; citizenship; education; consumer culture; labour; and the environment.Part I examines the difficulty of opting out of compulsory digitality in a world where most things are digital by default. From health apps, algorithmic decision-making to learning analytics, opting out comes with a set of troubling consequences. Part II turns to several examples of disconnection and disengagement. The chapters reveal how phenomena like digital detoxes, time-management apps and online 'green' spaces are co-opted by the very digital systems one is trying to resist.The book critiques issues relating to digital surveillance, algorithmic discrimination and biased tech, corporatisation and monetisation of data, exploitative digital labour, digitalised self-discipline and destruction of the environment. As an interdisciplinary piece of work, the book will be useful to any scholar and activist in Digital, Internet and Social Media Studies; Digital Sociology and Social Policy; Digital Health; Media, Popular and Communication Studies; Consumer culture; and Environment Studies.

Table of Contents

List of Figures ix -- Preface xi Introduction 1 -- In Search of the Opt-Out Button 1 Digital Disengagement Beyond Social Refusals 5 Digital Disengagement Beyond Motivations and Practices 7 Networked Technologies and the Material (Im)possibilities -- of Disconnection 9 An Elastic Continuum of Connection and Disconnection 10 The Road Ahead 12 Bibliography 14 -- Part I: Where Is the Opt-Out? 19 -- 1. Digital Health: Data Traps at Our Fingertips 21 -- Introduction 21 NHS Digital and the App Library: What Is One Opting Out Of? 23 Between the Local and the Global, the Legal and the Technical 26 Contact Tracing Apps and Performative Data Consciousness 29 Individual and Collective Opt-Outs 31 Conclusion: From Data Rights to Data Justice 34 Bibliography 35 -- 2. Automated Governance: Digital Citizenship in the Age of Algorithmic Cruelty 41 -- Introduction 41 The State's New Digital Clothes 43 The State's New Digital Weapons 47 Imagining Alternatives 50 Conclusion: From Digital Violence to Digital Self-Defence 52 Bibliography 53 -- 3. Education in the Age of 'Corporate YouTube': Big Data Analytics Meets Instafamous 59 -- Introduction 59 Panopto: The 'Corporate YouTube' 60 Educational Analytics: Data Mining and Measuring Pedagogical Success 61 Insta-Teacher: Performance Monitoring the Performance of Pedagogy 64 Opting In for Digital Disengagement 68 Lecture Capture and the Captive 'Data Double': The Persistence of Data -- and Digital Rights 71 Conclusion: We Don't Need No Education? 73 Bibliography 75 -- Part II: Digital Disengagement between Co-optation and Resistance 79 -- 4. Consuming Digital Disengagement: The High Cost of Opting Out 81 -- Introduction 81 Cyclic Digital Double-Bind 82 Consuming Digital Disengagement During Covid-19: Social Distancing and Contactless Connectivity 88 Conclusion: The Self-Fulfilling and Self-Consuming Prophecy of Opting Out 92 Bibliography 92 -- 5. The Labour of Digital Disengagement: Time and the Luxury of Opting Out 97 -- Introduction 97 Moment Family: Digital and Affective Labour 98 The Labour of Digital Re-Engagement 102 The Luxury of Opting Out: Who Has the Time? 103 Covid-19: The Visibility of Privilege 106 Conclusion: The Hamster Work-Wheel of Digital Disengagement 108 Bibliography 109 -- 6. Digital Disengagement and the Environment: Solutionism, Greenwashing and Partial Opt-Outs 113 -- Introduction 113 -- Escaping the Digital into the Pastoral: The Semiotic Extractivism of Digital Detoxes 114 Are Digital Technologies Here to Save the Planet? Environmental Sustainability and Digital Solutionism 119 Partial Refusals 123 The Pandemic and Beyond 127 Conclusion: Digital Disengagement as Radical Environmental Responsibility 128 Bibliography 130 -- Conclusion: Paradoxes and the Elastic Continuum -- of Digital Disengagement 137 -- So Is There an Opt-Out Button? 137 Beyond Disconnection 141 Revisiting Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: Resistance, -- Compulsory Connectivity and Co-optation 143 An Elastic Continuum Revisited: Expanding and Shrinking Possibilities of Opt-Out 144 Opt-Out as a Path Towards Collective Justice 147 Future Pathways Beyond Digital Inevitability 150 Bibliography 152 -- Index 155.