Neighbourhoods in Digital Mobile Times: The Case of Le Lignon's Former Residents

From Social Street to Nextdoor, local online communities have been capturing the gaze of urban scholars for some time now. However, I argue that their spatiotemporal dynamics remain underexplored, limiting understanding of how these transformations reshape neighbourhood relations. These evolving spatiotemporal dynamics create opportunities for interaction with individuals who no longer reside locally. Based on a hybrid ethnography of Le Lignon (Switzerland), this study shows how former residents’ presence is reconfigured through the neighbourhood’s digital platform. Three typologies emerge: the Disconnected Nostalgic, who resurfaces sporadically via memory work; the Selective Guardian, who intervenes reactively in moments of controversy; and the Peripheral Insider, who sustains everyday engagement despite relocation. Each engages differently with local life and platform temporality: the first in an archival mode, often algorithmically invisible; the second through narrative bursts amplified by algorithms; and the third within the ongoing flow, aligning visibility with daily neighbourhood rhythms. Building on these observations, the analysis contributes to urban sociology and neighbourhood studies in dialogue with media, memory, and mobility research. It advances the concept of relational temporality in digital mobile times by showing how rhythms and asynchronous interactions, shaped by algorithms, co-produce a socially mediated time-space that both transcends physical proximity and unsettles linear temporal constraints.