Pushback
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Pushback:
The growth of expressions of resistance to constant online connectivity
Abstract
As a result of the increasing connectivity provided by smartphones, wireless Internet
availability, and portable devices such as laptops and tablets, technology users can and often are
continuously connected to the Internet and its communication services. However, many
technology users who first embraced constant connectivity are now pushing back, looking for
ways to resist the constant call to be permanently connected. This pushback behavior is starting
to appear in the popular press, in personal blogs, and in a small number of academic studies.
“Pushback” is a growing phenomenon among frequent technology users seeking to establish
boundaries, resist information overload, and establish greater personal life balance. This study
examines a growing body of both academic and non-academic literature in which we identified
five primary motivations and five primary behaviors related to pushback by communication
technology users. Primary pushback motivations include emotional dissatisfaction, external
values, taking control, addiction, and privacy. Primary pushback behaviors are behavior
adaptation, social agreement, no problem, tech control, and back to the woods. The implications
of these motivations and behaviors surrounding pushback to communication technology are
discussed.
Keywords: information overload, technology resistance, techno-stress, connectivity,
Facebook suicide, technology addiction, slow media, balanced technology management,
unplugging, disconnecting
1 Introduction
In 2011 the New Yorker magazine published a controversial column, “The Information: How
the Internet Gets Inside Us” as part of The Critic at Large section (Gopnik, 2011). The author
discussed how works on the cultural transformations in the information age tend to fall into one
of three categories: the Never-Betters, who euphorically exalt the contributions of technology to
improve our lives; the Ever-Wasers, who claim nothing has really changed and insist innovation
is really nothing new; and the Better-Nevers, who bemoan the ways in which technology
negatively impacts our daily lives and espouse nostalgia for the good old days before the
Internet. However, in the almost three years since that publication, the technology user landscape
has already changed. A new category of expressions is now clearly palpable in the media: a
“Better-Less” group of discontents who used to be euphoric embracers of the opportunities of
technological connectivity, but who are now looking for ways to push back and resist, to manage
or reduce their use and perceived dependence on technology. Formerly embracing the changes
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that the information age has wrought, these capable comfortable users of technology are now
expressing doubt, and looking for ways out.
A backlash to the exuberant reception that accompanied the introduction of recent technology
innovations, from smartphones and tablets to Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools,
may be inevitable. This paper reviews a growing body of literature, both academic and nonacademic, about expressions of resistance and saturation with communication technologies and
overload of information and relationships that they entail. We call this “pushback.” Pushback is
an expression of those who have access and use communication technologies, but who decide to
resist, drop off, manage or reduce their use of these technologies. Pushback is different from
exclusion and digital divide, which refers to lack of access to communication technologies
because of social, economic, political or similar reasons. Pushback is on the other side of the
connectivity spectrum; it is a choice made by those who have too much and cry “e-nough!”
Connectivity pushback is a reaction against the overload of information and changing
relationships brought about by communication technologies such as smart phones, tablets
and computers connected to the Internet. Overloaded users are pushing back against permanent
connectivity, in an attempt to manage, limit or control their exposure and the saturation caused
by ubiquitous and constantly connected communication technologies.
Pushback to connectivity is a relatively recent phenomenon; it has only recently started to
appear in academic research sources, although it is more common in personal websites, blogs,
magazines and newspapers from the last few of years. We review these different types of
sources, and offer a typology of motivations and behaviors for pushback. We identified five
different types of motivations for pushback, as well as five different types of pushback
behaviors. However, all forms of pushback have a common denominator of dissatisfaction or
disillusionment with one or more types of technology and/or social media, and the users’ desire
to pull away from technology usage in some way. A closer examination of the pushback
phenomena can offer a better understanding of technology user behavior and lend insight into
how people connect with each other, with or without communication technologies. Our
typologies can be used to inform future empirical studies about pushback and resistance to
connectivity.
Not surprisingly, pushback is being expressed most loudly on media internet sites and
personal blogs, while academic scholarship examining information use and behavior has barely
touched on this subject. Some intriguing psychological research has been done, suggesting
motivations and plausible explanations for the phenomenon that we are calling “pushback.” The
expressions of doubt and resistance amongst technology users take many forms, encompass
different types of technologies, and derive from a variety of motivations. Interestingly, pushback
has few demographic boundaries. The literature review includes testimony from teenagers to
older adults, is not gender specific or related to social class, nor is it found solely in
industrialized nations. In fact, like the Internet, pushback is a global phenomenon. Technology
users around the world, many of whom specifically describe themselves as anything but
Luddites, express deep concern about the technology tools that have become integral to their
lives.
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From the standpoint of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), this response raises questions
about technology design and how to better serve users. From an economic standpoint, pushback
calls into question how long each new technology innovation can last as a viable profitable
enterprise, and whether business models need to account for these motivations and subsequent
behaviors that manifest as pushback. From a psychological perspective, pushback sheds light on
the deeper emotional needs and desires that people seek to fulfill through technology. From a
humanist and philosophical position, it suggests that the Internet, accessed in so many ways, is
not an easy answer to the human desire for connection with others. But in the end, this desire for
connection is what frequently drives people to remain tethered to their devices, despite the
feelings of dissatisfaction with technology.
The remainder of this paper presents the methods employed in the study, followed by a
description of some of the salient findings regarding pushback to connectivity organized by type
of source: blogs and personal web sites; newspapers and magazines; and academic papers. We
then discuss these findings and suggest a typology of motivations and of behaviors that emerged
from a review of the literature. We conclude with some of the implications and possible areas
for future research uncovered by this exploratory study.
