A User-Centered Lens into Digital Excess : Exploring the Superfluity and Environmental Burden of the Digital World

Abstract

This article seeks to take a new view on the environmental burden of information and communication technology through the concept of digital excess. Our notion of digital excess draws from Georges Batailleʼs argument that the main problem of any economy is excess rather than scarcity. We take a user-centric lens into this concept and discuss various aspects of our digital lives that could be perceived not to carry meaningful value but appear as wasteful and superAluous, while also harming individuals, society, or the planet. We provide examples from digital media services where digital excess may be regarded as, for example, accumulation of self-created content with redundant copies or inattentive consumption of highbandwidth streaming services. In consonance with related work in the Sustainable Human-Computer Interaction community, we encourage follow-up empirical investigations of the practical manifestations of this concept, which could help to further understand, problematize, and possibly also mitigate the growing energy use of ICT. For the design of digital services, focusing on digital excess offers a lens through which designers could simultaneously optimize multiple quality criteria that conventionally require trade-offs (e.g., environmental sustainability vs. lively user experience vs. economic viability).