Disconnection

In most large Australian cities recent metropolitan strategies have become prominent in state political affairs. At the same time, newly-discovered but long-brewing constraints to economic growth have brought infrastructure issues to national prominence. This might seem propitious for urban affairs. However, there is too little real connection between them. Misfits exist in at least four dimensions: between metropolitan strategies adopted by state (and in Brisbane’s case also local) governments and the often unrelated practices of urban infrastructure procurement, between the national focus on economic and industrial infrastructure and urban infrastructure service backlogs, between older metrowide infrastructure systems that made them primary instruments for urban management and newer technologically-enabled splintering of infrastructure supply options (after Graham and Marvin 2001), and between a public-sector-centric model of urban growth management made less relevant by private p...

Previous research has indicated that media technologies and media use form an important cultural glue within generations. Younger generations, in particular, have been noted to build their generational identity around the technology and devices that they use. We believe it is important to explore how generations and shared identities are constructed, especially in unusual circumstances that lead to in-depth self-reflexivity. The aim of this study was to see how the disruption of habitual social media use helps to outline the generational self-construction of young adults. We invited 19-23-year-old students (N=42) to disrupt their habitual media use by participating in a five-day social media detox and to reflect upon this experience in their social media detox diaries. By doing so, the young in our sample helped to self-narrate and construct their generation-al identity characteristic of present-day youth. Our findings indicate that many of the young participants, indeed recognized social media as dominant generational glue, and expressed annoyance and submissive resignation when looking at the practices of themselves and their peers, who were described in most cases as "addicted" to smart devices. Disruption from the norm of constant availability and affordances of social media offered the participants an outsider's look at their own everyday lives: seeing their peers engaged with technology and not being able to do the same enabled them to assume a reflexive attitude, contributing to the making of a generation and offered a novel perspective on both individual and generational media use. As people are increasingly encouraged to resist and self-regulate in the context of pervasive media, self-reflexivity-heavy social media detoxes can be used as tools for building resilience and can even unfold to become a part of the generational glue itself.

Background: Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress have been reported among the general population during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the adjustment after the emergency phase remains under-investigated. This study aims to understand the adjustment processes of the population after the emergency phase of the pandemic. Methods: We conducted a grounded theory based on the experience of 24 clinical psychologists who provided extensive support to the population during the pandemic in different Italian regions. Three online focus groups were conducted. The transcripts of the focus groups were analyzed through a process of open, axial, and selective coding. Data collection terminated once thematic saturation was reached. Results: Repositioning emerged as the evolutionary task people were confronted with in the face of a New Reality. Repositioning meant dealing with and integrating unpleasant Emotional Experiences deriving from the lockdown and reopening (i.e., unsafety, emotional exhaustion, loneliness, uncertainty, loss, and disconnection) through different Coping Strategies. Repositioning was facilitated or hindered by contextual and individual Intervening Conditions and led to two Adjustment Outcomes: growth or block. Conclusion: Results suggest that repositioning was the core task people had to face after the emergency phase of COVID-19. Proactive psychological interventions may support the population in repositioning in order to prevent maladjustment and encourage post-traumatic growth.

La monografia ricostruisce l’interpretazione che Jacques Derrida ha dato della filosofia di Nietzsche. Il quadro teorico più generale in cui si inserisce è quello dei rapporti fra la filosofia e la sua forma scritta, letto come tema trasversale nel pensiero contemporaneo. A partire da un’indagine sul valore antimetafisico della scrittura di Nietzsche, la monografia rilancia le seguenti domande: che cos’è un oggetto filosofico, e qual è il suo rapporto con la produzione scritta, con la contraddizione e con il corpo?