2 Methods: a literature review on Pushback
After a systematic review, we compiled 73 sources, with roughly a third of them coming
from personal blogs and websites, a third from popular media sources, and a third from academic
conferences and journals. In an iterative process of clustering and coding, we identified two
distinct themes: motivations that drive users to push back, and pushback behaviors, the things
people do when pushing back. All sources were then coded along these two themes, which
resulted in the emergence of five types of motivations, and five types of behaviors.
For each source, we identified the primary motivation and behavior discussed or exhibited by
the user/users as a means of establishing the most pervasive expression of pushback. Some
sources discussed both motivations and behaviors, and many discussed two or more motivations
and/or behaviors, which means the typologies are not mutually exclusive. This was especially
true of the personal testimony of bloggers, who may feel a need to defend their pushback choice
with multiple reasons, anticipating judgmental or questioning responses from their readership. In
these instances, the primary motivation was often the first one discussed by the blogger.
Secondary motivations followed. In research studies, the primary motivations were often less
distinct, and in some cases, this was a result of the focus of the research itself. Nevertheless, we
centered on the most salient or conclusive results determined by the research studies.
We then returned to each source and established secondary motivations and behaviors, if
relevant. Users often express multiple reasons (motivations) and methods (behaviors) of
withdrawing or filtering their technology use. We compiled the data arriving at two sets of
measurements: one for primary motivation and behavior and a second set of data measuring the
frequency of all (primary or secondary) user motivations and behaviors as they appear overall in
the coding. An assessment of both primary and secondary motivations and behaviors offers an
overall picture that is, in some cases, different than when it is based only on primary drivers. We
include this information as part of our data in the “overall” category in each case.
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3 Findings: Pushback in Blogs, Popular Press and Academic Research
Blogs
Personal web pages and blogs are the most common source to find expressions of pushback
to connectivity. Ironically, people discontent with aspects of technology use technology to
complain about it, though some bloggers, in particular, seem to be very aware of this irony.
They address their audience as peers, discussing their experiences in a reflective way, confessing
their fears and confusion to those who they presume might share the same concerns. In the
March 2012 entry “I Got Rid of My Smartphone” on his blog The Rich Life, young engineer
Casey Friday writes:
A lot of people have asked, ‘Why don’t you just use it less?’ I think that’s sort of like asking
a crack addict, ‘Why don’t you just put the crack in the closet and do less blow?’ I don’t even
want the option of using a smartphone, because if I have one, I will check it obsessively. It’s a
simple fact. (Friday, 2012, para. 13).
Other bloggers take on a self-congratulatory tone about their pushback, one that could be
interpreted as a kind of moral superiority in their ability and willingness to forsake the
temptation of the technology for a period of time. For example, in “How I Unplugged and Lived
to Tell About It”, Michael Hyatt, motivational speaker and blogger explains, “I wanted to
experience a complete ‘digital detox’” (Hyatt, 2012, para. 3). He accomplishes this by deleting
all the social media applications from his iPhone, disabling all e-mail accounts but one,
announcing his offline status on his blog, email accounts and in his Twitter bio. Considering the
amount of effort it took to disengage from the internet, perhaps a certain amount of selfcongratulation is in order. This was another aspect of many of the personal accounts through
blogs and websites: a discussion about hard it is to extricate oneself from technology use.
A Google search of the phrase “Why I left Facebook” retrieves a myriad of blogs and
websites with this exact title. Writes an un-named Google project manager on filosophy.org,
“Since I've left [Facebook], I realized that what I was wrestling with was a somewhat more
fundamental struggle: a struggle over the meaning of friendship and acquaintaince (sic) itself”
(Anonymous, n.d., para. 3). Social media, (Facebook, in particular) were the focus of pushback
by many personal accounts on web sites and blogs.
Popular News Media
Personal accounts of disenchantment with technology fall short of a movement, but they
represent a grassroots groundswell of activity. Sometimes, they are picked up by the press. In
one of the earliest expressions we found, Emma Thompson from The Times of London reported
the shocking account of a suicide: not a literal one, but a virtual one. “Stephanie Painter’s death
was swift and painless. At 9.10pm on February 11 she bid her 121 Facebook friends goodbye
with one last ‘poke’ (mood: sorrowful), then left the virtual world peacefully with a quick click
of the mouse” (Justice, 2007, para. 2). Painter, aged 27, gave a number of reasons for her choice,
including issues of privacy and control.
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Media coverage of changes in social media user behavior highlights studies, surveys and
polls, denoting what we call the pushback movement as more than a collection of isolated
anecdotes. In “The anti-social network: Life without Facebook” (2012), CNN.com reported:
With a website that boasts 901 million active users and is launching an IPO on Friday, it
seems unlikely that once you get on Facebook, you'd ever leave. But deactivating from the social
networking site is not that unusual. Close to half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad,
according to the results of a new Associated Press-CNBC poll. More and more people are
stepping away from the technological realm and de-teching (para. 4).
This observation is echoed in Australian marketing blog Digital Ministry. Digital media and
marketing specialist John Lynch (2013) analyzes statistics compiled from several sources
including Bloomberg’s GlobalWebIndex data. In the business blog post “The 'key' demographic
18-35 are leaving social media?” Lynch writes:
My attention was first roused when I saw the latest pronounced dip in January. FB went from
982 to 972million in that January period. Incidentally it never hit 1Billion users according to
Social Bakers hitting a peak at 982Million on Jan 12th (no mean feat of course). The real
troubling indicators are in established markets, with the US losing 2.29% and the UK almost
4% of its audience over the last 3 months alone, and many high 'average revenue per user'
countries such as France and Germany flat lining (Lynch, 2013, para. 3).
