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Making Un-Use: When Humans Disengage with Technology

Published: 07 May 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Humans frequently discontinue to use certain technologies, services, or platforms: they deactivate accounts, block content, or find workarounds for un-using functionalities or devices. This is noticeable in contemporary trends, such as digital detox, where an entire market emerged to support users in discontinuing their use. In this essayistic paper, we reflect on a collection of examples where humans disengage with technology by applying Vardouli’s concept of ‘making use’ to the context of discontinued use. We propose making un-use as an epistemological perspective to ‘human-artefact engagements’; one that emphasises un-users as enactors of open-ended, temporarily evolving, and creative activities. We depict making un-use as transformational acts, and discuss epistemological and designerly consequences of making un-use to shed light on a not yet explored site of inquiry and a design space that is about to evolve: a design space for making and makers of un-use.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2021
    10862 pages
    ISBN:9781450380966
    DOI:10.1145/3411764
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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    Published: 07 May 2021

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    1. discontinued use
    2. human-artifact (dis-)engagements
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    • (2024)Swapping 5G for 3G: Motivations, Experiences, and Implications of Contemporary Dumbphone AdoptionProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36374028:CSCW1(1-40)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
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