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Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens

  • Joke Bauwens , Gudmundur Bjorn Thorbjornsson and Karl Verstrynge
Published/Copyright: September 12, 2019
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Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
From the journal Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Volume 24 Issue 1

Abstract

Our engagement with social media, smart and mobile technologies is ambiguous and raises existential questions about the naturalness and desirability of hyper-connectivity. On the one hand, we benefit from using these technologies in organizing and socializing our everyday life. On the other hand, they further complicate our lives. Hence, in recent years, more and more people choose to abstain from digital media by taking on a so-called ‘digital detox,’ a period of living without these technologies. In this article, we look at ‘digital detoxing’ from an existential perspective by introducing Kierkegaard’s existential categories of repetition and recollection to tackle the question whether ‘dropping out’ is a meaningful act or a temporary respite. What would it mean, so we ask, to find a proper balance in a world that demands constant connectivity?

Online erschienen: 2019-09-12

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Front matter
  2. Title pages
  3. Preface
  4. Contents
  5. Articles
  6. Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
  7. Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
  8. Kierkegaard’s Aesthete in Either/Or: Using Hegelian Mediation in Everyday Life
  9. Kierkegaard on the Dancers of Faith and of Infinity
  10. Climacus’ Miracle: Another Look at “the Wonder” in Philosophical Fragments through a Spinozist Lens
  11. Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self
  12. Das palimpsestische Selbst. Zur Genese, Struktur, Darstellung und Vermittlung von personaler Identität nach Sören Kierkegaard
  13. Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme
  14. Kierkegaard’s Secret Politics of Anguish and Love
  15. Kierkegaard as a Thinker of Alienation
  16. To Be(come) Love Itself: Charity as Acquired Originality
  17. Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
  18. Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
  19. Pseudonyms? What Pseudonyms? There were no Pseudonyms…
  20. A Prompter’s Play? Kierkegaard’s Puzzling Portrait of Authorial Withdrawal in “An Occasional Discourse”
  21. Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
  22. Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
  23. Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
  24. Defiance Before the Law: Kierkegaard, Kafka, Coetzee
  25. Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?
  26. Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
  27. Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
  28. Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens
  29. “Out into the Middle of Life”: The Age of Disintegration and Ecological Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Thought
  30. Back matter
  31. Abbreviations
  32. List of Contributors
https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2019-0017

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Front matter
  2. Title pages
  3. Preface
  4. Contents
  5. Articles
  6. Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
  7. Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
  8. Kierkegaard’s Aesthete in Either/Or: Using Hegelian Mediation in Everyday Life
  9. Kierkegaard on the Dancers of Faith and of Infinity
  10. Climacus’ Miracle: Another Look at “the Wonder” in Philosophical Fragments through a Spinozist Lens
  11. Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self
  12. Das palimpsestische Selbst. Zur Genese, Struktur, Darstellung und Vermittlung von personaler Identität nach Sören Kierkegaard
  13. Das Verhältnis von Selbstwerdung und Gott bei Sören Kierkegaard. Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme
  14. Kierkegaard’s Secret Politics of Anguish and Love
  15. Kierkegaard as a Thinker of Alienation
  16. To Be(come) Love Itself: Charity as Acquired Originality
  17. Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
  18. Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
  19. Pseudonyms? What Pseudonyms? There were no Pseudonyms…
  20. A Prompter’s Play? Kierkegaard’s Puzzling Portrait of Authorial Withdrawal in “An Occasional Discourse”
  21. Kierkegaard’s Authorship as Eucharistic Liturgy
  22. Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
  23. Section 3: Kierkegaardian Resources for Current Debates and Challenges
  24. Defiance Before the Law: Kierkegaard, Kafka, Coetzee
  25. Existence Philosophy as a Humanism?
  26. Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
  27. Weird Allies? Kierkegaard and Object-Oriented Ontology
  28. Unplug Your Life: Digital Detox Through a Kierkegaardian Lens
  29. “Out into the Middle of Life”: The Age of Disintegration and Ecological Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Thought
  30. Back matter
  31. Abbreviations
  32. List of Contributors
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