Energy is central to driving not only productivity in the broader economy, but has a fundamental role for enabling minimum living standards in the residential sector through the energy services provided. These energy services are crucial to ensure warm homes, provide water supply and cooking, lighting, refrigeration and the operation of other electrical appliances. However, some households across all Member States are increasingly struggling to meet their basic energy needs due to energy prices increasing faster than household budgets, poorly insulated buildings and inefficient household appliances leading to higher energy bills. Estimates based on proxy indicators suggest 10-25% of the European population could already be affected by energy poverty to some extent. Given the rising income inequality across Europe and the associated costs of the energy transition, the share of households experiencing energy poverty is likely to increase. Energy poverty is gaining visibility in European legislation, as is the need to protect vulnerable consumers in the gas and electricity markets. The transition to a liberalised retail market for electricity and gas means that the market system increasingly rules the way retailers and consumers interact with each other, as the use of market distorting measures such as regulated prices or energy subsidies to households are removed. While this should increase opportunity for consumers to find the best deal to suit their needs, some households will need additional protection in such a market. Therefore, protective mechanisms are vital to enabling vulnerable energy consumers to access the full benefits of the market, which may not be otherwise available due to issues such as energy affordability. With over 17% of the European population at risk of poverty and 10% in arrears on utility accounts in 2014, this points towards the need to reevaluate the measures in place to safeguard lower income and other vulnerable households given increasing liberalisation under the Internal Energy Market. The objective of this report was to appraise measures associated with ensuring vulnerable consumers are able to afford and maintain a connection to electricity and gas with a particular view of supporting the European Commission’s directorate of Internal Energy Market in assessing which legislative support can be provided across the European Union in the revision of the electricity and gas Directives of the Third Energy Package. This report specifically fed into the impact assessment for the revisions reflected in the European Commission’s proposal for a Clean Energy Package. Firstly, we reviewed how different Member States have implemented specific protection measures (financial transfers, disconnection safeguards and social tariffs). Following this review, an economic assessment compared existing and alternative schemes for the implementation of protective measures across the EU. Finally, recommendations were made regarding the types of measures that provide minimum protection standards for vulnerable consumers in the energy sector.

This study explores forms of social media fatigue described by professional journalists, including frustration with the perception of their increased affective labor, dissatisfaction with communication environments on particular social media platforms, and increased anxiety about the possible impact of social media use on both their professional reputations and personal well-being. We argue that these forms of social media fatigue have influenced new professional practices on social media practice that include strategies of disconnecting from, but not necessarily terminating, social media use. Using a comparative analysis of semistructured interviews with Australian and American professional journalists, this study illustrates that experiences of social media fatigue over time have resulted in a careful renegotiation of professional and personal boundaries around journalists’ social media use, influenced by the technological, social, and cultural affordances of specific media platforms, organizational and institutional constraints, as well as the online literacies and behaviors of journalists themselves.

One of the basic underlying interests of Karl Mannheim’s social theory of generations in the late 1920s was his interest in understanding social change1 . Despite this original interest, many who have studied generations have focused on specific cohorts, trying to get to grips with the generational identities of baby boomers, or millennials. This trend is further strengthened by the advertising and consumer industries trying to label consumer groups in terms of generation X, Z or the equivalent, in their search for relevant target groups. In this special issue, we would like to return to the theme of generations and social change, with a specific focus on the role of time and memory in the process of generation formation. The themes of generations, time and memory are indeed interrelated in complex webs of interconnections. Social memory is also often related to media, such as the family album of photographs, where – especially during vacations and summer holidays – intergenerational encounters are documented and preserved for posterity. As such, generational theory deals with social processes of change, processes that can also be said to produce time. In the process of ‘generationing’, memories of past experiences, often tainted with nostalgia, are an important ingredient, where people situated in the same location of the historical process can come together through common experiences and the memories thereof. Such remembrances are often mediated in various ways; they can be formed around ‘media events’ , or be focussed on media technologies or contents from one’s formative years. Social memory, as a collective phenomenon, is also characterized by the encounters between different generational memories, as well as of institutionalized forms of memory work, for example in media features of “baby boomers” or “millennials” in the press or on television, providing with prescriptions for how to behave as a member of a certain generation. These encounters also produce time, where the memories of specific generations (or generation units) are relationally situated to other memories. This special issue brings together a group of researchers from Italy, Sweden, Estonia and Portugal, discussing the temporal aspects of generation theory and of memory formation in order to better understand the temporal categories of experience, and of social existence more generally.

Cet article s’intéresse au vécu expérientiel d’une population de cadres équipés en TIC. En s’appuyant sur le lien entre risques psychosociaux au travail et usages des dispositifs communicationnels, son contenu met en évidence les capacités mobilisatrices des individus pour contourner les effets insatisfaisants de la mise en usage des TIC (mésusages du mail, caractéristiques disruptives, porosité entre les sphères de vie). Les stratégies développées par les cadres pour faire face aux problématiques organisationnelles, collectives et individuelles médiées par les TIC constituent différentes formes de déconnexion (du filtrage à la préservation, de la connexion maîtrisée à la déconnexion totale). L’objectif sous-jacent au déploiement de ces régulations est celui de la structuration des temporalités : à travers ces arts de faire, les cadres cherchent à orienter la dynamique de connexion en fonction de leurs besoins personnels et professionnels, autrement dit à adapter leurs usages à leur propre rythme.

