Disconnecting with social networking sites Ben Light

Ben Light puts forward an alternative way of thinking about how we engage with social networking sites, going beyond the emphasis upon connectivity that has been associated with research in the area to date. Analysing our engagements and disengagements with social networking sites in public (in cafes and at bus stops), at work (at desks, photocopiers and whilst cleaning), in our personal lives (where we cull friends and gossip on backchannels) and as related to our health and wellbeing (where we restrict our updates), he emphasizes the importance of disconnection instead of connection. The book, therefore, produces a theory of disconnective practice. This theory requires our attention to geographies of disconnection that include relations with a site, within a site, between sites and between sites and a physical world. Light argues that diversity in the exercise of power is crucial to understanding disconnective practice where social networking sites are concerned, and he suggests that the ethics of disconnection may also require interrogation