Digital Detox - easy in south devon
There's a moment that happens to almost everyone who visits South Devon. You're walking along the coastal path somewhere between Paignton and Brixham, your phone signal does that flickery half-bar thing it does so you realise all your phone is good for is taking pictures, so you just stop checking it for anything else. So you take a couple of pictures to help your tired brain remember the beauty of what you’re witnessing and then it just happens. You put the phone away and it stays there for much longer than usual.
This is no accident. It's a clue. It’s your body returning to it’s natural state of being! It’s the digital detox we all crave!
The Problem With Always Being "On"
We love tech. Genuinely. It's not going anywhere and we wouldn't want it to. But there's a difference between using a phone and being used by one, and most of us — adults, teenagers, exhausted parents, entire offices full of people — have drifted quietly into the second category without really deciding to. We are now aware of this by the way but we are addicted. It’s as simple as that.
The average person checks their phone somewhere north of 80 times a day. That's not a decision. That's a habit driving the dopamine rich - brain - chemical - fuckery that has been controlling things for years now. And habits like that come at a cost: shorter attention spans, that low hum of anxiety when the phone's not in reach, and a strange sense of having "connected" with fifty people today without actually connecting with anyone at all in a real meaningful way.
South Devon, as it turns out, is a rather brilliant antidote.
Why south devon?
This corner of the country is built for slowing down — beaches that don't need a filter, market towns that still run on conversation rather than QR codes, and a pace of life that resists being sped up. Even if occasionally you feel the urge to!
At A Letter Is Better CIC, based right here in Totnes, we run digital detox workshops that use one deliberately old-fashioned tool: the handwritten letter. Not because we're anti-tech but because putting pen to paper does something a screen simply can't.
Writing a letter forces you to slow down. You can't scroll through a letter, and you can't half-write it while watching something else. It asks for your full attention, and in return it gives you something back: clarity, a bit of calm, and — this is the bit people don't expect — a genuine sense of accomplishment when you've finished it.
We build our workshops around Connection, Authenticity, and Sense of Accomplishment — our three core fundamentals, and honestly, you will understand what that feels like if you take part in a workshop or write a letter to a friend or family member. Send us a message if you’d like a How To Write A Letter Guide which will take you through the process. And you’ll be entered into the 10,000 Letter Challenge as well!
Bringing a digital detox workshop to your Team, School, or Group
We run these sessions for all sorts of groups across South Devon and beyond and we’d especially like to connect with corporate teams looking for a wellbeing day that is not your average team building exercise.
If you're in South Devon (we are also willing to travel because we love what we do) and you like the sound of swapping notifications for a notepad for an afternoon, we'd love to hear from you. No perfect handwriting required. No forced reading aloud. Just you, a pen, and a bit of quiet.
Get in touch to bring a digital detox workshop to your workplace, school, or community group. Contact here.
