Call for Submissions

CTRL+ALT+DH Issue 4: Navigating Digital Anxieties

Submission deadline: Extended to October 29th, 2026

Submit your work through the CTRL+ALT+DH submission portal.

To view previous issues and read more about who we are, please visit this page: Welcome to CTRL-ALT-DH

Call for Papers, poster design by Hailey Polster and Rebecca Logan.

Our relationship with technology is becoming increasingly complicated, intertwined with how we communicate, connect, work, learn, and understand the world around us. From doomscrolling and algorithmic feeds to deepfakes, surveillance, generative AI, the pressure to exist online, and the sheer volume of information at our fingertips, navigating digital life can feel overwhelming.

But technology is not merely a source of anxiety. It connects and entertains us, makes everyday tasks easier, and creates possibilities that did not exist before. Yet these possibilities also raise questions about control, trust, privacy, labour, authenticity, identity, power, human connection, and more.

It is within these tensions and contradictions – and questions that accompany them – that we situate our theme: Navigating Digital Anxieties.

Why We Chose Navigating Digital Anxieties

Whether an increasingly digital world should be celebrated or feared is not something we are looking to decide. We cannot ignore, however, is the unease, uncertainty, and, for some, even dread that can accompany living in a world increasingly shaped by digital technologies.

Digital Anxieties is a small title for a big topic. We use “anxiety” broadly: it does not have to describe this kind of dread or distress that may be keeping you up at night. It might instead be uncertainty about where technology is taking us, a contradiction in how we use it, frustration with a system we depend on and/or a question we have yet to answer. Digital anxiety can emerge not only from the technologies themselves, but also from the cultures, expectations, and systems that we have built around them.

We chose the word navigating just as deliberately. We live with these anxieties, but we also have the capacity to question and critique the systems that produce them. We can seek to understand them, adapt to them, create through them, resist them, or rethink the systems behind them altogether. Navigating asks us to consider not only our technologies, but the ways we have grown accustomed to engaging with them - and how we might engage with them differently.

This issue therefore asks not only what makes us anxious about digital life, but what we can do about that anxiety.

We are particularly interested in the human choices that shape our relationships with technology. Who designs our digital spaces, and for whom? Who benefits from the ways they currently operate? How is technology used within systems of power, and how might those systems be challenged or redesigned? What would it mean to imagine technology less as a tool for profit and/or surveillance and more as a space for connection, creativity, community, and collective good?

What could Navigating Digital Anxieties look like?

Our theme is intentionally broad. We welcome the many ways contributors might interpret, complicate, question, and even challenge it.

Some starting points – not boundaries!

We want this issue to bring different interpretations, experiences, and formats into conversation with one another. Contributions do not need to provide a solution to digital anxiety, nor do they need to approach technology pessimistically.

Submission Guidelines and Timeline

Formats:

We welcome submissions in a variety of formats, including:

Alongside your submission, we ask that you include a brief description of your work, explain your process and the choices that shaped your final work, and offer a few sentences explaining how you feel your submission engages with the issue’s theme. This introduction should provide readers with sufficient context to understand the work and consider its place within the larger collection.

Multimedia and Creative Submissions

We encourage multimedia submissions with audio, video, and interactive elements. For these submissions, please include any necessary links, files, or instructions needed to access and experience the work as intended.

Citations:

Contributors must follow the Chicago style (17th edition) for citations. For guidance on Chicago formatting, visit the University of Guelph’s Citation Guide, or Purdue OWL.

AI Policy:

The use of AI tools is permissible if the author provides transparency about the tool they used and the reason why. AI without citations is academic misconduct and plagiarism, so make sure to cite your sources! If AI is used, the journal has the right to deny the submission.

Timeline

Submissions are due October 29th, 2026. This year’s issue is expected to be published in early December 2026.

If your submission is selected for this year’s issue, you will be contacted before publication with editorial feedback and information about the next steps.

Peer Review

All submissions to CTRL+ALT+DH will undergo open review. All communication between authors and reviewers will be facilitated by the editorial team.

However, in support of a fair and just review process, our editors will sign a conflict of interest declaration form, with which we will decide who reviews what.

Please read more about what we publish and how to prepare your work for submission on our Submission Guidelines page.

Submit your work through the CTRL+ALT+DH submission portal.

Why Submit?

This is a rare opportunity for undergraduate students to have their work published in an academic journal. We encourage students from all disciplines and backgrounds to contribute, share their perspectives, and showcase their interdisciplinary thinking! Having your work published can be a great addition to your resume and offers valuable experience with the peer-review process (great experience for graduate studies!). It’s also a unique opportunity to meet new people, learn more about the many facets of our digital society, and contribute to a larger conversation.

We look forward to see how you navigate your submissions!

Please contact us at ctrlaltdh@gmail.com if you have any questions.