I am just finishing off the final draft of a new book (Digital Degrowth: Radically Rethinking our Digital Futures) and having to cut out a few thousand words to meet the word limit … I’ll post some of these lost excepts on this blog.

**

Even the most digitally advantaged among us are beginning to increasingly feel aware that digital technologies are not a wholly positive presence in our lives. Indeed, the past decade has seen rising disenchantment amongst the middle classes with their digital lifestyles – something that Tung-Hui Hu (2024) has described as collective ‘digital lethargy’ – i.e. “the exhaustion, disappointment, and listlessness experienced under digital capitalism”.

While most people might fall short of calling out the failings of digital capitalism, there is growing enthusiasm for remedies to the pressure of contemporary digital living – not least in the form of digital detoxes and other mindful efforts to achieve a better digital balance (Alexander and Yacoumis 2018). 

While it is easy to scoff at such trends as baseless fads being peddled by the ‘wellness-industrial complex’ (Petersen 2021), the digital detox movement is indicative of tangible discomfort. For example, people are now more willing to express unease with the hyper-consumerism being fuelled by online advertising, online shopping and social media displays of conspicuous consumption. 

People are also increasingly resentful of the ways in which digital technologies encroach on personal leisure time, push paid work activities into homes, and generally encroach on any space that we might have carved out to feel fully relaxed and ‘offline’. People are also more vocal about how digital technology is a driver of poor health, diminished interpersonal interactions, and a general state of exhaustion, depression, and various other ills. 

All things being equal, most people would now think twice before declaring digital technologies to be a positive presence in their lives. Digital technologies are no longer something (if they ever were) that unequivocally make us feel good.

References

Ǎlexander, S. and Yacoumis, P. (2018). Degrowth, energy descent and ‘low-tech’ living. Journal of Cleaner Production, 197:1840-1848. 

Petersen, V. (2021). Breaking down the ‘wellness-industrial complex,’ an episode at a time. New York Times, 9thSeptember, www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/dining/wellness-industrial-complex-maintenance-phase.html

Tung Hui, H. (2024). Digital lethargy. MIT Press