Technological acceleration has radically transformed our way of inhabiting the world, generating new forms of pollution that go beyond the environmental dimension to touch the anthropological, social, cognitive, and moral spheres. This is what the Magisterium had in a certain sense anticipated by introducing the concept of Integral Ecology.
The course critically addresses the phenomenon of “digital pollution” in its multiple manifestations: planned obsolescence, energy footprint of new technologies, visual pollution, information overload, artificial intelligence, and the ‘glitches’ of the human.
In our era of change, as Pope Francis stated, we are witnessing a change of epoch: we have moved from “online” to “on life,” and this rapid technological transformation risks distorting experience, liquefying the boundary between real and virtual, and ultimately making us perceive as obsolete the humanity within us.
The program integrates technical, philosophical, and theological competencies to restore meaning and direction to digital transformation, promoting an approach that prioritizes human dignity, sustainability, social justice, and care for creation within the contemporary technological ecosystem.