Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Reckoning with Social Media: Disconnection in the Age of the Techlash

Once celebrated for connecting people and circulating ideas, social media are facing mounting criticisms about their anticompetitive reach, addictive design, and toxicity to democracy. Known cumulatively as the "techlash," journalists, users, and politicians are asking social media platforms to account for being too big, too engaging, and too unruly. In the age of the techlash, strategies to regulate how platforms operate technically, economically, and legally, are often stacked against individual tactics to manage the effects of social media by disconnecting from them. These disconnection practices-from restricting screen time and detoxing from device use to deleting apps and accounts-often reinforce rather than confront the ways social media organize attention, everyday life, and society. Reckoning with Social Media challenges the prevailing critique of social media that pits small gestures against big changes, that either celebrates personal transformation or champions structural reformation. This edited volume reframes evaluative claims about disconnection practices as either restorative or reformative of current social media systems by beginning where other studies conclude: the ambivalence, commodification, and complicity of separating from social media. About the Author Aleena Chia is assistant professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research on gaming and digital cultures has been published in journals such as Television & New Media, American Behavioral Scientist, and the Journal of Fandom Studies. Her previous research positions include postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies and Ph.D. Intern at Microsoft Research New England. Her work has been supported by a fieldwork grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, training from Cornell University’s School of Criticism and Theory, and an invitation to the Social Science FOO Camp at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park. Ana Jorge is guest assistant professor of communication at the Catholic University of Portugal, University NOVA of Lisbon, and Instituto Superior Miguel Torga, in Portugal. She researches on children, youth, families and media, audiences, celebrity and microcelebrity, and digital disconnection. Under these areas, Ana explores how media technologies are appropriated and negotiated in specific cultural contexts. Her research has been published in journals of Media and Communications, and Cultural Studies areas, such as Social Media + Society, Journal of Children and Media, Celebrity Studies, Cyberpsychology and Communications; in collections Childhood & Celebrity, Celebrity and Youth, and Internet of Toys. Ana has co-edited a volume, Digital Parenting , with Mascheroni and Ponte, and special issues in Portuguese and Spanish journals (including in English) Mediterranean Journal of Communication, Observatorio(OBS*) and Media & Jornalismo. She serves as vicechair of ECREA’s Digital Culture and Communication section (2016-20). Tero Karppi is assistant professor at the University of Toronto. He teaches at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology and the Faculty of Information. He is the author of Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds and his research has been published in journals such as Theory, Culture & Society, Social Media + Society, and International Journal of Cultural Studies.