3 - People on Screens

Summary

After exploring the multimodal effects of BeReal, and the way in which it foregrounds place and event, this chapter explores the work of Hayles, Barad, and Braidotti, before utilizing New Literacy Studies to explore contrastive socio-cultural and social practices. The chief focus is on teasing out a theory of digital-materiality: not only what materialities and modes are present on screens, but also what inferences, values, and agendas these materialities carry. Postdigital lives entail entirely new relationships with materialities, though this does not mean a break with the physical and embodied, since postdigital life also contains many embodied ways of engaging with screens, ones which work across both the physical and the digital. This chapter attempts to conceptualize the distinct logic that people use to understand screens, while striking at more lived understandings of literacy. Consulting crescent voices on where they find comfort in their screen lives, this chapter reconciles people’s conflicting desires to pursue a flesh-and-blood life away from screens, as well as to use their screens to manifest and actualize the real aspects of their lives.