Theorizing dis/connection: A mutual invitation to mobile media and digital disconnection scholars

Abstract

Mobile connectivity fosters a 24/7 lifestyle that both benefits and burdens individuals. Digital well-being has emerged as a concept describing how persons balance these benefits and burdens. The concept of digital disconnection describes how people set limits to connectivity. Both concepts are currently studied in two fields of research, each dominated by different strands of theories. One strand is developing in mobile media studies: It uses the media-centric lens of affordances theory to explain how mobile media enable and constrain human action. The other is developing into its own field of “disconnection studies,” and draws on studies of media resistance to explain how the phenomenon of disconnection is inherently tied to the morality of what it means to lead a good (media) life in an increasingly digitized—yet unequal—society. This article offers a theoretical contribution at the intersection of both fields: Following an exploration of what “lack of theory” means in mobile communication and media studies, we argue that theoretical development fruitfully takes place through explorations of overlapping and complementary theoretical notions from adjacent fields. Mobile media and digital disconnection scholars thus benefit from extending a mutual invitation. To illustrate our argument, we formulate five axioms that compromise mobile media affordances with morality, to prepare mobile media studies for a future beyond mobile media.