O Direito à Desconexão no Corpo de Bombeiros Militar do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes how the absence or fragility of the right to disconnect affects the digital well-being, quality of life, professional performance, and mental health of military firefighters in Rio Grande do Sul. The study adopts a qualitative, inductive, and interdisciplinary approach, combining a literature review, a bibliometric analysis of scientific literature on digital disconnection, a legal and regulatory examination of the framework applicable to the Rio Grande do Sul Military Fire Department, and seven semi-structured interviews with active-duty military personnel, intentionally selected based on criteria of diversity in rank, role, gender, and length of service. The empirical data were analyzed using content analysis and organized into six categories: permeability between work and private life; military culture and professional identity; motivators for connection and obstacles to disconnection; impacts on well-being and private life; disconnection and resistance strategies; and institutional solutions. The results indicate that disconnection is not a binary condition, as receiving messages, assessing their urgency, and mentally anticipating responses also consume time and attention during off-duty hours. The blurring of work and private life exhibited temporal, spatial, and cognitive dimensions, with greater exposure observed in administrative and command roles. Staying connected was associated with collegiality, understaffing, the concentration of knowledge and responsibilities, the incompatibility between deadlines and work schedules, hierarchical expectations, and the fragmentation of institutional systems. Associations were identified with stress, anxiety, sleep disturbances, interruption of studies, family tensions, loss of leisure time, and difficulty with psychological recovery; however, the data do not allow for the establishment of clinical causality or statistical generalization. It is concluded that the right to disconnect is compatible with the work of a military firefighter, provided it is not understood as absolute unavailability. Its implementation requires objective criteria to differentiate emergencies from routine administrative demands, formal recognition of the required availability, organization of communication channels, training of substitutes, knowledge sharing, system integration, and institutional legitimization of the lack of response during rest periods.