Technology and new emerging rights. The right to disconnect in the Italian framework and comparative perspective.

Technological evolution generates relevant social changes and turns upside-down working patterns and paradigms of the work performance. The Covid-19 pandemic has irreversibly accelerated the impact of the new technologies on every day's life. For example, technology has the characteristic of "freeing up time", but also it may have the opposite effect, which produces the phenomenon that has been called "time porosity". This metaphor indicates how "lifetime" is gradually invaded by "work time" due to a society where people can connect everywhere and every time. Therefore, spaces become more indefinites and people's lives are marked by a continuous contamination between what one is in personal life and the work that one does. This interference has led to the emerging of a new collective interest, a new right of the digital era: the right to disconnect.In particular, the following article analyzes the Italian case in comparison with other European countries to focus on the problem of effectiveness and balancing with other rights. In the author's view, the right to disconnect points to the insurgence of a new sphere of rights protection deriving from technological evolution, which needs to be legally defined by specific rules. More reflection on the new generations of "fundamental social rights" is also required, an aspect that the European Parliament seems to subscribe to with the Resolution of 21 January 2021 containing recommendations to the Commission on the right to disconnect and proposal for a directive ad hoc.