University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Habituated: A Merleau-Pontian Analysis of the Smartphone

Howard, Maria; Bussell, Hilary

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/101419

Description

Title
Habituated: A Merleau-Pontian Analysis of the Smartphone
Author(s)
  • Howard, Maria
  • Bussell, Hilary
Issue Date
2018
Keyword(s)
  • Information science
  • Information
  • Embodied experience
  • Smartphones
Abstract
This paper offers a phenomenological account of our relationship to our smartphones rooted in the work of philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) and Drew Leder (1954–). We argue that the nature of this relationship has implications for the ways we conceptualize and promote information literacy in the era of mobile ubiquity. After reviewing recent LIS literature on mobile devices in libraries, we discuss Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the habit body and Drew Leder’s development of the Merleau-Pontian concept of incorporation. We then apply these concepts to our use of smartphones, paying particular attention to the incorporation of the smartphone in our bodily habit and what this means for our relationship to the information we access on this device. The paper concludes by considering how the insights from this analysis of the smartphone could be integrated into existing information literacy conversations through the lens of dispositions.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press. The School of Information Sciences at Illinois. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Series/Report Name or Number
Library Trends 66 (3). Winter 2018
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101419
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0003
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2018 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 66 (3) Winter 2018: Information and the Body: Part 1 PRIMARY
Library Trends 66 (3) Winter 2018: Information and the Body: Part 1. Edited by Andrew M. Cox, Brian Griffin, and Jenna Hartel