A digital diet?

Well it's timely that I have just bought a copy of "The Digital Diet - the 4-step Plan to Break Your Tech Addiction and Regain Balance in Your Life" by Daniel Sieberg for the eLearning library and then I hear about a new venture by a Marriot hotel in Pittsburgh, USA:

A Pittsburgh hotel, guests surrender digital devices upon check-in

Participating guests of the hotel’s weekend package must surrender any laptop, cell phone or other digital devices upon check-in for safekeeping.
Anyone who’s part of today’s “always-on” world knows that unplugging once in a while can be critical for one’s mental health. That’s surely a big part of the rationale behind Swedish telecom provider Telia’s “internet-free zones” this summer, not to mention the emphasis on offline board games at Toronto’s Snakes & Lattes café. Now, along similar lines, Marriott’s Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel offers a weekend package to help the “always-on” set unplug and recharge.

It may well be that in the coming years, helping consumers unplug is as valuable a service as helping them plug in originally was. How can your brand help customers relax and recharge?

I also heard Mark Pesce speak this week and one thing he advised educators was in teaching students time management we need to incorporate the value of "disconnection". Our students (& their parents) rely so heavily on being connected they see it as a lifeline and feel they are lost without it -this is where the term helicoptor parents comes in. We need to teach our girls that there is value in being independent, so that they become the masters of technology rather than be slaves to it, parents also play a very important role in this as role models.