As Lynch notes, Facebook hardly needs to panic over this drop in numbers; however, the
average advertising cost per click (CPC) had dropped from a high of $1.13 to $.75. It now rests
at about $.80 (Nakajima, 2013, para. 2).
In November 2009, Technewsdaily.com claimed that young people who are growing up
taking computers and the Internet for granted, also known as “digital natives,” were not suffering
from technology fatigue or information overload, as opposed to their parents, “digital
immigrants”, the generations not born into technology use.1 This article, “How Kids are Immune
to Information Overload”, cited a number of sources that argued technology is not stressful for
young people. Arguably, the types of stress impacting younger people may differ from the types
of stress that older technology users’ experience. Yet, newer articles supported by research
studies suggest pushback is very much a result of stress felt by all ages. A 2011 BBC article
asked its readership, “Are we addicted to smartphones?”, citing an OfCom report that found a
third of adults in the UK were smartphone owners and that 60% of surveyed teenagers claimed to
be “addicted”. A June 2012 article “Social Media Survey Finds Many Teens Feel the Need to
Unplug” on Bloomberg.com reported: “About 43 percent of teens would like to disconnect
sometimes, according to a national survey of more than 1,000 people aged 13 to 17, conducted
by Common Sense Media, a child advocacy group” (Kharif, 2012, para. 2). The website Digital
Trends highlighted data from a sociological study of 425 students in the article, “Study: Why
Facebook is Making People Sad”. The study revealed findings that suggest a direct correlation
Mark Prensky first introduced the concepts of digital natives and digital immigrants in “Digital natives,digital
immigrants”, in the journal On the Horizon, 2001. These are now widely- used terms in Information Science and
Education.
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between students’ time spent on Facebook and reported increases in unhappiness (Flacy, 2012).
In January 2013, more data on how Facebook affects users negatively appeared on Time
magazine’s webpage in a piece titled “Why Facebook Makes You Feel Bad About Yourself”
(Sifferlin, 2013). The article quotes the research of two German Universities that mirror findings
of the earlier 2012 Utah Valley University study. Reliable professional journalism relies on
expert testimony or research and as this work is done, the media has brought it to the public.
Academic Research and Studies
Two recent books, Alone Together by M.I.T.’s Sherry Turkle (2012) and the Pulitzer Prize
finalist The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (2011), ask broad ethical questions about how our
interaction with the Internet and technology is profoundly shaping our lives, even changing our
brains, affecting both the depth of our relationships and the depth of our thinking. References to
both works appear frequently in many sources as inspirational work to explore or engage in
pushback to connectivity.
An assessment of academic research published in peer reviewed conferences and journals
reveals three different types of approaches in studies of pushback to connectivity, from the
perspectives of information and communication, of psychology, and of youth studies.
3.3.1 Information and Communication Studies: Managing Information Overload
As far back as 2003, scholar Neil Selwyn wrote:
Not using ICT (information and communication technologies) is one way that individuals can
assert some control over their lives—in the same way that for some people there is a
symbolic value to using ICT. It is also important to acknowledge that people can move
between not using ICT and using ICT throughout their lifetime—and also that use and nonuse of ICT will vary from technology to technology. (p. 110).
However, most research continued to focus on a binary: users versus non-users. Discussions
of choice by technology users to reduce usage would come much later.
Reijo Savolainen was one of the seminal researchers on how people cope with information
overload and technology use. In an often-cited 2005 study, “Filtering and Withdrawing:
Strategies for Coping with Information Overload in Everyday Contexts”, Savolainen (2007)
describes “withdrawing” and “filtering”, still useful terms for explaining technology user
behavior. He defines withdrawing as avoiding certain types of technology. Filtering, on the
other hand, is management of information by weeding out unimportant or undesirable
information from chosen sources. Withdrawing or “logging off” from one or more types of
technology continues to be a strong coping mechanism for many. Filtering, a technique of
picking and choosing information to focus on and disregarding less important information, also
remains a widely-used method of managing information. For instance, sorting tools in email
software, such as flagging, allows users to skip over less important email. Of the two coping
strategies, partial or full withdrawal, in particular, has evolved in a number of ways, becoming
user behavior forms of pushback, as we will discuss later.
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In 2010, Jennifer Rauch, an Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication Studies at
Long Island University in New York, explained the history of the “slow media” movement in the
online journal Transformations. Pushback can be seen as a piece of this larger movement that
began as an offshoot of a larger central philosophy. In the article, Rauch provides a broad
historical framework for seeing the rise of technology resistance. She writes:
Since the turn of the 21st century, people from diverse walks of life have begun to form a subcultural movement whose members reduce their overall time spent with media and/or their
use of specific communication technologies in order to constrain the influence of digital
devices and networks on their personal, professional, and family lives (Rauch, 2010, para.
1).
She identifies the “slow media movement” as starting with a November 17th, 2009 National
Public Radio show that first promoted the idea of “digital detoxing” or “unplugging”. These
terms provide apt metaphors as concepts for pushback and have been widely adopted by
organized groups like Reboot Network, which organizes the National Day of Unplugging, now
an international event. These terms suggests that avoiding technology is a cleansing or back-tonature act.
