By Nicole Aschoff | Many of the critiques about smartphones stem from the myriad ways they are used to perpetuate and obscure coercive and unjust relationships. Our pocket computers are used in ways that reconfigure, and often reinforce and renew, existing power inequalities. We see this power inequality most starkly in the relationship between corporations and workers, and between corporations and consumers. In the gig economy our hand machines mediate the employment relationship, encouraging app workers to view their phones as their boss. But our phones are not the boss; companies are. Read more →