1Technological development has made digital tools indispensable to the organizational life of contemporary society. Yet climate change, resource depletion, health crises, and geopolitical tensions increasingly call these everyday uses into question. In an age of uncertainty, homo numericus is increasingly called to practice digital sobriety—that is, toward the imperative to “rethink all our digital practices so as to make them sustainable in the short and medium term” (Baillot & Ligozat, 2025).
2This article examines how digital practices change in times of crisis. The term crisis refers here to situations in which access to digital technologies is limited, rationed, or even suspended. Five forms of crisis are considered: war, cyberattack, pandemic, resource shortage, and loss of connectivity. The aim is to determine which digital uses, perceived as essential, persist or are reappropriated; which are abandoned; and what alternative behaviors emerge. The study draws on research conducted since 2022 as part of a postdoctoral project at the CEA-Grenoble Center. It combines bibliographic analysis and field investigation. The empirical component is based on twenty-four semi-structured interviews with two distinct groups. The first includes digital users representing the socio-economic categories defined in the initial phase of the study—adolescents, working adults, and retirees. Preliminary exploratory interviews helped identify target populations suited to the study’s aims and constraints, without seeking exhaustive representativeness. The second group consists of users who experienced these crises firsthand, particularly in Ukraine and Lebanon. Participants were recruited through a snowball sampling process that began with diaspora organizations. The data collected made it possible to observe adaptive behaviors, even though the two samples—while not directly comparable—proved complementary.
3The findings indicate that in contexts of intensive digital use, a temporary crisis tends to prompt a return to traditional channels, however constrained. A prolonged crisis, by contrast, brings about a deeper transformation of behavior, marked by the emergence of new forms of cooperation. An analysis of the hierarchy of digital needs reveals mechanisms of self-regulation that favor collective uses.
- 1 Interview with C., 34, factory worker.
- 2 Interview with M., 41, architect.
4The latest data from the Elipss Environment Barometer indicate that climate change and resource depletion are the main environmental concerns for people in France (SDES, 2024). Yet the notion that digital practices may be harmful remains vague. The infrastructures enabled by digital technology continue to be viewed primarily as opportunities for social development (Ferreboeuf, 2022). Confronted with an ever-expanding supply, the digital subject is urged to consume quickly and seamlessly. The temporal logic of social networks, for instance, demands constant connection. Addictive design features such as autoplay and embedded videos work to maximize the volume of content consumed. Even physiological rhythms—sleep, meals, hygiene, and self-care—have not escaped the digital imperative. They are increasingly sustained by technologies that create new ritual forms. Eating without doing anything else now seems pointless, a waste of (digital) time. There is also a clear link between sleep rituals and screen use. The interviews conducted for this study reveal a reliance on digital companionship to ease falling asleep: “It’s true, I fall asleep with my phone; I put on a video until I drift off”1; “Before going to sleep, I watch movie recaps—it helps me fall asleep.”2
- 3 Interview with N., 33, nurse.
- 4 Interview with C., 34, factory worker.
- 5 Interview with A., 17, high-school student.
5At the same time, the near-free access to certain products—a one-euro smartphone—or services such as unlimited streaming feeds the myth of “exponential abundance” (Ferreboeuf, 2019). The study shows that, when it comes to their digital habits, participants’ concerns cluster mainly around two themes. First, at the individual level, they lament their lack of self-control over the time spent on their devices: “Honestly, I’m really too dependent, but I try to save some time for real human contact.”3 Notably, such admissions of weakness are almost always paired with a disclaimer emphasizing the uniqueness of their case, particularly when it concerns smartphones: “I’m kind of a special case—I admit I spend a lot of time on it”4; “I check my phone a lot during the day.”5 In fact, the behavior they perceive as exceptional has itself become the social norm. They think of themselves as outliers in a world where deviation has become the rule.
6Second, at the collective level, concerns focus on society’s dependence on digital systems. The digitization of administrative procedures is the example most often cited:
- 6 Interview with N., 33, nurse.
For paperwork it’s good—before, we had piles of it. But we shouldn’t get too dependent, because the day something goes wrong… The other day the administrative staff had a power outage, and they were panicking.6
7Ultimately, what is at issue is not the choice of a society built on digital foundations, but the way people experience those moments when technology fails. Such episodes of temporary, involuntary disconnection are especially revealing.
8Cyberattacks and network outages are generally experienced as temporary crises. This expectation inevitably influences behavior: people adapt differently to a situation when they know it will soon pass.
