At Pact for Coexistence, we are launching a collective challenge to rethink the role of digital in our lives. As individuals and as a society, we have embraced digital technologies with great enthusiasm to the point that they are present in all areas: they accompany us in our jobs, hobbies and relationships with others. They help us in many tasks, but we have also discovered that some of their characteristics are detrimental: they favour polarisation in debates, manipulation of our behaviour (and purchases) and more superficial relationships, to give just three well-known examples. After the initial enthusiasm, it is time to rethink our digital lives to get the best out of these tools without sacrificing our relationships, privacy and freedom.

We will present the challenge on 24 January 2023 at 19h. at the Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid. You can attend or follow it online. Admission is open and free until full capacity is reached without registration. However, in order to join the challenge and receive the emails you need to fill in this form. Your data will be used exclusively to send you the information related to the challenge and will be deleted after the end of the challenge. IMPORTANT: Please pay attention to the folder of spam in case our messages end there.

For 5 weeks after this presentation, we will work on the topics covered in the essay. DisconnectionThe inspiration for this challenge. Designed to make it easy for anyone to participate, all you have to do is spend a few minutes a week reading, thinking and sharing ideas about the immediate digital future we want. Participation is free and can be done from anywhere in the world. Each week you will receive an email with information about an important aspect of the influence of digital applications on our lives that will serve as a starting point for reflection and debate, and there will be an online space where you can exchange opinions and suggestions to come up with joint solutions. The topics will be:

1. Presentation: The social impact of networks
2. Everyday life entangled: the digital in our daily lives
3. I have networks, therefore I am: digital in how we relate to each other now.
4. Filtered reality: biases and algorithms in networks.
5. Social networks and democracy: between debate and polarisation

And we will close with a final mail looking to the future with the conclusions and proposals that have emerged.

Challenge facilitator: Manuel Alcántara Plá, UAM researcher and author of the essay Desconexión (Barlin publishing house).

Organised by: Pacto de convivencia in collaboration with Foro I+D+C: Intervención social desde las artes y las humanidades (CBA). This challenge is part of the agenda "The art of living together in peace"..

All challenge resources (click here)