Disconnecting with Social Networking Sites [Hardcover]

Ben Light puts forward an alternative way of thinking about how we engage with social networking sites. He analyses our engagements social networking sites in public, at work, in our personal lives and as related to our health and wellbeing, emphasizing the importance of disconnection instead of connection.Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables PART I: APPROPRIATING SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES 1. The Connectivity Conundrum 2. Theorising Technological Appropriation 3. Acknowledging Mediators PART II: PUBLIC DISCONNECTION 4. Shaping Publics 5. Navigating Work PART III: PERSONAL DISCONNECTION 6. Personalising Use 7. Disclosing Health and Wellbeing PART IV: CONCLUSIONS 8. Towards a Theory of Disconnective Practice References

'This is an elegantly theorised and engagingly written work which gets to the heart of the question of disconnection. This text is essential reading for internet researchers, students and scholars of social and cultural aspects of new technologies, indeed anyone who has ever wondered about the significance of their choices to connect or to disconnect.' - Alison Adam, Professor of Science, Technology and Society, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

'This insightful book suggests an important corrective to current directions in SNS research. By emphasizing disconnection rather than connection, Light provides a careful look at people's use and non-use of online applications that includes but goes beyond questions of technological determinism and agency. I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking about issues of online communication, social change, or human connections and disconnections more generally.' - Lori Kendall, President of the Association for Internet Research and Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

'Light has developed a highly convincing thesis of disconnective practice that is set to challenge the ways in which we currently think about our engagemeló#