By 2008, journal articles had already begun to recognize information overload and
information anxiety as problems, identifying user concerns with web-related identity and privacy
issues (Bawden & Robinson, 2008). However, concerns about dissatisfaction with social media
and identity followed some time later in the academic literature. In “When Social Networks
Cross Boundaries: A Case Study of Workplace Use of Facebook and LinkedIn”, the researchers
examined tensions between the spheres of work and private life connections made through social
media (Skeels & Grudin, 2009). Skeels and Grudin report:
People tried to manage the divide separating work and other friends with the rudimentary
available access controls or, more often, by adjusting their posts for a broader audience, but
often were dissatisfied…inadvertent disclosure of information is a common concern. (pp.
100-101)
Here, an assessment of emotional needs and satisfaction starts to become evident.
Information behavior begins to recognize that, more than meeting business needs or logistical
needs, technology connection is about meeting emotional needs.
University of Washington iSchool professor David Levy has researched information overload
for at least a decade. In “No Time to Think: Reflections on information technology and
contemplative scholarship”, Levy laments that the acceleration of life brought about by
technology reduces thoughtful reflection, and calls for more contemplative practices in
scholarship and in the workplace (Levy, 2007).
3.3.2 Psychological Perspectives: Unhappiness, Anxiety and Addiction
Clinical psychology included the idea of “unplugging” as it first became popular in 2010
(Rowan). In January 2011, American Psychological Association sanctioned a series of four
research studies which are discussed in the paper, “A Two-Process View of Facebook Use and
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Relatedness Need-Satisfaction: Disconnection Drives Use, and Connection Rewards It”. The
researchers conclude that:
Overall, Facebook use appears to be a positive phenomenon, although perhaps not as
positive as face-to-face sociality. However, Facebook may also offer an overly tempting
coping device for the lonely, one that feels good but does not actually address underlying
feelings of social disconnection in life (Sheldon et al, pp. 773-774).
They further speculate on the possibility that signs of addiction are apt to appear in lonely
participants attempting to use social media or the Internet as escapism, but who afterwards feel
greater disconnection, loneliness and dissatisfaction with the technology. The researchers
explain, “The portrait that arises is of a person who is addicted to a coping device that does not
approach problem-resolution directly but, rather, approaches a pleasant distraction from
problems” (p. 773).
In the summer of 2011, at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, Carnegie Mellon
researchers presented the paper, “‘I regretted the minute I pressed share’: A Qualitative Study of
Regrets on Facebook”. Acknowledging that previous research has correlated Facebook usage
with positive psychological well-being, they address the negative aspects of the social media site.
Through the creation of a detailed taxonomy of regrets, they found that such user regrets were
primarily a result of sensitive topics, emotional content, and content reaching an unintended
audience. They write, “Furthermore, our results agree with many news stories that report that
regrettable postings on Facebook can yield serious ramifications for users” (Wang et.al., 2011, p.
11).
Another APA study, published that same year, examined the use of Facebook by user
personality, apparently building on the findings of the earlier report. The study indicates “more
agreeable, more conscientious, more emotionally stable and less extraverted users reporting
greater levels of regret for inappropriate content (Moore & McElroy, 2011, p. 272). Also in
2011, Yahoo! researchers found “that for many people, identity is faceted across areas of their
lives, that some of these facets are incompatible, and that this incompatibility impacted
technology usage” (Farnham, p. 367). Taken together as a whole, these studies present an
emerging picture of troubled user needs and technology usage, emotional discontent having
begun to germinate. These research studies are evidence of the early signs of pushback
motivations such as privacy concerns, fear of addiction, and emotional dissatisfaction with
technology.
One of the first serious academic papers on student internet addiction was published by
Elsevier in January 2013. The participant sample was of 2,257 students from 94 different
countries. Though only a small portion of the students examined were identified as addicted
(3.2%), the paper establishes criteria for judging internet addiction as a real affliction (Kuss,
Griffiths & Binder, 2013, pp. 959-966).
The focus on conference papers and journal articles dealing with information technology user
satisfaction and behavior over the past two years has increasingly centered on either social media
or stress in the workplace or the combination of both. Social media is examined in terms of
perceived cognitive cost to the user (Bowman, 2010). In the workplace, employee behavior
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working with social media has been studied to determine how workers can best limit information
overload, reduce invasion of work into their personal life, and how employers can limit
uncertainty and the anxiety that precipitates adopting new technology (Bucher & Fieseler &
Suphan , pp. 21-22). Academic work, specifically about Facebook, includes the seamy side of
human emotion and behavior such as the phenomenon of mourning on Facebook websites, where
“online memorials provide opportunity for public wailing at the virtual wall, turning grieving
into a kind of free-for-all spectator sport “(Riechers, 2012, p. 2).
Another example of the dark side of Facebook is the research discovery of the “selfpromotion – envy spiral”. According to the research of a German team of researchers, authors of
“Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” Facebook users often suffer
from envy of their peers, particularly in regard to vacation and travel postings, and as a result,
may begin to promote themselves aggressively on the site, even exaggerating their postings, as a
way of compensating and coping with the envy (Krasnova & Wenninger & Widjaja & Buxmann,
2013, p. 12). Further valuable information is provided by the Pew Research Center’s 2013 report
“Coming and Going on Facebook”, which found that “61% of Facebook users have taken a
voluntary break from using the site at one time or another and 27% plan to spend less time on the
site this coming year” (p. 2). These studies suggest why Facebook user dissatisfaction is on the
rise and why some users are “pushing back”.
