Digital Degrowth

Radically Rethinking our Digital Futures

Neil Selwyn (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Polity Press
30 May 2025

Social forecasting, future studies

We are fast approaching the point of “peak digital”, with the continued mass production and excessive consumption of digital technologies set to become a key driver of climate crisis, ecological breakdown and ongoing societal instability. Digital Degrowth is a call to completely rethink our digital futures in these fast-changing times. It explores how degrowth thinking and alternate forms of “radically sustainable computing” might support ambitions of sustainable, scaled-down and equitable ways of living with digital technologies. Neil Selwyn proposes a rebalancing of digital technology use: digital degrowth is not a call for simply making reduced use of the digital technologies that we already have – rather it is an argument to reimagine digital practices that maximise societal benefits with minimal environmental and social impact. Drawing on illustrative examples from across computer science, hacker and environmental activist communities, this book examines how core degrowth principles of conviviality, autonomy and care are already being used to reimagine alternate forms of digital technology. Original and stimulating, this is essential reading for students and scholars of media and communication, sustainability studies, political ecology, computer/data sciences, and across the social sciences.

By: Neil Selwyn (Monash University Melbourne Australia)
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781509563272
ISBN 10: 150956327X
Pages: 176
Publication Date: 30 May 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Contents Chapter 1 The need for digital change Chapter 2 Does tech have any solutions? Chapter 3 Beginning to think differently about digital technology Chapter 4 The case for digital degrowth Chapter 5 Finding alternatives in the here and now Chapter 6 Future innovations Chapter 7 Where now? Everywhere but here! References

Neil Selwyn is Professor of Education at Monash University.