A phenomenon occurs when smartphones are turned off: time appears to expand. Minutes lengthen, and an hour becomes tangible. The absence of screens renders the passage of time perceptible. But when a device is reactivated, time seems to contract as notifications and feeds rapidly consume attention, leaving entire afternoons to pass unnoticed.
Overview on Materialist Media Theory
The easiest way to talk about smartphones is still to talk about what we see on them. When we worry about our phones, we tend to worry about content: endless TikToks, unread messages, the feeling of being “addicted” to whatever is happening on the screen. Grant Bollmer asks us to uncover the underlying incentive. In Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction, he argues that focusing on meaning alone traps media studies in what he calls a kind of “screen essentialism”—the assumption that what we see on the screen is all that matters about digital media. For Bollmer, the “content” of a medium is like the piece of meat a burglar throws to distract the watchdog; obscuring the material infrastructures that reorganize space, time, and relation (4). It is key to know how media objects have agency, and thus Bollmer’s central thesis– media are not carriers of immaterial meaning but material actors that reorganize bodies, gestures, cognition, time, space, and social power–which is to be further confirmed by Rosenberg and Blondheim.
The Deprivation Experiment
Hananel Rosenberg and Menahem Blondheim’s article, “What (Missing) the Smartphone Means,” provides an approach to evaluating Bollmer’s claim. Their deprivation experiment required teenagers to abandon their phones for a week and reflect on the experience of missing this personal device. While the initial focus was potentially the “addiction’ aspect, the findings are more nuanced: participants reflected differently, with positive ones such as “When I got my smart- phone back,” one participant wrote, “I merely touched it and held it—I actually had a pleasant and secure feeling, the mere contact was enough to give me a good sensation” (246). Rosenberg and Blondheim’s results support Bollmer’s argument by demonstrating that the most challenging aspect is not the loss of content but the absence of the infrastructures that transmit messages. The ‘3Ps’ identified in the absence of cellphones align with Bollmer’s principles regarding how media structure sociality through material habits and dependencies. As Bollmer asserts, “Techniques inscribe into the body particular cultural forms and practices that endure over time” (174), highlighting the prosthetic extension of media, which becomes most apparent when it is missing.
Critical Comparison: Materiality vs Representation
Rosenberg and Blondheim diverge from Bollmer in their interpretation of loss, maintaining an ‘im/material’ distinction by framing the phone as a psychological-representational object linked to identity. Bollmer critiques this perspective, arguing that devices are not primarily symbols or objects of psychological attachment. In his view, the discomfort experienced by teenagers is not a commentary on media meaning, but rather an encounter with the material reorganization of life enacted by the smartphone. The device functions as a material actor that shapes cognition and behavior. Instead of viewing audiences’ ‘misreadings’ (26) as evidence of fluid meaning, Bollmer emphasizes how media technologies structure the very conditions of interpretation. Common feelings of unease with smartphones—such as perceiving others as ‘absent’ (4) or sensing a less ‘real’ (4) world—are often attributed to distraction or authenticity. For Bollmer, however, these responses indicate a failure to consider the materiality of media, which entangles images in processes of action, circulation, and influence. The deprivation experiment demonstrates that media objects serve as ‘tools for thinking and experiencing with,’ not because they transmit signs, but because they modulate the conditions under which signs can emerge.
Another key distinction between the two texts is their orientation toward the human subject. Rosenberg and Blondheim analyze the smartphone deprivation week primarily through teenagers’ self-reported experiences, treating the device as a psychologically meaningful object whose significance is revealed through subjective interpretation. Their analysis remains human-centered, emphasizing the phone’s importance based on its meaning to users and its influence on cognition and emotion. In contrast, Bollmer rejects this anthropocentric perspective. He asserts that media objects possess agency not because they are interpreted by humans, but because they materially shape the world. For Bollmer, the smartphone is not simply a vessel for symbolic attachment, but an actor within a network of relations, structuring gesture, social coordination, temporality, and affect regardless of user perception. While Rosenberg interprets absence as psychological insight, Bollmer contends that this approach overlooks the more fundamental point: the significance of the smartphone arises from its material operations, which reorganize bodies and social relations.
Tomb Raider: How Lara Croft Exemplifies Material Coupling
Bollmer’s analysis of Tomb Raider provides a concrete illustration of his argument. Lara Croft is not simply an ideologically charged symbol, but an affective figure who embodies both empowerment and oppression, engaging viewers through sensations and identifications that transcend representational meaning (26). Bollmer critiques ideological models that conceptualize media as a ‘hypodermic needle,’ arguing that such frameworks overlook the mechanisms by which hegemony is maintained: fleeting gratifications and transient feelings of empowerment that stabilize otherwise unstable social structures (28, 31). According to Bollmer, these effects arise not from content alone, but from the material coupling between bodies and media.
Bollmer situates this issue within broader debates on interpretation, arguing that media scholarship often treats meaning as contingent, shaped by context, ‘misreading,’ or audience response (26). Concerns about distraction or the perception that smartphone users are ‘absent’ similarly emphasize representational rather than material issues. Bollmer contends that media do not provide the stable ‘presence’ of physical objects (4), nor are humans autonomous agents outside historical context. The ideological contradictions embodied by Lara Croft are not merely interpreted; they are enacted through the player’s physical engagement. The avatar’s exaggerated agility becomes a learned bodily rhythm. Bollmer asserts that the material coupling of player and controller generates a sense of agency associated with Lara, forming an affective loop that cannot be reduced to representation, as it is experienced through embodied feedback and perceptual orientation.