3.3.3 Studies of Youth: Discontent among Digital Natives
By 2012, scholarly work more deeply examined the experiences of younger technology users
as well. Previous research had suggested that younger users, “digital natives”, people born into
the age of everyday technology usage, fared much better in terms of adopting technology,
responding positively to it, and managing technology better than their parents, the “digital
immigrants”, those not raised in a technology-heavy environment (Prensky, 2001, pp.1-6). Not
surprisingly, the Kaiser Family Foundation (2010) published the findings of one of the largest
U.S. research studies of children 8-18 and their relationships with a variety of media outlets,
finding a sharp increase in all media usage. Also not surprisingly, corresponding scholarship
called for “unplug-don’t drug” as a treatment option for troubled youth (Rowan, 2010, pp.60-68).
However, a Stanford research study, also conducted in 2010, “Media Use, Face-to-Face
Communication, Media Multitasking, and Social Well-Being Among 8- to 12-Year-Old Girls”
determined the following findings: “Regression analyses indicated that negative social wellbeing was positively associated with levels of uses of media that are centrally about interpersonal
interaction (e.g., phone, online communication) as well as uses of media that are not (e.g., video,
music, and reading)” (Pea et.al., 2010, p. 327).
Common Sense Media, a non-profit child advocacy group, released the “Social Media, Social
Life: How Teens View Their Digital Lives” in the summer of 2012, a quantitative study
compiled from a survey of 1,030 “social media natives”. Findings included overall positive
feedback from teens about social media. They replied that it helped their friendships and rarely
affected their lives negatively. Yet the researchers noted the beginnings of what might be
“Facebook fatigue” with a substantial number of teens specifically stating that they wished they
could unplug (p. 27). These conflicting studies suggest that there are issues of needs-satisfaction
and technology use amongst younger demographics, refuting the earlier impression that digital
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natives are always blissful users of all forms of technology. While they may be more adept at
adopting and using new technology, it does not necessarily follow that they are happy as a result.
4 Analysis: Pushback Motivations and Behaviors
After analyzing the different source materials on pushback to connectivity, including blogs,
popular press and academic sources, a typology emerged with five types of motivations, and five
types of behaviors. Each one is described in more detail below.
Five Motivations for Pushback
We were surprised to find five remarkably consistent types of motivations that lead people to
push back and resist connectivity, according to the literature we examined. While our
preliminary reviews had led us to expect that users might indicate a desire to push back against
technology as a result of frustration with the operation or repeated learning of new technology,
fatigue resulting from this learning, or as a reaction to technology upgrading cost, this was not
what we found in the literature. Instead, we found that the motivations for pushback and
resistance that appear in the literature were deeply grounded in emotions, as we will see in the
five types of motivations that are described below.
One exception to this trend is a recent literature review “Discerning Rejection of Technology” by
Murthy and Mani (2013). Their study relies heavily on older academic research and technology trade
publications, mostly based on literature published before 2010 and with many references to literature
pre-2000. In that study, the authors argue that technological complexity, technology fatigue, switching
cost or loss aversion were among the most consistent reasons for user rejection of technology (Murthy
& Mani, 2013). Our findings do not corroborate these claims. Instead, we found that the “cost” that
users today are most concerned with is the emotional cost of technology. Even in regard to privacy,
which is undeniably a legal and civil rights issue for users, the greater user concern about privacy was
typically rooted in either fear of embarrassment or frustration with an inability to control an online
identity, more than it was a matter of a fear of piracy, theft or disclosure of legal or financial matters.
Below are brief descriptions of the motivations for pushing back against technology and the
technology user behaviors that we found emerging from the literature. These are followed by a
chart with their relative frequencies, both as a primary characteristic (exclusive) and as an overall
characteristic (non-exclusive).
1. Emotional dissatisfaction:
Users pushing back because their needs are not being met
Emotional dissatisfaction is often accompanied by disappointment, a result of having had
high expectations regarding the technology that were not satisfied. Emotional dissatisfaction can
involve bitterness or even anger, as users had adopted a form of technology use with hopeful
expectations only to be disillusioned. Some research suggests that this is as much a result of the
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personality of the user as it is an issue with the technology (i.e., Moore & McElroy, 2011;
Krasnova et al, 2013). An example of clear emotional dissatisfaction is expressed in a blog:
For me, Facebook wasn't even a tool that fosters maintaining real relationships with old
friends (and I mean real life friends). For me, it somewhat detracted from the genuine
catching up that happened when I actually ran into someone from my past. I love the mystery
of running into people, and learning about where they've been directly from them, rather
than from a secondary feed of snippets and status updates from their manually-curated
Facebook profiles. (Anonymous Associate Project Manager at Google, n.d., para. 5).
In another example of the growing unease and dissatisfaction about communication
technology, Susan Conley writes as part of “In Smartphone Addiction: Why I’m Putting the
Phone Down:
So for months I've been feeling stuck -- I've got this snazzy Smartphone, and I should
probably use it. And I've also been feeling a little worried -- what is this phone doing to my
brain anyway? Why do I have this email compulsion? … And I'd been feeling scattered. I'd
been feeling like all my thoughts were light…maybe it's not the Smartphone's fault, but
[Nicholas] Carr says that because of these phones, all of us ‘stop having opportunities to be
alone with our thoughts, something that used to come naturally.’ I knew I was going to have
to throw my Smartphone away too. (Conley, 2012, para.5-7).
2. External values:
Pushing back due to political, religious or moral reasons
These people often cite a desire to reconnect with family or adhere to political religious
beliefs that encourage selfless behavior and face-to-face interaction with others. Some people
cite concern with the politics of the internet, fearful that marketing, consumerism and distraction
are enveloping the user. For example:
‘Everyone now wants to know how to remove themselves from social networks. It has become
absolutely clear that our relationships to others are mere points in the aggregation of
marketing data. Political campaigns, the sale of commodities, the promotion of entertainment
– this is the outcome of our expression of likes and affinities’. These are the opening words
for the Facebook Suicide Bomb Manifesto written by Sean Dockray and first published in the
iDC mailing list May 28, 2010. (Karppi, 2011, para. 1).
