Digital Detox Communities as a Form of Resistance to Perpetual Connectedness: The Case of Social Eating

Abstract

The advent of the Internet and the spread of online communication have represented one of the greatest socio-cultural changes in recent years, also in terms of the dimension of time. While the proliferation of digital spaces and virtual contexts—in which forms of aggregation and social identification processes can be traced—has broadened the range of possible socialization processes for individuals, face-to-face experiences have seen the primacy of the process of constructing intersubjectivity gradually eroded. However, especially in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period, there has been a countertrend among some groups of people who have put forward new demands and needs: the reappropriation of face-to-face socialization. The phenomenon – defined as digital detoxification, or purification from social media and the Internet for a temporary period of varying duration—involves a growing community of people around the world across gender, age, and social class (Syvertsen, Enli, 2020; Ansari et al. 2024). Digital detox communities are growing throughout the Western world, according to a study by Radtke et al. (2021), which found that in the United States in 2020-2021, approximately 15% of the American population searched at least once on search engines for advice or ways to ‘disconnect’ from the internet, and that during the same period, registrations for apps or communities increased by 75%. It is precisely this new need that has prompted some dating app developers to start designing a new type of app, seeking to develop a hybrid form that combines the need to ‘create opportunities for socializing on the digital side’ with the possibility of meeting and connecting with potential friends, partners, and new acquaintances solely and exclusively through face-to-face experiences. This is, therefore, a new frontier for dating apps, which mixes different features and needs to create opportunities to meet and connect through real and typically ‘analog’ experiences, such as attending exhibitions, concerts, day trips, or cultural events, depending on one’s inclinations and passions. A new dating app called Tablo has recently been launched. It is a true social networking app in that, in order to exchange phone numbers and stay in touch, users ‘must’ participate in a face-to-face social experience, carving out time in their daily schedules and offline lives. The aim of this research was to analyze the motivations, relational modes, and uses of digital space among users registered on the Tablo app, while also highlighting aspects of perception and representation in the imagination of time and relationships with the need for digital detox. To answer the research questions, a mixed methods research experience was conducted, combining different research methodologies: in the first phase, a digital ethnography analysis was carried out, analyzing 300 profiles, interactions, and ‘social life’ of the community registered on the app; in the second phase, in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 users who regularly use Tablo.