Scaling digital walls: Everyday practices of consent and adaptation to digital architectural control

Users of mobile phones, computers and other digital media devices are increasingly confronted with what Lessig calls ‘architectural control’. This article presents results from a study which reveals that users adopt four tactics in negotiating architectural control: modifying use, modifying the technology, decreasing use and acceptance. Users consent in two ways: by internalizing control through incorporating architectural constraints into their embodied practice, and by responding to the convenience of architectural controls and the complexity of far-flung collective digital systems. Thus it is argued that modification and adaptation in everyday practices of digital media and information communication technologies (ICTs) is a type of consent rather than resistance to digital control.