3. Taking back control:
Users pushing back to regain control of their time and energy
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The concern is primarily about time management and feeling that some technology use, often
a specific type of technology, like social media or web surfing, is “stealing” productive time
from the user. This is a very frequent secondary motivation (not always the primary one) among
technology users. In the web article “LabRat: What Happens When You Unplug from Your
Internet Addiction?” Brittany Ancell writes, “While I was constantly searching for ways to
become more efficient at work, I was idling away my free time with trivial eBay pursuits and
constant email monitoring” (Abcell, n.d., para. 2).
4. Addiction:
Pushing back as a result of technology addiction
Variations on the term “addiction” are frequent in user testimony. This fear is expressed in
both young and old, arguably more often in younger people. “‘I clearly am addicted and the
dependency is sickening,’ said one student in the study. ‘I feel like most people these days are in
a similar situation, for between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people
have become unable to shed their media skin’” (ICMPA, 2010, para. 1).
5. Privacy:
Users pushing back due to fear about their privacy being violated
Most of all, these technology users fear that they are being monitored and/or their online
identities are in jeopardy. In “Why I Left Facebook and Where You Can Find Me Online”,
blogger Michael W. Dean writes,
Facebook is starting to act like The State. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has
updated their “user agreement” to say that they can sell any of your photos and not pay you.
And they can use photos of your face. They could sell a photo of you smiling with a gun to an
anti-gun campaign. If you’re overweight, you could end up in the “before” photo for a
weight loss pill. etc.….Facebook is spying on you. Of course these days, you are being spied
on everywhere, all the time, by governments and corporations, but Facebook is the worst of
the worst. And their privacy settings are useless (2012, para. 4).
These five motivations are expressed with different frequencies in the literature we surveyed.
The following figure shows the frequency for each one both as a primary type (exclusive
categories, % of total) and as an overall type (non-exclusive categories, do not add up to 100%).
Pushback
50%
47%
13
47%
45%
40%
Primary
35%
30%
30%
Overall
27%
26%
25%
20%
17%
16%
13%
15%
13%
16%
11%
10%
5%
0%
Emotional
Dissatisfaction
External
Values
Taking Control
Addiction
Privacy
NA
Figure 1: Frequency of Motivations for Pushback in the recent literature (n=73, blogs, press and academic papers;
primary denotes unique behavior; overall is non-exclusive, does not add up to 100%)
It is interesting to note that while emotional dissatisfaction is the most frequently reported
reason to push back and resist online connectivity, taking back control over one’s time, energy
and attention is most frequently reported as a secondary reason for pushback. Privacy, on the
other hand, is the least frequently reported reason driving pushback (both as a main driver or as a
secondary one).
Five Pushback Behaviors
Behaviors for pushback and resistance to connectivity were overall more consistent in the
literature, with a heavy predominance of one type of behavior: adaptation. Technical solutions,
social solutions, and radical solutions (complete withdrawal) were less prevalent; also, a small
cluster of pushback behavior is actually a resistance to the pushback, claiming that there is “no
problem.” The frequencies of pushback behavior are displayed in the following figure.
Pushback
80%
14
71%
70%
60%
60%
Primary
Overall
50%
40%
30%
20%
11%
16%
10% 10%
10%
6% 7%
10%
3% 3%
0%
Adaptation
Social
Agreement
No Problem Tech Solution Back to the
Woods
NA
Figure 2: Frequency of Pushback Behaviors to in the recent literature (n=73, blogs, press and academic papers;
primary denotes unique behavior; overall is non-exclusive, does not add up to 100%)
1. Behavior Adaptation:
Manage technology use to reduce dissatisfaction
Several adaptations to previous behaviors in relation to technology use are displayed in the
literature: manage time (only use at specific times), manage applications (for example, drop
Facebook and use only email, or vice versa) , digital fasting (for example, an hour/day/week of
no media), and dummy accounts (to reduce spam or other unwanted communication). These
types of behavioral adaptations are the most frequently cited in the literature. They are directed
to responsibly managing technology use in a rational, more efficient, more “mindful” way that
creates better life balance. After discussing why he is leaving Facebook, blogger Michael Dean
writes where he can be found instead:
I’m not leaving the Internet. I love the Internet. I’ve been on it since 1990 (before the World
Wide Web), and I’m still going to be around. I just hate Facebook. You can find me on
Twitter, here. You can find Freedom Feens, my thrice-weekly podcast with Neema Vedadi,
here. You can subscribe to that via RSS or iTunes, and post comments on the site, and I
sometimes comment back. You can subscribe to the torrent link here. (Dean, 2012, para. 6).
Some prefer to choose specific times to go online, rather than choosing specific tools, and
others prefer to have times set aside without media. These behavior adaptations are the most
common ways that people deal with their sense of dissatisfaction caused by communication
Pushback
15
technology and information overload. The following are other, less frequent, forms of coping we
found in the literature.
