A Decade of Digital Disconnection Research in Review: Where, What, How and Who?

The backlash against digital media has manifested in everyday practices of media refusal and non-use. This chapter seeks to create an overview of the last decade of empirical disconnection research, tracing both its overarching tendencies and its boundaries. This is done through an analysis of 348 empirical studies on digital disconnection. For the purposes of this chapter, digital disconnection is defined by a research ethos which does not see the act of disconnection as something to be remedied. In review, the typical interest of the research has been in studying relatively young and individualized agents’ disconnection from social media, and often in a temporary manner. Therefore, the discussion portion of the chapter considers the opportunity for the openness of digital disconnection studies to extend even further, with particular emphasis on structures and contexts where disconnection may not only be problematized by the imperatives of “always on” communication, specifically in working life.