This article focuses on the technical experience of a population of executives equipped in ICT. Based on the relationship between psychosocial risks at work and uses of communicational devices, the content highlights the mobilizing capacity of individuals to cope with the adverse effects of the of ICT use (misuse of email, disruptive characteristics, porosity between spheres of life). The strategies developed by the executives to deal with problems mediated by ICT (from organization of work, from collective, and individual issues) takes the form of different disconnection (from the filtering to the preservation, from the connection mastered to the total disconnection). The purpose underlying the deployment of these strategy is the structuring of temporality : through these “arts to do”, the executives try to steer the dynamics of connection based on their personal and professional needs, that is to say to do converge their uses at their own pace.

This article examines millennials' experience of platform-specific disconnection, focusing on the ambiguous intersection of engagement and disengagement with social media. Drawing on 16 semi-structured interviews with (non)users 1 who have quit specific social media platforms while remaining users on other platforms, this study addresses a specific practice of social media disengagement as a phenomenon, regardless of the (non)users' demographics. As a result, the study introduces phases leading up to platform-specific disconnection, which can extend to, or derive from, other practices of media rejection and resistance. These different stages refer to the technical and social affordances that influence users in their decision to (dis)engage with specific platforms, revealing a bias between the perception of the phenomenon and the lived experience of the disconnected. By visualizing the process of platform-specific disengagement, this paper provides novel insight into media resistance and non-use, and challenges the misconception of disconnecting in the digital age.

To assess the contribution of microstructural normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) damage to social cognition impairment, specifically in the theory of mind (ToM), in multiple sclerosis (MS). We enrolled consecutively 60 patients with MS and 60 healthy controls (HC) matched on age, sex, and education level. All participants underwent ToM testing (Eyes Test, Videos Test) and 3T brain MRI including conventional and diffusion tensor imaging sequences. Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) were applied for whole-brain voxel-wise analysis of fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) on NAWM. Patients with MS performed worse on both tasks of ToM compared to HC (Eyes Test 58.7 ± 13.8 vs 81.9 ± 10.4, p < 0.001, Hedges g -1.886; Videos Test 75.3 ± 9.3 vs 88.1 ± 7.1, p < 0.001, Hedges g -1.537). Performance on ToM tests was correlated with higher values of FA and lower values of MD across widespread white matter tracts. The largest effects (≥90% of voxels with statistical sig...

This paper attends to the idea of disconnection as a way of theorising people's lived experience of social networking sites. Enrolling and extending a disconnective practice lens we suggest that the disconnective strategies of suspension and prevention are operational necessities for those we might see as the users and owners of sites such as Facebook. Indeed, our work demonstrates that disconnection in these contexts need not be associated only with modes of resistance and departure, but can also act as socioeconomic lubricant.

A fascination for the authentic is pervasive in contemporary culture. This article discusses texts recommending digital detox and how these accentuate dilemmas of what it means to be authentically human in the age of constant connectivity. Digital detox can be defined as a periodic disconnection from social or online media, or strategies to reduce digital media involvement. Digital detox stands in a long tradition of media resistance and resistance to new communication technologies, and non-use of media, but advocates balance and awareness more than permanent disconnection. Drawing on the analysis of 20 texts promoting digital detox: self-help literature, memoirs and corporate websites, the article discusses how problems with digital media are defined and recommended strategies to handle them. The analysis is structured around three dominant themes emerging in the material: descriptions of temporal overload and 24/7 connectivity, experiences of spatial intrusion and loss of contact with ‘real life’ and descriptions of damage to body and mind. A second research topic concerns how arguments for digital detox can be understood within a wider cultural and political context. Here, we argue that digital detox texts illuminate the rise of a self-regulation society, where individuals are expected to take personal responsibility for balancing risks and pressures, as well as representing a form of commodification of authenticity and nostalgia.

This article explores LGBTIQ+ young people’s use of Tumblr—a social media platform often associated with queer youth cultures. Drawing on data from surveys ( N = 1,304) and interviews ( N = 23) with LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia, we argue that existing notions of “queer community” through digital media participation do not neatly align with young people’s Tumblr practices. Our participants use Tumblr for connecting with others, yet these connections can be indirect, short term, and anonymous. Connections are often felt and practiced without directly communicating with other users, and many participants described their connections to the Tumblr platform itself as intense, pivotal to learning about genders and sexualities, and sometimes “toxic.” We suggest that Tumblr use intensities reflect many young people’s (dis)connections to queer life. Participant accounts of Tumblr use for identity, well-being, and (dis)connection practices can usefully inform health, education, and commun...