2. Social Agreement:
Collective decisions to limit media use
An interesting modification of the behavioral adaptation is the social agreement: rather than
individual change, a group agrees to use communication technology in a different (restricted)
way for a certain period of time, often in the context of a gathering. A common example is users
agreeing to turn off or put away their phones in a meeting or at a restaurant (and the first one to
use it pays the bill!), or having restaurants offer a 5% discount to eat without your phone (Kim,
2012). A new trend in weddings (regular people, not celebrities) is to have parties “unplugged”
by having guests check their phones at the door or explicitly request guests to turn them off
(Feiler, 2013). More broadly, there are unplugging events such as the National Day of
Unplugging, initiated by the Reboot Network, creators of The Sabbath Manifesto. Per their
website:
We increasingly miss out on the important moments of our lives as we pass the hours with
our noses buried in our iPhones and BlackBerry’s, chronicling our every move through
Facebook and Twitter and shielding ourselves from the outside world with the bubble of
“silence” that our earphones create. If you recognize that in yourself – or your friends,
families or colleagues— join us for the National Day of Unplugging, sign the Unplug pledge
and start living a different life: connect with the people in your street, neighborhood and city,
have an uninterrupted meal or read a book to your child. (Sabbath Manifesto, 2013, Join
Our Unplugging Movement, para. 2).
3. Tech Solution:
A technology intervention to reduce media use
The tech solution ironically places the control in a technology solution to prevent information
overload. Most common is the downgrade of a smart phone to a “dumb” phone. This category
also includes parental controls over times or applications, or the use of a “kosher phone” or
similar devices programmed to restrict content and times of use. In an increasingly common
move, many people have abandoned smart phones for “dumb” phones. The tech solution forces
the user to conform to more limited technology. For example, an anonymous blogger expresses
the following sentiment in “Why I ditched my smartphone for a “dumbphone:”
Smartphones are impressive gadgets that allow us to conveniently do many things and
interact in ways that were unheard of 10 years ago….it ultimately comes down to my own
personal journey and me trying to figure out what I want from life. Sometimes it’s good to
Pushback
16
take a step back and evaluate things from a wider perspective. Am I making the best use of
my time and resources? Do I really NEED some of the things I have? When it came to my
smartphone I felt like it was something I could – and should – do without. (Anonymous, 2011,
Conclusion).
4. Back to the Woods:
dropping out from technology altogether
As an extreme reaction, some people are going completely offline, or at least adopting
severely limited internet usage, barely minimal phone use, or both. They do it for themselves or
for their families, and it sometimes goes unreported precisely because they are dropping out. In
one example, a mom takes the family offline:
With the help of her family therapist, Jindra, a single mom, devised a technology
intervention…From that point on, there were no iPads, no computers, no television, and no
Wii. Phones are allowed, but only when necessary. The boys did not take to this plan easily…
Although he does want his computer time back sooner rather than later, Erik (10 years old)
is enjoying this new lifestyle. ‘I realized there's a lot of other fun things to do. Going to the
park is now nicer than staying inside and sitting in front of the computer for an
hour.’(Berman, 2013, para. 3-5,12).
5. No Problem:
Whatever it takes, just take it all in
Finally, in an opposite reaction, some people are also reacting to pushback, claiming there is
nothing wrong with technology and their use of it. These are critical enthusiasts without
reservation. In “The Dirty Truth about Digital Fasts” Alexandra Samuel writes for Harvard
Business Review: “If longer-term digital fasts can remind you how to integrate offline moments
back into your daily life, that's great. But you don't need a digital fast to justify meeting your
needs online, and you don't need to unplug in order to justify plugging back in” (Samuel, 2010,
para. 12).
5 Discussion and Conclusions
While compiling the sources for this study of the literature, we did not approach the work
with preconceived hypotheses. We began by searching for information on behavior and quickly
became interested in why pushback was occurring, not just “how”. Searches in academic
databases, (such as Academic Search Complete, Google Scholar, IEEE Explore, Compendex,
and Google) included, but were not limited, to the following terms: digital fasting, technology
resistance, unplugging, disconnecting, information overload, information anxiety, slow media,
Pushback
17
connecting versus disconnecting, digital overload, digital suicide, Facebook suicide, slow spaces,
social media diet, digital Sabbath, over-connectedness, techno-stress. After reading through
numerous blogs and websites, it was apparent that many of the reasons stated were emotional in
nature, not monetary or strictly pragmatic. Emotional dissatisfaction was clearly a very strong
motivation, distinct from external values (another motivation) because this motivation results
from a failure of need satisfaction as a result of the user’s emotional needs not being met, apart
from the moral or ethical values of the external value motivation. Similarly, the word
“addiction” is heavily bandied about on web pages and blogs. Control was another repeatedly
important issue reported by users. As these motivations were identified, this warranted a wider
scholarly search for research papers and studies that encompass both technology resistance and
user emotional response.
The following are some areas that may warrant additional research:
Possible Correlations between Pushback Motivations and Behaviors
What kinds of motivations drive different types of pushback behaviors? While searching
websites, blogs, and newspaper reporting, the common user behaviors defined by social
agreement, adoption of tech. solutions, and behavioral adaptation became apparent. A daughter
who signs a contract with her father to accept $200 in exchange for giving up her smart phone
has entered into more of a social agreement, than a legal one, to limit her technology use (Gross,
2013). In “Why I ditched my smartphone for a ‘dumbphone’”, the user abandons a smart phone
for a “dumber” flip phone and is obviously exercising a technology switching behavior, ie. a
“tech.” solution (Anonymous, 2011). Deactivating a Facebook account, but still using other
technology is clearly a type of limited withdrawal, a means of controlling technology by limiting
the type of technology used regularly, in other words, a form of behavior adaptation (Jung,
2013).
