Holidays under the hegemony of hyper-connectivity: getting away,but unable to escape?

Holidays have been imagined as occasions of escape and liminal leisure. This conceptualisation requires re-evaluation as a consequence of the widespread adoption of portable communication devices (smartphones) and the use of Web 2.0 interactive platforms (social media). Studies suggest that the gratifications of contact with the ‘other’, and the enjoyment of the licence associated with the liminal condition, are compromised by endemic contact with the domicile. An analysis draws on the work of Heidegger and Althusser, and is supported by insights from Foucault, Arendt and Lacan. It is argued that users are ‘enframed’ and subjected by their devices. This re-imagining is representative of an evolving change in the human condition, of which the compromising of tourism-as-escape is but one manifestation.