A typology of mobile messaging’s disconnective affordances

Abstract

Mobile messaging is typically understood as a medium that connects people. This article argues that to better understand mobile messaging we must also attend to its disconnective affordances—the opportunities for disconnection facilitated by the material properties of messaging platforms and mobile devices. Drawing on interview research into the mobile messaging practices of 24 young people, this article proposes a typology of five disconnective affordances that participants used to manage and limit their connections to friends and family, and to mobile devices and platforms. In highlighting these affordances, this article enables a better understanding of how people manage and limit availability to and through mobile messaging, actions that are increasingly necessary as mobile communication becomes ever more deeply embedded in daily life. In doing so, this article also demonstrates the value of key developments in the theorisation of affordances by applying newly developed terms and concepts to an empirical example.