Conclusion
All in all, Bollmer and Rosenberg & Blondheim don’t reveal two opposing stories about smartphones so much as two ways of understanding what media are. Rosenberg and Blondheim show us the experiential surface: what it feels like when a device that structures teenage life suddenly disappears. Their findings remind us that smartphones aren’t simply visual portals into immaterial worlds but anchors that stabilize rhythms of sociality, perception, and selfhood. Yet their interpretation remains tied to the logic of representation by demonstrating how phones matter because they symbolize connection, because they’re meaningful to their users, and because their absence produces recognizable psychological effects. Bollmer insists that this is precisely where media analysis must push further. What the deprivation experiment exposes is not just an emotional attachment but a deep material coupling in which bodies, habits, time, and attention have been reorganized by technical infrastructures long before anyone determines what a smartphone “means.”
Works Cited
Rosenberg Hananel, and Menahem Blondheim. “What (missing) the smartphone means: Implications of the medium’s portable, personal, and prosthetic aspects in the deprivation experience of teenagers.” The Information Society, vol. 41, no. 4, 29 Apr. 2025, pp. 239–255, https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2025.2490487.
Bollmer, Grant. Materialist Media Theory An Introduction Grant Bollmer. Zed Books, 2021.
Cover art: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/422281210585563/
Written by Gina Chang and Nicole Jiao
Hello! I found the question raised in this article about what a phone truly represents to be very intriguing. After reading it thoroughly, I found the examples you provided quite compelling. The reactions of the teenagers in the first experiment can arguably be seen as reflective of most people in modern society—I’ve never felt so panicked as when I thought I’d left my phone on a bus! At the time, I assumed it was simply because a phone today holds far more value than just a communication tool—it has essentially replaced landlines, fax machines, wallets, keys, and more.
But your perspective suggests that the phone is a key object that reshapes significant portions of people’s lives, influencing not only how users receive information but also the very nature of that information. From this point of view, the phone truly acts like another milk bottle or pacifier for humans. I also agree with Bollmer’s point that you mentioned: it’s not only the emotional impact of phones on people that we should consider, but also their more objective yet equally influential traits, such as how they transmit information and their temporality. This article has given me a lot of new insight into how we perceive everyday objects.
Thank you for such a thoughtful response! I really loved how you brought up the fact that the value of a phone today goes way beyond communication, with it collapsing so many tools and roles into one device that its loss feels like a many-in-one loss in daily life. Your bus example frames this perfectly, as the panic isn’t just emotional, it’s infrastructural.
What I do find particularly compelling in Bollmer’s perspective, however, is how he pushes us to look beneath that practical dependence. It’s not only that the phone contains our essentials, but it also subtly reorganizes how we understand time, identity, and even our own attention. And your comparison to the pacifier really stresses this because it suggests our attachment is not merely functional but developmental. The phone steps in as a stabilizing object, soothing uncertainty while also shaping our habits and perceptions. You’re also right to highlight the “objective” traits—like temporality and information flow—which are easy to overlook because we focus so much on emotional dependence. But those structural qualities may be even more influential in the long run. If the phone is both a tool and a formative object in how we construct meaning, what aspects of daily thought or behavior do you think would feel most different to us if we were suddenly to step away from it?
I thought this post did a really good job explaining the difference between how Rosenberg & Blondheim treat the smartphone versus how Bollmer does. The opening example about time stretching when the phone is off was such a good way to introduce the idea of materiality without getting too theoretical right away. Your comparison made it really clear that Rosenberg & Blondheim focus on the emotional and psychological side of “missing” the phone, while Bollmer pushes us to think about how the device physically reorganizes behaviour and attention. The deprivation experiment section especially helped show why Bollmer’s argument goes deeper than just representation. And the Lara Croft example tied everything together nicely; it made the whole material coupling idea way easier to understand. Overall, the post flowed really smoothly and made both readings feel connected rather than contradictory.
Thanks so much for this! I really appreciate how you picked up on the contrast between the psychological framing in Rosenberg & Blondheim and the more structural, material framing in Bollmer. I’m glad the introduction was useful. It’s such a small everyday moment, but it really highlights how the phone shapes our sense of duration in a way we barely notice.
I also really appreciated your point about how Bollmer’s argument is deeper than representation. That’s precisely what I found was tricky in his work: he’s not just saying that the phone represents connection or security but rather that it materially produces patterns of attention and behavior. That’s a difference that the deprivation experiment really makes apparent. The problem isn’t one of an emotional lack of the phone but of losing the rhythms and cues that our bodies have become attuned to. This got me thinking if there are other everyday technologies besides smartphones where this kind of material coupling feels just as strong? Or is it just a nature that only smartphones have?
This is a really insightful analysis of how smartphones function to shape attention and even perception of time. I like how you connect Bollmer’s materialist approach to Rosenberg and Blondheim’s deprivation experiment. This helped show the difference between focusing on meaning versus infrastructure. It also makes me think about broader implications for other technologies, like AR/VR or AI, and how they might reorganize our cognition and habits in ways we don’t even notice. Do you think we risk overlooking these material effects if we continue to analyze media primarily through the representational idea?
Thanks so much for this generous reading! I find your point about AR/VR and AI particularly important. These technologies are often discussed in terms of representation, such as immersion and realism, but not nearly enough in terms of how they reorganize sensory cues, attention, or even default ways of navigating a situation. You’re absolutely right that their material effects often slip under the radar because the representational framework feels more intuitive and easier to critique.
So yes, I do think we risk overlooking those effects if we stay focused only on representation. That lens tends to foreground symbols and meanings while materialist approaches reveal slower, quieter forms of conditioning that shape how we think without announcing themselves.