Abstract or Keywords
Mobility, sociality, and culture undergo novel configurations when the smartphone becomes as essential to the journey as the passport. At the same time, the necessary communication infrastructures and networks across the globe are improving and expanding, allowing people to connect and stay connected, but also making it harder and harder to disconnect. As a result, travelers do not have to sign out when setting out to explore the unfamiliar. Independent from travel, researchers have pointed to an “erosion of the online/off-line distinction”[1] caused by continuous engagement with and easy access to mobile devices and the Internet. What, then, does this blurring of the boundaries between online and offline mean for travel? Moreover, some argue that “new media are N(YOU) media; new media are a function of YOU.”[2] In other words, social media are ego-centric devices that revolve around and cater to the user. This understanding of “N(YOU) media” raises questions about how the continuous occupation with the self enhances or inhibits encounters with other people, places, and practices while on the move. In this interplay of people, devices, and data, what is lost and what is gained?
[1] Dominic Pettman, Infinite Distraction, (Malden, MA: Polity, 2015), 15.
[2] Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016), 3.