WP336 Digital technology as human experience

This paper introduces the Language & Communication special issue Digital technology as human experience – adapting existing approaches to theorizing and analyzing digitally mediated interaction. The special issue has the two-fold aim of bringing human experience to the fore and of exploring how to investigate current conditions through existing theoretical perspectives. The articles in the issue apply, revise or expand existing theoretical and methodological frameworks in relation to different types of digital interaction and human engagement with various digital devices or technologies. In this introduction we motivate this pursuit and discuss a number of sub-themes connected to the relation between human experience and technological affordances that emerge across the articles. These include 1) digital technology as material and psychological object (e.g., the smart phone); 2) the temporality of digital communication technologies; 3) the sensory and spatial experience of digital technology and finally; 4) the human experience of digital devices and communication at the online-offline nexus. After this, we highlight the methodological and theoretical insights of the studies, and, finally, we discuss the wider-ranging resonance of the themes as well as the potential consequences of this type of research.