Alexia without agraphia is a disconnection syndrome that typically involves damage to the occipital lobe, with splenium involvement, in the dominant left hemisphere. We describe
an exceptionally rare case of a right-handed individual displaying this deficit following a right-sided occipital stroke. A report of a single case of a 65-year-old man is presented
with data from appointments with the neurology and neuropsychology departments that occurred approximately 10 and 12 months following the patient's stroke. During the
evaluation, he exhibited a marked deficit in his ability to read, with vision grossly intact. His ability to write single words and short phrases from dictation was intact, but he was
later unable to read them. This case demonstrates the complexity of the organization of language in the human brain. Although a large majority of individuals exhibit language
dominance in their left hemispheres, it remains possible that some right-handed individuals may show atypical organization of language. This highlights the need for clinicians to consider atypical cortical organization when observed deficits may not
necessarily match expected lesions within the cortex.

This contribution argues that companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google are increasingly incorporating features that supposedly promote “digital wellbeing” to forestall regulation of their platforms and services. The inclusion of these features, we suggest, frames these commercial platforms as providing a social good by promising to encourage more “intentional” or “mindful” use of social media and mobile devices. Apple’s June 2018 iOS update, for example, included a new function called Screentime, which incorporates features similar to other digital wellbeing mobile apps including the ability to impose time limits on the use of specific apps and data analytics on amount of time a user spends on their device.

The introduction of these features demonstrates how oft-critiqued platforms are increasingly adopting the language of their critics in order to frame themselves as a social good. This strategy mimics that used by radio executives in the United States in the early 20th century, where the medium developed as a fully commercial enterprise. To avoid regulation, it became necessary to perpetuate the perception that commercial broadcasters were also a social good that fulfilled a public service function. Popular entertainment programming was thus supplemented with “high culture” music programmes (e.g., classical music), news, and “home services” shows. Platforms today, we assert, are inadvertently or purposefully adopting a similar tactic to position themselves as leaders in a developing digital wellness market in the hopes of avoiding future governmental regulation.

L’intervista Nietzsche e la macchina, pubblicata nel 1994, rappresenta l’ultimo testo esplicitamente dedicato a Nietzsche da parte di Derrida, che vi coglie l’occasione per tracciare le linee di una valutazione retrospettiva, per certi versi inedita, di tutto il suo lavoro sul filosofo tedesco. Ma Derrida elabora anche un significativo aggiornamento della propria immagine di Nietzsche, mettendola a confronto con i principali temi etico-politici che caratterizzano la sua riflessione di quegli anni. Ne risulta un rilancio di Nietzsche, tanto potente quanto problematico, come pensatore dell’aporia e del futuro. Come può oggi la riflessione filosofica decifrare la struttura disconnessa, «out of joint», del reale e della storia, e sperare di incidervi? Solamente, suggerisce Derrida, assumendosi il rischio di partire, ogni volta, da un pensiero come quello di Nietzsche: costitutivamente inattuale, in sé pericolosamente disarticolato ed esposto alla contraddizione. Un pensiero che lavori fra l’interno e l’esterno della macchina filosofica.

Une technique de recueil de données qualitatives peu utilisée en SIC, la technique des incidents critiques, a été utilisée au cours d'une étude menée auprès de 62 cadres sur leurs pratiques de connexion aux outils de communication mobiles. Reposant sur la narration d'événements critiques en lien avec les usages des TIC, les résultats mettent en évidence les apports et les limites de cette méthode.

Energy is central to driving not only productivity in the broader economy, but has a fundamental role for enabling minimum living standards in the residential sector through the energy services provided. These energy services are crucial to ensure warm homes, provide water supply and cooking, lighting, refrigeration and the operation of other electrical appliances. However, some households across all Member States are increasingly struggling to meet their basic energy needs due to energy prices increasing faster than household budgets, poorly insulated buildings and inefficient household appliances leading to higher energy bills. Estimates based on proxy indicators suggest 10-25% of the European population could already be affected by energy poverty to some extent. Given the rising income inequality across Europe and the associated costs of the energy transition, the share of households experiencing energy poverty is likely to increase. Energy poverty is gaining visibility in European legislation, as is the need to protect vulnerable consumers in the gas and electricity markets. The transition to a liberalised retail market for electricity and gas means that the market system increasingly rules the way retailers and consumers interact with each other, as the use of market distorting measures such as regulated prices or energy subsidies to households are removed. While this should increase opportunity for consumers to find the best deal to suit their needs, some households will need additional protection in such a market. Therefore, protective mechanisms are vital to enabling vulnerable energy consumers to access the full benefits of the market, which may not be otherwise available due to issues such as energy affordability. With over 17% of the European population at risk of poverty and 10% in arrears on utility accounts in 2014, this points towards the need to reevaluate the measures in place to safeguard lower income and other vulnerable households given increasing liberalisation under the Internal Energy Market. The objective of this report was to appraise measures associated with ensuring vulnerable consumers are able to afford and maintain a connection to electricity and gas with a particular view of supporting the European Commission’s directorate of Internal Energy Market in assessing which legislative support can be provided across the European Union in the revision of the electricity and gas Directives of the Third Energy Package. This report specifically fed into the impact assessment for the revisions reflected in the European Commission’s proposal for a Clean Energy Package. Firstly, we reviewed how different Member States have implemented specific protection measures (financial transfers, disconnection safeguards and social tariffs). Following this review, an economic assessment compared existing and alternative schemes for the implementation of protective measures across the EU. Finally, recommendations were made regarding the types of measures that provide minimum protection standards for vulnerable consumers in the energy sector.

