Digital detox

Digital detox is a signal of certain shifts and changes taking place in society. Every year, the volume of information in the world is growing, the person’s dependence on it is increasing, but at the same time, it becomes more difficult to understand the flow of data surrounding it.

Due to the convergence of the sphere of online and offline, online algorithms have become stronger and more noticeable influence on society. Most people cannot imagine their life without social networks and the Internet .

There are such phenomena as nomophobia (the English no mobile phobia ) - the fear of being left without a mobile phone, fubbing (from the English phone “phone” and the English snubbing “neglect”) - the habit of being distracted by mobile devices instead of maintaining a conversation with an interlocutor, screen-voyeurism - observing the personal life of people by peeping at their screens in public transport, office or at home.

In this reality, in the conditions of a highly loaded technical environment, digital detox appears as a natural desire of a person to limit his dependence on digital information channels and establish healthy “relationships” with technology.

Dmitry Solovyov, a researcher at Joy of Understanding, one of the members of the Go for digital detox research group, which focuses on digital detox and media basketballism, offers the following digital detox rules:

1. Set up your digital channels: filter out news channels, getting rid of unnecessary sites that you can easily manage without, stop reading news unconsciously.
2. Arrange Local Detox: make it a rule to spend some time in the family without a phone. Important: Be sure to plan what you will do during Local Detox.
3. Treat information as a resource
4. Follow the “ecology of your technical device”: it is very important to preserve the logic and principles of the arrangement of icons, interface.
5. Learn to focus: do exercises to concentrate and give up technology. Allow yourself a special time when you are not distracted by checking your mail, phone, social networks and concentrating.
6. Use programs for concentration.
7. Collect information, not spray it: use additional tools (for example, tagging) or services for storing notes (for example, Evernote) to collect information and be able to return to it.
8. Learn the theory of how algorithms, network structures, and systems work. They have a big impact on your life.
9. Do not forget about the physical world, about the body, about breathing, breaks while working at the computer.
10. Do not forget about analog creativity. ^[3]

Detox Software

The popularity of various Digital detox programs is increasing: device-free meetings, workshops, summer camps, travel packages, etc.

For example, the Digital Detox organization, established in 2011, offers a series of various events aimed at “creating harmony in the digital era”: from yoga , games, dance evenings to corporate parties without the use of digital devices. Their motto is: "Disconnect to reconnect." ^[four]

National Day Off

National day of unplugging is held in the USA . On this day, people do not use computers to do anything else. You can inform the whole world about your disconnection experience through the site by filling out a template and taking a picture. ^[5]

Digital Detox in Tourism

The trend of digital detox has become very popular in the tourism industry. For example, the site of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines , as part of its digital detox program, encourages tourists to leave all technical devices at home and, while on the islands, enjoy the simple pleasures of life without mobile phones and gadgets. Their digital detox travel package includes a pre-sent special brochure that explains in detail how to do without technology while traveling. ^[6]

The “Disconnect” service at the Kinsey hotel in a suburb of Washington provides visitors with the opportunity to leave their computers , tablets and smartphones at the reception . Hotel workers keep the device at their place until the end of the client’s stay. ^[7]

Digital Detox in Advertising and the Brand War

Digital detox has also become a very common trend in the marketing environment. Previously, brands reminded us of the importance of keeping abreast of all the news and staying in touch, but now in the campaigns of many brands we see the opposite trend.

For example, a chain of fast food restaurants Burger King offered a free wapper to anyone who would delete 10 of their friends through a special application and report it to Facebook . ^[8]

Coca-Cola shot a video about how people around are more and more immersed in virtual reality and lose their connection with the outside world. Coca-Cola brings people back to reality and provides a reason for communication in the real world. ^[9]

The JWT agency organized special shops for KitKat in the cities, around which there is no Wi-Fi . On the benches you can calmly chat and have a snack with chocolate. ^[5]

Despite all the advantages of digital detox, there is criticism of this approach.

Alexis Madrigal, an American journalist and editor of The Atlantic , compares the Camp Grounded digital detox summer camp and his ideas with 60s Back-to-the-land advocates who thought the shift traditional sources of energy on the solar will change their souls, as well as with the followers of the "new naturalism" with the ideas of abandoning the pursuit of achievement, competition, technology and familiarization with nature. According to Alexis, these thoughts are just as utopian and meaningless as digital detox. First, abandoning technology, one person will not solve the problem of their imperfection, just as refusing chemical food does not solve world agricultural problems. It is not enough just to know that “something is wrong,” you need to find out the reason for this and act together, based on constructive criticism. Secondly, according to Alexis, a person himself is an imperfect creature, therefore, one way or another, he will succumb to any dependencies: be it alcohol, gossip or Internet addiction. By eliminating one of them, humanity will not get better at all ^[10] .