Disconnection requires work, and sometimes more work than is readily apparent. This paper will present an integrative framework for how digital disconnection - understood as the deliberate non-use of media - is made possible by the work and efforts of not just the disconnecting individual, but also the people surrounding them, as well as people with whom they otherwise have no interaction. Broadly speaking, I argue that digital disconnection is something which creates work along axes. It creates work for (1) the selves disconnecting, (2) their surroundings and for (3) strangers somewhere else producing the tools and services which facilitate – or wish to minimize - disconnection. Asking the central question “Who is digital disconnection creating work for?”, this framework will integrate several strands of disconnection research under the aegis of digital labor (Gandini, 2021; Jarrett, 2022) and digital work (Orlikowski & Scott, 2016).

Thus far digital disconnection research has broadly been interested in either the the meaningfulness of disconnection to the individuals implicated (e.g. Bucher, 2022; Portwood-Stacer, 2013), on the communities and surroundings which do or do not make disconnection possible (Sutton, 2020; Fast, 2021), or on the technologies which make disconnection more or less impossible (Karppi, 2018). The focus on the labor and work which underlies this framework will unite these different concerns. Whether it is our selves, our partners (Lai, 2021) or workplaces (Fast, 2021), or people we have never met (Beattie, 2020), our disconnection is likely made possible by someone else’s labor. In considering this, we can ask vital questions about whether digital disconnection “reduces” or “shrinks” the amount of digital communication which underlies the digital economy (Gandini, 2021; Jarrett, 2022), or whether it merely displaces these activities on to other actors, as is the case in other aspects of the digital economy where work is ostensibly reduced or eliminated (Andrejevic, 2019; Munn, 2022).

In this way, the paper will expand on the commonplace focus on individual struggles to disconnect, which are prevalent in both research and popular literature on disconnection (Syvertsen & Enli, 2020; Bagger, forthcoming; Portwood-Stacer, 2013). It will integrate this focus with the recent turn towards disconnection as something potentially facilitated by families, workplaces, or other formal organizations (Fast, 2021; Syvertsen, 2022; Lai, 2021), or made possible by third parties such as companies delivering services or producing apps or other products facilitating disconnection (Beattie, 2020; Karppi et al., 2021).

In problematizing the common preconceptions of individualization in the emerging field (Enli & Syvertsen, 2021; Lomborg & Ytre-Arne, 2021), this paper will bring digital disconnection research into dialogue with broader discussions of the often-invisible labor and work inherent in the digital economy (Fuchs, 2014; Gandini, 2021; Munn, 2022; Jarrett, 2022). In addition to questions about the value or feasibility of digital disconnection (Bucher, 2020; Karppi, 2018), the framework presented in this paper presents a heuristic to inquire into the material effects of disconnection beyond the disconnecting individual themselves.



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