This article explores LGBTIQ+ young people’s use of Tumblr—a social media platform often associated with queer youth cultures. Drawing on data from surveys ( N = 1,304) and interviews ( N = 23) with LGBTIQ+ young people in Australia, we argue that existing notions of “queer community” through digital media participation do not neatly align with young people’s Tumblr practices. Our participants use Tumblr for connecting with others, yet these connections can be indirect, short term, and anonymous. Connections are often felt and practiced without directly communicating with other users, and many participants described their connections to the Tumblr platform itself as intense, pivotal to learning about genders and sexualities, and sometimes “toxic.” We suggest that Tumblr use intensities reflect many young people’s (dis)connections to queer life. Participant accounts of Tumblr use for identity, well-being, and (dis)connection practices can usefully inform health, education, and commun...

ALSO AS AUDIO BOOK: https://www.estories.com/audiobook/359981/Trine-Syvertsen/Digital-Detox /// ABSTRACT: Social media and smartphones are criticised for being addictive, destroying personal relationships, undermining productivity, and invading privacy. In this book, Trine Syvertsen explores the phenomenon of digital detox: users taking a break from digital media or adopting measures to limit smartphone and social media use. Based on studies, documents, media texts and interviews with media users, Syvertsen discusses how media industries intensify the quest for attention, how companies and governments team up to get everybody online, and how the main responsibility for managing online risks and problems are placed on the users' shoulders. She provides a rich account of how users reduce their online engagement through time-limitations, restrictions on smartphone use, productivity apps, and use of analogue media. Syvertsen shows how digital detoxing has much in common with other forms of self-help such as mindfulness, decluttering and simple living and places digital detox within a culture of self-optimisation. But digital detox is also about sustaining face-to-face conversations, better work-life-balance, a deeper connection with nature and more meaningful interpersonal relationships. With a wealth of examples, analyses and stories, Digital Detox is a valuable guide to why digital detox and disconnection has become a topic, how it is practised, what it says about the state of media industries and how people express resistance in the 21st century.

Aim: This study is designed to understand the views of the faculty involved in teaching anatomy using online platforms during recent covid-19 pandemic. An insight into their experiences may help policy makers to improve online sessions of anatomy in the future. Study design: Qualitative phenomenological study Place and duration of study: From September to December 2021 at Dental College, HITEC-IMS. Materials & methods: Semi structured interviews were conducted face to face and transcribed verbatim. All responses were subjected to qualitative analysis, and themes were derived. Results: A total of 15 female participants from three institutions gave feedback. One of the main themes identified was Teaching effectiveness with subthemes including, included Disconnection, feeling ineffective, Technological issues, administrative issues, student related issues, internet issues. Second theme was Opportunities with subthemes including professional development, logistics, blended learning. Thi...

In most large Australian cities recent metropolitan strategies have become prominent in state political affairs. At the same time, newly-discovered but long-brewing constraints to economic growth have brought infrastructure issues to national prominence. This might seem propitious for urban affairs. However, there is too little real connection between them. Misfits exist in at least four dimensions: between metropolitan strategies adopted by state (and in Brisbane’s case also local) governments and the often unrelated practices of urban infrastructure procurement, between the national focus on economic and industrial infrastructure and urban infrastructure service backlogs, between older metrowide infrastructure systems that made them primary instruments for urban management and newer technologically-enabled splintering of infrastructure supply options (after Graham and Marvin 2001), and between a public-sector-centric model of urban growth management made less relevant by private p...

Accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, digital exploitation is a common practice in the world, specially in the Global South. It is estimated that due to the current epidemic, 50% of the world jobs will disappear to artificial intelligence in between 5-10 years. 30% of the population that lost its job will never get it back.

Because of this, creating new jobs through digital technologies and artificial intelligence is imperative, and regulating these is a must. Digital disconnection, socially and familiarly responsible employers, and clear labor laws are urgent and must be implemented right away if we wish to avoid an economic collapse and push economic growth.