Digital Exhaustion

Unpacking the affective toll of constant connectivity, this book reframes digital exhaustion as a defining experience of our times. Overflowing inboxes. Back-to-back Zoom meetings. Nonstop notifications. Daily life in digital culture can be exhausting. This timely and urgent edited collection introduces ‘digital exhaustion’ as a conceptual lens to critically examine the ever-expanding presence of digital technologies in our personal and professional lives. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, this book explores how digital exhaustion is experienced, felt, and articulated in our hyper-connected culture – through burnout, brain rot, binge-watching, data extraction, energy consumption, and social media compulsion. Digital exhaustion emerges as a key structure of feeling in an era of constant connectivity and algorithmic demands. Accessible yet theoretically grounded, this collection is an essential resource for scholars in cultural and technology studies, while also speaking to broader debates in anthropology, psychology, digital geography, urban studies, and consumer research. Responsive to the urgent need to engage in sustained dialogue about digital futures, this book offers fresh insights into how we might understand – and rethink – digital wellbeing, social media addiction, and the growing demand for a right to disconnect.