What are you currently working on?

We’re conducting work on how the norms surrounding both connection and disconnection shape experiences of mobile (dis)connection. We chose mobile messaging as a case, one reason being that it’s subject to many different — and often conflicting — social norms. How people navigate this dilemma of both pressures for online availability and for “healthy“ or polite disconnection from their phones can inform our understanding of the ambiguities of mobile media use within broader post-digital trends.

 

Can you share a project that changed the way you think or work? 

While not a research project, teaching classes on media panics had a profound impact on how I think about media effects and the public discourse surrounding them. When I was asked in the first year of my PhD to teach media history this would not have been my first choice, but I was glad that Adrian Meier suggested to cover different media panics in the past and present. Seeing how discourses around media innovations as early as the written word or books are very similar to current debates around social media and AI taught me to see patterns in rhetoric, actors’ interests, as well as the hopes and anxieties that different groups in society attach to new media phenomena. It also contextualizes the role of science in society and I believe that bird’s eye view can help reflect upon our research.

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Which piece of work feels closest to your heart, and why?

In 2024, I published a continuum of ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches to digital disconnection research together with a group of other young disconnection scholars. We met at the Mobile preconference on disconnection at ICA 2022 and are now a small collective that meets monthly to discuss literature and trends surrounding disconnection. This piece of work stems directly from our discussions. I learned a lot from people’s different perspectives and it made me appreciate the disciplinary bandwidth that fields like disconnection and mobile communication offer.

 

What's a question you keep returning to?

Beyond mobile (dis)connection, my current work also focuses on how people process and disengage from individual media use sessions across various media. As these topics tend to draw from different research traditions, I see many different possible answers to the question of what the most important driver of media effects would be — is content king? Technology design? Situational context? Personality? I think it will be a very complicated endeavour, yet have relevant theoretical and practical implications to get more of a sense for each component’s relative influence and how they interact.

 

If you had a tagline or motto, what would it be? 

Stay curious. I guess curiosity is a trait that got a lot of us into research but it also needs to be continuously cultivated. Autopilot or deep analytical focus each have their time and place, yet having an open mind to our surroundings is both important and beautiful. I like to think about it as Jostein Gaarder put it in his philosophy novel "Sophie’s World": “A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence … 'Ladies and gentlemen,' they yell, 'we are floating in space!‘"

 

If time, money, and logistics weren't a concern, what dream project would you dive into?

Tech companies sit on huge amounts of data of public concern. I appreciate initiatives like the DSA 40 Data Access Collaboratory by colleagues including Jakob Ohme that push for more data access for scholars. It would be very interesting to combine these log data with intensive longitudinal surveys and qualitative interviews to learn more about how people navigate and appraise the media environment.

 

What's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were starting out as a scholar? 

We all boil with water. In the beginning of your PhD, it’s easy to get insecure about the expectations put on your work. Over time, I’ve learned to trust my gut more with how I conduct my research and write my papers.

 

What is a book or paper that shaped the way you think about the world?

Karin Fast's work on the disconnection turn as well as Niall Docherty’s work on digital self-control have felt like a breath of fresh air to me. They both write concise and deeply insightful articles about how mobile and digital media are embedded within broader cultural contexts. I found them to contribute a relevant critical perspective to how we think of digital media and the associated backlash in neoliberal society.

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Docherty, N. (2021). Digital self-control and the neoliberalization of social media well-being. International Journal of Communication, 15, 3827-3846.

 

Fast, K. (2021). The disconnection turn: Three facets of disconnective work in post-digital capitalism. Convergence, 27(6), 1615-1630. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565211033382

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Who's someone whose work deserves more attention - and who you want to nominate as the next featured scholar? 

I am curious to hear more about the work and perspective of Razieh Pourafshari.