9Several lines of inquiry open when we consider how these disruptions reshape social relations. First, people tend to retreat to non-digital channels. Face-to-face communication is restored, and information is returned to physical form wherever possible. Cyberattacks affecting local governments provide a telling example. The Departmental Council of Indre-et-Loire, for instance, was the target of such an attack in July 2022. To respond, officials reverted to paper, explaining: “We have paper forms that can replace digital ones. It’s a temporary workaround to manage an outage of unknown duration” (Rigodanzo, 2022). The city of La Rochelle, which suffered an attack in December 2020, asked its employees not to use their computers and to resume in-person service at the counter (Banque des territoires, 2021). This return—which may easily appear a step backward—is in fact only a stopgap, a temporary expedient meant to preserve the continuity of social life while awaiting the restoration of digital links A similar logic can be seen among individuals facing local outages: turning to non-digital activities becomes a way of passing the time. Le basculement vers des activités non numériques est vécu comme un moyen de patienter. As La Voix du Nord reported of a retired couple in northern France deprived of Internet access: “To keep busy, this couple of retirees make do as best they can: he reads while she gardens. ‘Luckily we’re not losing our minds,’ they said” (La Voix du Nord, 2022). The aim, then, is to fill this time of crisis while waiting for the return of what now passes for real time—connected time.
10These cases illustrate short-lived crises. What, then, of prolonged ones, when a return to normal can no longer be taken for granted and disconnection becomes the rule?
11War is one of the most fully developed forms of multidimensional crisis, one that is also digital, since access to online channels is necessarily disrupted. To address this case without relying solely on individuals’ projections, we selected two paradigmatic examples: Lebanon and Ukraine. A young Ukrainian mother interviewed for this study recounted the following experience:
There were frequent power outages because they deliberately targeted the power plants… There was no Internet—we could only get mobile Internet, and even that worked on and off…
Q: How do you manage to communicate in a situation like that?
- 7 Interview with A., 32, homemaker, formerly a banker in Ukraine.
A: You don’t… Nothing. But as soon as it comes back, you rush to… [She mimes typing rapidly on her phone7.]
- 8 Interview with N., 15, middle-school student.
- 9 Interview with I., 45, executive.
12This excerpt highlights an essential point: the first digital reflex when the connection returns is to reach out to loved ones, to check on them and to let them know one is safe. Maintaining contact takes precedence, and this is precisely what we find in the remarks of other participants asked to imagine a wartime scenario: “I think I’d go on social media to see how everyone’s doing,”8 and “I’d call my family on FaceTime to make sure everything’s all right.”9
13If keeping in touch with family and friends is the first digital reflex, the second is seeking information about how the crisis is unfolding. The smartphone is central to this effort, as one Ukrainian woman in her seventies explained: “Thanks to the smartphone, we can find out what’s happening in the city, where the Russian troops are, and much else besides” (Fauroux, 2022). The smartphone likewise served as a means of resistance. During the war in Ukraine, for example, people relied on anti-bombing apps. It thus operated on two levels: it helped sustain everyday routines and provided essential support in times of crisis.
14Another form of prolonged crisis involves the strain on resources. While the resources required for energy production are bound to decline worldwide, some regions are already facing shortages. This is the case in Lebanon, which, according to the World Bank, is now undergoing one of the most severe economic crises since the mid-nineteenth century. The result has been a series of shortages, including fuel. Living with power cuts and interruptions in telecommunications has become part of daily life (Le Figaro, 2021). Because the state cannot provide these services continuously, people have developed their own strategies of adaptation, as one respondent explained:
[…] There’s no electricity in Lebanon—there never has been electricity around the clock. The government supply lasts four or five hours a day at most; after that, it’s private. It’s the same with water.
Q: Private?
- 10 Interview with L., 37, chef, formerly a teacher in Lebanon.
A: Yes, with batteries or solar panels… You install what you can, depending on your means. I pay a bill to someone in the neighborhood who invested in a large generator and supplies electricity. … These are individuals, not companies. Every village has them, and it’s organized by religious community—everything in Lebanon works that way.10
15Individuals organize themselves into secondary networks to compensate for the weakness of state services. These informal initiatives nevertheless conform to social norms, since, as one respondent noted, they are often structured along religious lines. In addition to this informal system, a third layer emerges, one of gift-giving and resource sharing. Although its scale is difficult to assess, solidarity offers a means of access to scarce resources, as shown by the many appeals for donations and fuel sharing. This dimension of solidarity should not be overlooked. The argument we advance is that solidarity serves as a last resort when the crisis reaches its height. When all other resources—particularly digital ones—are lacking, individuals are more likely to turn to cooperative practices. As the sociology of collective action has long shown, the failures of official institutions prompt people to cooperate (Cefaï, 2007). Let us return to the case of the war in Ukraine. One of our respondents, a woman from Vinnytsia, explained that her city had been relatively spared compared with what she called the “hot zones”:
Q: How do you communicate with people in the hot zones?
