Digital Detox: Stop in the Poison

We talk a lot about “digital detox” today. It is usually a week to a fortnight in a remote place, without Internet or mobile phone. It is quite obvious that everyone can benefit from periods during which people is invited to refocus on oneself, nature and close relationships, away from the bustle of the world.

But before talking about detoxification, it is necessary to distinguish two types of uses of digital technologies that can be called excessive. Neither is pathological, for they may be punctual and correspond to a moment in the relation that an individual maintains with. But both are “time-consuming” and it is impossible to distinguish them if one only sticks to the past.

First of all, there are those who want to use these technologies for whatever they can bring, and also to avoid their pitfalls. They are therefore in a permanent and useful learning of their possibilities.

The new generations who are in this situation are also more suspicious with regard to the diversion of their personal data and less victims of scams of all kinds than the seniors who practice them less.

The second category of users considered excessive is those who repetitively use what they master about these technologies to avoid thinking about the difficulties of their daily life, such as unemployment, precariousness or loneliness.

The courses of “digital detox” are obviously unsuitable in both cases. Indeed, for those who wish to use digital technologies to the maximum of their possibilities, there is no other choice than to practice them incessantly because they never cease to evolve.

As for those who wish to escape the difficulties of the world, they will obviously always have excellent reasons for wanting to do so. Intensive “digital detox” programs will undoubtedly help each other to think of other things for a week or two. But what will happen on their return? All their habits associated with their usual environment will arise again and the temptation will be great to reconnect with them.

That’s why these programs are nothing but a gigantic scam. This does not mean that those who go there do not find a calm and a satisfaction. But this is due to their retirement character away from the bustle of the world and not at all to the project of “digital detox”. At a time when the international scientific community insists that the intensive use of digital technologies is not a modern form of intoxication or addiction, sellers of “digital detox” actually practice detox poisoning…

While digital technologies do not produce addictions, they can produce very bad habits, both individual and social, and even more so if these are shared by family, friends or co-workers. That is why the solution to these excessive practices is not individual but collective. The first group is obviously the family. It begins with the evening meal without TV or mobile phone, the decision to cut the family Wifi in the evening from a certain time, and a contract between family members to drop off their cell phones on the breakfast table. Around digital technologies, no one is left alone to solve his excesses.