Interface Frictions
eBook - PDF

Interface Frictions

How Digital Debility Reshapes Our Bodies

  1. 233 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Interface Frictions

How Digital Debility Reshapes Our Bodies

About this book

In Interface Frictions, Neta Alexander explores how ubiquitous design features in digital platforms reshape, condition, and break our bodies. She shows that while features such as refresh, playback speed, autoplay, and night mode are convenient, they can lead to "digital debility"—the slow and often invisible ways that technologies may harm human bodies. These features all assume an able-bodied user and at the same time push users to ignore their bodily limitations like the need for rest, nourishment, or movement. Building on the lived experiences of people with disabilities, Alexander explores alternative design solutions that arise from a multisensorial approach to communication. She demonstrates what can be gained from centering the nonaverage user, such as blind people who pioneered ways to control the playback speed of media, and Netflix subscribers with invisible disabilities like PTSD who successfully pushed the company to redesign its previews autoplay feature. Drawing on artworks, video games, and creative hacking by users with disabilities, Alexander challenges our understanding of media consumption, the attention economy, and the digital interface.

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Yes, you can access Interface Frictions by Neta Alexander in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Film History & Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Introduction: Disabled/Enabled
  4. 1. Repetition, Reloaded: On Refreshing, Latency, and Frictional Aesthetics
  5. 2. The Right to Speed Watch: (or, When Netflix Discovered Its Blind Users)
  6. 3. Automating Trauma: On Autoplay and the Unbingeable
  7. 4. “L og In, Chill Out”: “Horizontal Media,” Night Modes, and Sleep Apps
  8. Coda: Digital Debility and the Normalization of Fatigue
  9. Acknowledgments
  10. Notes
  11. Bibliography
  12. Index