- 11 Interview with A., 32, homemaker, formerly a banker in Ukraine.
A: You can’t; there’s no access. Those who stayed there might be killed or captured. Volunteers go there and ask what people need, what supplies are lacking. [...] We buy them food, clothing, and medicine—everything they need—and the volunteers deliver it all.11
16It thus becomes clear that, in the complete absence of digital communication channels, the survival of those caught in the eye of the storm depends on the steady movement of volunteers, to use a vivid expression. In other words, dematerialized contact is replaced by direct encounter, even in such perilous circumstances. This form of solidarity, deprived of technological mediation, gives rise to another kind of bond, another form of social contract. One might suggest that doing without digital tools does not, to be sure, produce a denser web of social exchanges, but it does foster more direct contact.
17To conclude, let us turn to another adaptive behavior in times of crisis: the individual ranking of digital needs. Since Aristotle, philosophical inquiry into the notion of free choice has continually questioned the individual’s capacity to formulate a just preference. As Zielinski reminds us, free choice “does not occur outside a situation” (2009). Choices are intrinsically bound to the circumstances in which individuals are called upon to make them—a truth that becomes all the more critical in times of crisis. We therefore sought to understand how people prioritize their digital practices when access to these tools is limited. Starting from the premise of a fixed digital-time quota, we observed that individuals tend to self-regulate, giving precedence to tasks they regard as essential.
18The period following the storm offers a valuable vantage point for observing which digital activities are prioritized when both time and access are limited. Storm Ciaran, for instance, struck the Finistère region severely in November 2023. Several weeks after it had passed, part of the population still lacked Internet access. To compensate, town halls set up communal spaces with Internet access points. In the commune of Trévou-Tréguignec, for example, residents were offered “palliative solutions,” such as notices informing them that “it will be possible to use the Internet tomorrow morning, Sunday, at the library from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m.” (Mairie de Trévou-Tréguignec, 2022). One of our respondents experienced these shared connection sessions in her Breton village. In the midst of a career change, she explained that she would arrive early to avoid the crowd and prioritize her tasks:
- 12 Interview with A., 37, completing online training to become an accountant.
I do all my research so I can work from home; I upload the exams I have to submit to the platform; and when I’m done, I handle the paperwork for my husband’s business, for the girls’ school cafeteria, and so on.12
Work, indeed, emerges as a recurring concern in these accounts, while digital entertainment is generally relegated to a lower place in this rational hierarchy. People willingly give up individual, recreational uses in favor of collective and purposeful ones. Thus, a Lebanese woman acknowledged that she now thinks twice before starting a YouTube video for her child: “Mrs. Khawleh thinks twice before playing a YouTube video for her four-year-old son, Amer,” reports The National News (Sunniva, 2022).
- 13 Interview with C., 34, factory worker.
19Finally, among digital devices, the smartphone stands out as both a tool for survival and a means of living through the crisis. Asked to imagine a situation in which they could keep only one of their digital devices, respondents almost unanimously chose their smartphone, citing above all its versatility: “My phone, because that’s what I mainly use—you can do everything with it, even watch TV.”13 Compact yet capable of countless digital functions, the smartphone stands out as the one device people cannot do without. It exemplifies the broader process of technological and cultural convergence (Jenkins, 2013). At the opposite end of this scale of preferred devices lies the television, almost as unanimously set aside. In times of crisis, people tend to forgo television as a comfort screen in favor of smaller ones, thus preserving access to audiovisual content.
20According to James Murray and David King, we are entering a new era in which learning to live with less will become unavoidable (Murray & King, 2012). Yet this imperative sits uneasily with the intensity of contemporary digital practices: the expanding use of digital devices at work, the mass consumption of video content, and prolonged hyperconnectivity. These practices are reshaped in times of crisis. Our examination of the relationship between crisis and digital practices shows that, in situations of temporary digital deprivation, a return to traditional channels amounts to little more than a stopgap, a crutch intended to sustain social life until the crisis passes. In the most severe crises, however, behaviors shift more deeply, with maintaining contact with loved ones and seeking information becoming the foremost digital reflexes. We also bring into view forms of solidaristic cooperation that emerge when other resources are depleted. An analysis of how digital practices are ranked shows that individuals are more willing to forgo nonessential personal uses in favor of collective ones. Finally, the smartphone emerges as the device of last resort in times of crisis, both a tool for coping with disruption and a means of remaining connected to ordinary life. It is the one device the sober homo numericus cannot do without.