Communication and Decommunication

Abstract

The government reports which have come out across the world on information superhighways or the information society announce a veritable scientific, technical, economic and social revolution concerning all the fields of daily life: work, education, health, security, dwellings, transport, leisure activities, culture...

“This is the model of hypercommunication — communication as a value and as a tool for the management of everyday life. ... Most individuals who undergo the stress of hyper-communication need to disconnect, set up filters and barriers between themselves and their environment in order to become more selective, or simply to give themselves breathing space. ... This new communication hygiene, these strategies of decommunication or non-connection have usually been ignored by the prophets of the information society who are fascinated by the communicational abundance which they promise.”