Dissolving a Digital Relationship: A Critical Examination of Digital Severance Behaviours in Close Relationships

TL;DR

This paper critically examines digital severance behaviors like blocking or unfriending, exploring their social and emotional implications through interviews and interpretative analysis.

Contribution

It provides a nuanced understanding of how digital severance is perceived and experienced, highlighting power dynamics and emotional impacts in online relationships.

Findings

Digital severance involves power and control dynamics.

It can lead to feelings of disempowerment and ambiguous loss.

The study outlines key tensions and questions for future research.

Abstract

Fulfilling social connections are crucial for human well-being and belonging, but not all relationships last forever. As interactions increasingly move online, the act of digitally severing a relationship - e.g. through blocking or unfriending - has become progressively more common as well. This study considers actions of "digital severance" through interviews with 30 participants with experience as the initiator and/or recipient of such situations. Through a critical interpretative lens, we explore how people perceive and interpret their severance experience and how the online setting of social media shapes these dynamics. We develop themes that position digital severance as being intertwined with power and control, and we highlight (im)balances between an individual's desires that can lead to feelings of disempowerment and ambiguous loss for both parties. We discuss the implications of our research, outlining three key tensions and four open questions regarding digital relationships, meaning-making, and design outcomes for future exploration.