“No media, less life?” – Employing forced disruption to investigate online media disconnection Anne Kaun Södertörn University, University of Pennylvania Anne.kaun@sh.se Christian Schwarzenegger Augsburg University christian.schwarzenegger@phil. uni-augsburg.de Sebastian Kubitschko Goldsmiths, University of London Author Keywords Non-use, forced disruption, disconnection, media participation INTRODUCTION ‘The lady at the other end of the line is obviously irritated and annoyed rather than friendly she tells me to ‘check online for our stock and offerings’. As I am sure that my, voluntary attempt to online abstinence, would only confuse her more, I just say ’I can’t, I have no Internet’. A prompt ‘What do you mean, you have no internet? How old are you?’ follows. Great! Not having Internet access is associated with a certain (rather advanced) age.’ (Anja) This quote is an example from the empirical material that we have conducted in order to investigate absence, disconnection and non-usage of digital online communication in mediatized worlds. Through the very cruel method of forced disruption, young adults were asked to remain offline for a week and document their experiences they made and the reactions they encountered during the period of disconnection in a communication diary. Current scholarship of media life (Deuze, 2012), mediatized worlds (Hepp, 2010; Krotz & Hepp, 2012) and culture of connectivity (van Dijck, 2013) investigates media ubiquity in all spheres of society. In the context of this scholarship usage of new media technologies and possibilities are assumed as a presupposition for working and living in the media society or even seen as ‘the indispensible grammar of modern life’ (Wills, 1999, p. 10). Implicit to such assumptions is often a subtle idea of steady progression of possibilities and chances for connectivity and participation, considered as inherent to the advent of new communication technologies. Furthermore research is characterized by a tendency to regard (media) participation as ‘necessarily beneficial’ (Carpentier, 2009, p. 411). In that sense non- users would nothing but profit if they finally started to participate: A worthy, meaningful and fulfilling life – a good life – in the media society is seen as closely linked to free and self-determined, capable participation in mediated communication. Media usage thus becomes cultural capital (Tondeur et al., 2010; Couldry, 2003). Consequently abstention from media communication is regularly seen with a ‘clinical-eye’ (Selwyn, 2003, p.) and discussed as quasi-pathological, deviant behavior and in terms of how hindrances for participation could be diminished and access to new media could be warranted to a wide population. Media disconnection beyond digital divide and reloaded knowledge gap-discussions in disguise of a usage gap (van Deursen & van Dijk, 2013) is, however, rarely addressed in current debates on mediatization. While research focuses strongly on what people do when they engage in mediated communication and how this affects their everyday conduct of life, the following paper is an attempt to investigate specific forms of disconnection in conjunction with connection enabled by media. More specifically the focus is on the dis-/engagement with online media platforms. We do so without using a deficit- framework for disconnection and without conceptualizing participation as natural or normal state, whereas no media would indicate a less life. We argue that in order to investigate nowadays mediatized worlds in depth, they are to be considered as offering multilayered experiences, disconnection being one of them. Therefore abstention from mediated (online) communication needs be included as a legitimate stance towards media communication and absence (in contrast to participation) and non-usage have to be acknowledged and investigated. In times when media are mundane fellows that are considered to be disappearing from our consciousness due to their omnipresence; when media usage is habitualized and therefore invisible, looking at disconnections rather than exclusively connection enables us to develop a deeper understanding of what it means to live in an age ‘supersaturated with media flows’ (Couldry 2013, p. 3). At the same time, it helps to remind us of the effects of exclusion when normalizing specific kinds of media usage, while alienating others. By using forced disruption of the daily stream of online engagement as a method, we discuss how online disconnection can contribute to understanding media participation and its role in the everyday lives of young