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“The digital backlash” covers a range of social and cultural practices of digital disconnection, as well as critiques of the impact of digital technologies and platforms in the world today. Through calls for more restrictive, or more “mindful”, uses of digital technologies, “mobile-free” schools, work regulations along the lines of a “right to disconnect” framework, the rise of new entrepreneurs in the growing “digital detox” industry, as well as critiques of the role of Big Tech – society is deliberating on the stakes of the digital for the human condition. The digital backlash can best be described as a kind of zeitgeist: a moment in history in which the norms about digital behaviour, consumption, and habits are being questioned, and where the early hype of the digital era beginning in the 1990s is being challenged. This edited volume offers a collection of empirical and theoretical analyses of the digital backlash as it manifests across national, institutional, and everyday contexts. The contributions span analyses of discourses and public debates around disconnection and the so-called techlash, the ambiguities and tensions of digital connectivity for work, labour, and productivity, the reordering of family and school life along with the perceived negative consequences of digital connectivity for the well-being of children and young people, as well as the playful and sometimes subversive recreational practices that people reinvent in search of authenticity as a response to all things digital. A distinct focus is placed on social practices and dilemmas related to new ways that people adapt to, appropriate, and push back against digital technologies in everyday life.

In this chapter, we explore how participants experience disconnection in practice at a digital-free summer camp for adults. Underleir is an annual week-long camp originating from discussions on the Norwegian social network Underskog and draws inspiration both from Silicon Valley disconnectionist ideology and Scandinavian traditions of friluftsliv [outdoor recreation]. When the camp was f irst organised in 2014, digital detoxing was not a well-known concept in the Norwegian context, and such camps are still rare in Scandinavia. The study is based on fieldwork, interviews, and online material. In the chapter, we discuss how camp experiences relate to the participants’ life course along three temporal dimensions: the past (nostalgia, play), the present (freedom from status games, relaxation), and the future (survivalism, utopianism). The study contributes to the disconnection literature by moving beyond the media-centred issue of how users relate to their gadgets. Instead, the chapter explores how being digital-free is made meaningful within a concrete and unusual holiday setting and relates to the societal and personal values of those attending., The authors acknowledge funding from the Norwegian Research Council (grant no. 287563) for the project “Intrusive media, ambivalent users and digital detox (DIGITOX)” (2019–2024) and the Norwegian Media Authority (Reference 17/909-2/JEA) for the project “When digital media invades life” (2018–2019).

What we in this volume call the “the digital backlash” covers a range of social and cultural practices of digital disconnection, as well as critiques of the impact of digital technologies and platforms in the world today. It thus includes a variety of overlapping and multifaceted changes and tendencies across societies, including digital disconnection, digital detox, the right to disconnect, media refusal, and what has been called “the techlash”. Hence, it can best be described as a kind of zeitgeist: a period in history in which the norms about digital behaviour, consumption, and habits are being questioned, and where the hype of the early digital era beginning in the 1990s is being challenged. In this introduction, we set the scene of the book by giving an overview of these tendencies and the history of digital critiques, serving to provide a framing for the chapters in the book.

We greatly appreciate the care and thought that is evident in the 10 commentaries that discuss our debate paper, the majority of which argued in favor of a formalized ICD-11 gaming disorder. We agree that there are some people whose play of video games is related to life problems. We believe that understanding this population and the nature and severity of the problems they experience should be a focus area for future research. However, moving from research construct to formal disorder requires a much stronger evidence base than we currently have. The burden of evidence and the clinical utility should be extremely high, because there is a genuine risk of abuse of diagnoses. We provide suggestions about the level of evidence that might be required: transparent and preregistered studies, a better demarcation of the subject area that includes a rationale for focusing on gaming particularly versus a more general behavioral addictions concept, the exploration of non-addiction approaches, and the unbiased exploration of clinical approaches that treat potentially underlying issues, such as depressive mood or social anxiety first. We acknowledge there could be benefits to formalizing gaming disorder, many of which were highlighted by colleagues in their commentaries, but we think they do not yet outweigh the wider societal and public health risks involved. Given the gravity of diagnostic classification and its wider societal impact, we urge our colleagues at the WHO to err on the side of caution for now and postpone the formalization.

We greatly appreciate the care and thought that is evident in the 10 commentaries that discuss our debate paper, the majority of which argued in favor of a formalized ICD-11 gaming disorder. We agree that there are some people whose play of video games is related to life problems. We believe that understanding this population and the nature and severity of the problems they experience should be a focus area for future research. However, moving from research construct to formal disorder requires a much stronger evidence base than we currently have. The burden of evidence and the clinical utility should be extremely high, because there is a genuine risk of abuse of diagnoses. We provide suggestions about the level of evidence that might be required: transparent and preregistered studies, a better demarcation of the subject area that includes a rationale for focusing on gaming particularly versus a more general behavioral addictions concept, the exploration of non-addiction approaches, and the unbiased exploration of clinical approaches that treat potentially underlying issues, such as depressive mood or social anxiety first. We acknowledge there could be benefits to formalizing gaming disorder, many of which were highlighted by colleagues in their commentaries, but we think they do not yet outweigh the wider societal and public health risks involved. Given the gravity of diagnostic classification and its wider societal impact, we urge our colleagues at the WHO to err on the side of caution for now and postpone the formalization.

In this panel we take a critical look at problem gaming. We question existing approaches that tend to draw on concepts from clinical psychology and we introduce everyday life and the general wellbeing of youth as an alternative perspective.