Like many people during the COVID pandemic, Neta Alexander began spending much of her time online: teaching on Zoom, streaming films, holding video calls with friends. The longer she did, the more she became aware of how she was being affected physically, as well as how these technologies were failing her as a person with disabilities.
A congenital facial paralysis made her prone to eye strain and dryness, and a metal plate in her spine, the result of Ewings sarcoma, heightened her back pain. Long hours at the screen intensified her fatigue, while design features meant to streamline digital engagement often left her more frustrated than supported.
It was during this period that Alexander, an assistant professor of film and media in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, found the inspiration for her new book, "Interface Frictions: How Digital Debility Reshapes our Bodies" (Duke University Press). Alexander defines her theory of digital debility as "the slow and unrecognized ways in which digital technologies inflict harm on human bodies."
The book is focused on the impacts of four common digital interface design features: the refresh function that loads new content, the playback speed/speed watching function on streaming platforms, the preview autoplay function on streaming service homepages, and auto-dimming night modes for screens. Alexander examines how these functions help fuel digital addiction, binge-watching, physical pain, and fatigue - and how they often fail or even cause harm to those she calls "non-average users," who have different types of viewing, listening, or muscular needs.
"Taken together, the features I study habituate users to ignore their biological and emotional needs," Alexander writes. "Technologies touted as pleasurable, on-demand, democratizing, and empowering effectively promote an ascetic ideology by which the human body is either generalized as male, able, and white - or is ignored altogether."
