Digital Detox at the Side Event

Our expert Michele Bresciani takes us inside a special moment experienced at the ITS: a spritz, many people and a training challenge on Digital detox which transformed a simple side event into an experience of awareness and sharing.

All summits in the world have at least one thing in common. At the end of the day, your feet beg for mercy.
You just want to relax… after all, it's seven in the afternoon, you've done your job and you deserve an aperitif.

Here we are! The spritz is served, in this side event of the ITS, where we tried to combine two fundamental elements: the pleasantness of the stay together in a relaxed and friendly way – sitting at the table with a cocktail in hand, and a decidedly training on a current topic.

On the other hand, we are at ITS and our name is Piazza Copernico, we couldn't stray too far from this world of personal growth, skills, and sensitivity, even if we admit that sometimes we dream, like everyone else, of a hammock in the Seychelles.

What happened at the side event? First of all, it's worth sharing the educational and experiential theme: Digital Detox. Which means all or nothing, depending on the interpretation. Ours is that in such a digital age, it's necessary to seek a functional balance with the tools we use, so as not to slip dangerously, one day at a time, one like at a time, one team at a time, towards addiction or burnout.

Let's be clear, our vision is not mystical or uncompromising: we are absolutely convinced that technology makes this world more beautiful and that digital represents a huge opportunity, but we are also aware that the risk of "intoxication" is always present.

This is the meaning of a training program developed and refined in recent years with different organizations that shared a sensitivity to the well-being of their employees.

But a spritz is just a spritz… so we tried to bring these themes and these sensibilities into a cheerful, light and very interactive context… with the aim of sharing food for thought more than scientific papers. Nonetheless, evidently thanks to the quality of the material and the particularly lively atmosphere, the energy in the room was truly remarkable, and, one challenge after another, we found ourselves having to close the game well past the scheduled time, as there was no way to end the healthy and playful competition between the participants.

It was nice to see people smiling, playing, sometimes shouting… but no one ever took their phone out of their pocket and was distracted by a notification.

Here… the digital detox training course is exactly this: a method to find your own path to balanceIt's not about taking two days in a remote farmhouse (and then returning on Monday to disappear behind a screen), but about building, with perseverance and according to an effective plan, your own path to awareness and rebalancing.

This time, the prize was just an "extra" bottle of Spritz. But for those who choose to take the full training program and not the "trade show" version, the reward is much more personal and meaningful: freedom from digital constraints and the reclaiming of their time and attention.
There are courses that help you acquire skills, and others that motivate you to feel better. Digital Detox goes in this direction, and even with tired feet, everyone at ITS has noticed.