La desconexión digital como reconfiguración de la mediación: un análisis posfenomenológico

This conceptual trailer examines digital disconnection through a postphenomenological lens, with the aim of broadening the scope of discussion on disconnection studies and people’s relationships with the media. Social media use often shifts from conscious to unconscious engagement, moving from attentive and engaged content consumption to automatic, low-attention interactions that prompt users to intentionally disconnect from the content. While empirical analyses describe the experiences and decisions involved in disconnection, they do not explain the underlying relationships between individuals and digital media that shape this phenomenon. To address this gap, the analysis draws on post-phenomenology, which conceptualizes technologies as mediators of meaning-making in experience. Within this framework, this study examines how changes in person-digital medium mediation shape disconnection practices. Observations of mindless scrolling on social media support the theoretical argument that disconnection is a reconfiguration of post-phenomenological mediation: the app shifts from being transparent to opaque as mediation becomes unsatisfactory. The breakdown of transparency serves as a phenomenological marker of this change, but it is not its cause. Therefore, disconnection is framed as a reconfiguration of the person-media relationship that persists during periods of non-use. By using qualitative narratives as illustrative cases for post-phenomenological analysis, the trailer advances our understanding of digital disconnection as a dynamic and relational process in contemporary media consumption.