Conscious digital detox communities advance

A brilliant intuition quickly becomes a global movement. Get away from connected digital devices. In the Netherlands, three young university students launched a proposal for a smartphone-free weekend immersed in nature. The initiative is sold-out, attracting the attention of Generation Z. At the centre is the conscious use of devices. Time alternates between creative silence and dialogue without screens. Phones are stored in special phone hotels, metal boxes with closed compartments. The digital detox from elitist weekend becomes an urban ritual. The first Offline Hangout is born in a café in Amsterdam. It quickly scales: tens of thousands of people and half a million followers, emblematic of a collective need for detachment. The idea also conquers Berlin, London, Paris, Milan and Barcelona. And it flies to America.

Here is the advance of communities that promote a critical approach to technology. Not rejecting it, but interpreting it. It is the gentle dissent of the always-on. But are we at the tipping point of deliberate disconnection? According to a survey by the British Standards Institution, 47% of 16-21 year olds say they would prefer to live in a world without the Internet. From England to Italy. Digital overload is high, with 42% of consumers actively seeking digital detoxification by limiting the time they use their smartphones or other devices. This was revealed by EY's Decoding the digital home study, which surveyed 1,000 households in Italy and 20,000 worldwide on consumer behaviour regarding connectivity, digitisation and the smart home. Surprise. Disconnecting from devices is no longer just an isolated act, as was also highlighted at the Digital Detox Festival in Sauris, a Friulian village at 1,400 metres above sea level and with less than four hundred souls in the Carnic Alps.

"Young people, especially teenagers, still spend a lot of time online, although some are starting to experiment with small detox gestures such as limiting their use of apps. Rather than disconnecting, there is a growing search for authenticity. The discomfort comes mainly from social comparison and unrealistic ideal models,' says Laura Marciano, an Italian researcher in the United States, head of research at Harvard T.H. School of Public Health in the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences and an associate at the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children's Hospital. The average time spent on devices is no longer a solid indicator. To understand our well-being, we need to ask ourselves about social dynamics, writes the New York Times reporting on Marciano's studies. "Certainly excessive screen time is not good for our health, but to go further we need to ask what social-emotional processes the online world activates or not.

The two worlds - the physical and the virtual - are interrelated, but online the relational dynamics are different, perhaps intense, lacking key aspects of the in-person encounter. Two key concepts emerge: detox is by definition voluntary, it does not work if imposed. Moreover, rather than the total detox - with subsequent reuse with interest - it is the gradual reduction of online time that leads to more lasting and realistic effects,' says Marciano. "To disconnect is not to escape, but to return to what is essential: one must choose with awareness, listen to oneself, reconnect with what really matters, perform and feel satisfied with oneself and others". So says Sandro Formica, professor of positive organisations at Florida International University, one of the first in the world to decode the role of chief happiness officers in companies. 'The debate is heated, but without self-awareness there is no real choice. We need a silent revolution that puts people back at the centre of decision-making. My research on great resignation and quiet quitting shows that we disconnect not out of fatigue, but out of lack of meaning. When needs, values and purpose are not aligned, digital disconnection is only a symptom,' says Formica.