Each of these behaviors often correlates to a particular motivation or motivations. Behavior
adaptation, for example, was often accompanied by the motivations of emotional dissatisfaction,
taking control, and addiction. Tech. solution behavior was more likely to be closely linked to the
motivation of addiction as the primary motivation. Future study regarding the correlation
between motivation and behavior could be exceptionally useful in a greater understanding of
pushback. The exception is the “No Problem” behavior category, in that it does not correlate to
any of the five motivations. However, it is a potential user behavior, the other extreme of “Back
to the Woods”. In fact, given that our search was focused on finding people exhibiting signs of
pushback against technology, we were surprised to find as many sources as we did that found no
problem with technology usage.
Paranoia and Privacy
We were also surprised by the lack of concern with privacy. Both as a primary issue and as a
secondary issue, it was not a significant concern amongst users in the literature. Addiction (or
fear of addiction) and taking control as a motivation (which revolves around feeling of wasting
time) were strong secondary issues for many users. In fact, concern about wasting time was as
strong a concern as emotional dissatisfaction, though emotional dissatisfaction was expressed as
a primary concern more often. It is clear from the breakdown of user behavior that few people
Pushback
18
are interested in forsaking technology altogether (Back to the Woods) or using technology to
limit their usage; for example, dumbing down the phone or disabling the laptop’s internet
capabilities. The celebrated author, Jonathan Franzen, has reportedly permanently disabled his
computer so that he cannot access the internet while writing (Grossman, 2010, p. 2). From our
research, this is an extreme and uncommon coping behavior. But the generalized lack of concern
for privacy, at a time when privacy is all but disappearing, is most troubling. In the words of
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, “ ‘Abandon all privacy, ye who enter here’ might as
well be stamped on every smartphone and emblazoned on every social media log-in page (…)
the Internet, in effect is a surveillance state ” (Douthat, 2013). How will awareness of privacy
evolve and shape people’s uses of technology and social media?
Rational Behavior
Behavior adaptation is the way that most technology users are managing their technology use
when they are troubled by any of the five motivations identified in this literature review. That
said, this is a broad category that encompasses a number of technology usage strategies.
Essentially, this indicates that users are technology-friendly overall, but have decided to
withdraw or limit their use of one or more types of technology. Given the modern inundation of
technology options, a pushback to reclaim time, or avoid unfulfilling experiences might not be
surprising. Response to technology that is only partially satisfying involves rational
management of technology by: limiting usage, scheduling usage to limit addictive or compulsive
behavior, or forsaking some technology altogether while still using other technology that
provides greater satisfaction. Therefore, this is the predominant behavior, that of adaptation.
What are the different forms of behavioral adaptation that people are exhibiting, as they learn to
cope with communication technologies and information overload? What are the cultural and
design implications of these shifts?
Pushback is more than resistance to technology because it makes people uncomfortable, or
frustrated, or robs them of their time, though all of these issues have been expressed repeatedly
by users and we have defined them as motivations. Underneath these real motivations are deeper
questions troubling technology users. These people eagerly spent money, time, and energy using
technology to gain something and found it wanting. Sherry Turkle tells a story of a young
woman she meets who was thrilled to be able to regularly Skype her grandmother for free, only
to feel guilty and troubled as a result of simultaneously emailing while talking. She is not paying
attention and her grandmother is unaware of her multi-tasking. They are “alone together”
(Turkle, 2011, p.14).
Self-proclaimed Catholic blogger, writer, and speaker, Brandon Vogt wrote this on his blog
after a week-long digital fast from social media and blogs:
My Internet fast revealed the sobering reality that I rarely do what I love. Instead of sitting in
a comfy chair at night to read a book for an hour, I scan through a hundred irrelevant blog
posts. Instead of praying, I fire up Facebook. Instead of playing with my kids, I send text
messages and watch YouTube videos. If nothing else, the digital fast realigned my priorities.
Now when I open my computer I think, ‘tomorrow, when I look back at this moment, would I
have wished I was doing something else?" Often, the answer is yes. And then my laptop
slowly closes. (Vogt, n.d., para. 7).
Pushback
19
Ever-Wasers might easily argue that the new technology is no more a problem than TV was
when it came out and critics railed against the waste of time and mindlessness of the new
entertainment. The difference is that entertainment is only a small part of the new landscape.
Social media, smartphones, texting, video calling, blogging, emailing and even YouTube videos
are meant to make it so much easier to share, connect, and create with other human beings than
ever before. Instead, technology users are expressing a sense of loss. Virtual connection is not
turning out to be as rewarding as so many of us thought it would be, and a growing number of
people are saying “better less.”
Of course, as a human invention, technology is designed as a response to our needs and
desires. It reflects who we are. The literature suggests that human beings may be “hard-wired”
with conflicting desires: a need for meaningful connection with others and an equally great need
for distraction. Technology simply grants us access to both simultaneously. Our emotional
issues with technology use may be more accurately ascribed to our frustration with ourselves.
Having avoided online distractions for a full year away from the Internet, technology writer
Paul Miller concluded this in his blog post “I’m still here: back online after a year without the
internet”:
I'd read enough blog posts and magazine articles and books about how the internet makes us
lonely, or stupid, or lonely and stupid, that I'd begun to believe them. I wanted to figure out
what the internet was "doing to me," so I could fight back. But the internet isn't an individual
pursuit, it's something we do with each other. The internet is where people are. (Miller, 2013
para. 53).
If technology both helps us to connect, and at the same time drives us apart, we need to learn
to manage technology, and know when to push back. Longing for connection to people is what
makes it difficult for users to push back on technology, what brings them back. But technology
seems to overpromise and underdeliver in this respect. Nonetheless, it seems Pushback may also
have a pushback movement.
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