Digital well-being, the app that rewards students' offline hours

Voluntarily blocking the most distracting applications during study sessions: the University of Naples Federico II launches the #benesseredigital campaign, presented this morning by Rector Matteo Lorito, with the aim of turning disconnection into a measurable, motivating and recognised practice.

At the heart of the project is LockBox, an app that suspends social and other possible disruptive factors during study, helping students to reduce interruptions and improve concentration and performance. Every minute spent offline generates an internal virtual currency, a coin, which can be converted into real rewards provided by participating partners: books, gym subscriptions, tickets for cinema and cultural events, experiences and trips. The student selects the applications to be blocked, starts a disconnection session and accumulates coins in proportion to the time spent without distraction.

Having reached the threshold of 1,500 coins, equal to about 25 hours of total disconnection, one can apply for the 'Digital Wellbeing' Open Badge, issued by the Bestr platform. This is a verifiable and sharable digital certification that can be included in one's curriculum vitae and online professional profiles (e.g. on LinkedIn), as a concrete sign of one's commitment to one's digital balance and the quality of one's training.

"The Federico II has always believed in technology as a lever of intellectual and human growth," explains Rector Lorito, "now we are taking a step further: we are not limiting ourselves to providing digital tools to our students, but accompanying them to use them with awareness. An app and a badge are not a limit to connection but an act of trust in our students' ability to choose when to connect and when, instead, to devote themselves to deep study, reflection, and real life on campus. The real digital competence of the future is not being able to stay online all the time, but being able to decide when it is time to disconnect.