The "Digital Residue": Which Tools Persisted and Which Were Abandoned After the COVID-19 Emergency?

The end of the COVID-19 emergency marked a shift from compulsory digital adoption toward selective consolidation of teaching practices in higher education. This qualitative pilot study examines which digital tools persisted after Emergency Remote Teaching and which were deliberately abandoned, a phenomenon conceptualized as “digital residue.” Drawing on an open-ended survey administered to a purposive sample of five university professors across Southern Europe, the analysis adopts a directed content approach informed by the Technology Acceptance Model and Task–Technology Fit theory. Findings reveal a clear pattern of selective retention rather than wholesale rejection of digital tools. Faculty report abandoning synchronous practices that merely replicated face-to-face lectures in inferior digital formats, such as long live streams and unedited recordings. In contrast, tools supporting asynchronous learning and formative assessment—short video capsules, quizzes, and LMS-based resources—are retained due to their pedagogical efficiency and low workload-to-benefit ratio. The results suggest that post-pandemic faculty are not resistant to digitalization but are acting as pragmatic filters, preserving only those technologies that meaningfully support learning without increasing instructional burden. While limited in scale, the study provides an initial taxonomy for understanding post-emergency digital consolidation.