I didn’t come here to disconnect — I came here to pay attention

When I told people I was going to a rural cultural centre in a small village, most of them assumed it was a digital detox. They imagined no signal, no screens, long walks, silence. I imagined something else: space. Not emptiness, but room to think.

Magnet House didn’t take my phone away. No one asked me to log out of anything. The Wi-Fi worked — most of the time. And yet, from the first day, my relationship with the digital world shifted. Not because it disappeared, but because it stopped competing for my attention.

In the city, being online feels compulsory. Messages arrive faster than I can answer them. Presence is measured by responsiveness. At Magnet House, time stretched. Meals took longer. Conversations didn’t have clear endings. Silence wasn’t awkward. I still checked my phone, but it didn’t pull me in the same way. It was there, but it wasn’t in charge.

What surprised me most was how digital tools were used. Not constantly, not by default. Sometimes we gathered around a laptop to write together, or to connect with someone who couldn’t be there physically. Sometimes we didn’t. No one tried to document everything. No one rushed to capture moments just because they were happening. It felt like permission to let things exist without proof.

Being digitally literate, I’m used to environments where tools define the rhythm. Here, the rhythm defined the tools. If the conversation was flowing, nothing interrupted it. If we needed to connect outward, we did — intentionally. This made me realise how rare it is to experience digital choice instead of digital obligation.

Nature didn’t replace digital life; it reframed it. Walking between sessions, cooking together, sitting outside at night — these moments didn’t compete with being online. They grounded it. When we did go back to screens, the conversations felt more focused, more honest. Digital space became an extension of shared experience, not an escape from it.

I also noticed how the rural setting changed who felt comfortable participating. Some people who were quiet in formal meetings opened up while chopping vegetables or sitting in the garden. Later, when we used digital tools to reflect or write, those voices carried through. Participation didn’t depend on speaking loudly or quickly. It unfolded over time, across formats.

At Magnet House, I felt that my presence mattered even when I wasn’t constantly visible. Silence didn’t mean disengagement. Being offline for a while didn’t mean disappearing. This was new for me — and deeply reassuring.

I used to think that meaningful digital participation required constant connectivity. Now I’m not so sure. I think it requires something else: trust. Trust that people will come back. Trust that not everything needs to be shared immediately. Trust that attention is finite and precious.

Magnet House didn’t teach me to reject the digital world. It taught me to relate to it differently. To see technology not as something to escape from, but as something to place carefully among other things that matter — conversation, nature, rest, creativity.

When I left, I didn’t feel disconnected. I felt recalibrated.

And that might be the most radical thing a rural place can offer in a digital age: not absence, but perspective.

Output of the project “Digital Navigator”, 2024-2025, co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.