Challenge Seven: Digital Wellbeing
What it is:
So far in this challenge series, we have encouraged educators to incorporate digital tools in their teaching and learning practice. However, like everything else, too much of a good thing can also be a bad thing, and any tool, when used ineffectively or inappropriately, can also do more harm than good.
The B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework (p. 11) states:
A digitally literate person will use technology to support their wellbeing and have strategies for managing technology if it negatively impacts their physical, mental, or emotional health. A digitally literate person will have healthy boundaries with digital technologies, use them intentionally and will not use digital technologies in ways that harm others.
The concept of digital wellbeing is an important one, but also very broad and hugely complex. Jisc uses digital wellbeing as a term to describe the impact of technologies and digital services on people’s mental, physical, social, and emotional health. It is a complex concept that can be viewed from a variety of perspectives and across different contexts and situations.
Why it is important:
Our daily lives are intertwined with technology and filled with an abundance of digital tools. To live a digitally well-balanced life is often easier said than done. In Digital Media, Anxiety, and Depression in Children, researchers identify “growing concerns about the impact of digital technologies on children’s emotional well-being, particularly regarding fear, anxiety, and depression.” There has also been a huge push in the K–12 education system to ensure our children grow up to be capable digital citizens by helping them balance their digital lives.
Jisc invites us to consider digital wellbeing in these four contexts: social, personal, learning and work: “Technologies and digital activities can impact on physical, mental, social and emotional wellbeing in both positive and negative ways.”
Examples:
- Hear some great ideas and common strategies from webinar participants on how they support student digital wellbeing in their classrooms and presenter Lisa Gedak’s list of key strategies for ensuring student digital wellbeing: FLO Lab: Developing a Manifesto for Digital Well-Being (timestamp 41:00–56:00) and corresponding Padlet
- Get a few tips on staying tranquil in your own digital life: TED Talk by Adam Alter (video, 9 minutes)
Multimedia Activity
Reflect on your current digital wellbeing by completing this self-assessment quiz, Is It Time for a Digital Detox?, from UBC’s Digital Tattoo project.
Learning Activities
1. Learn it for yourself
- If your digital wellbeing self-assessment shows that you have a well-balanced digital life, congratulations! Then consider helping out Jordan, an instructor who is struggling with her class, in this case study, by learning and applying the PERMA Framework.
- If your digital wellbeing self-assessment shows that your digital wellbeing and real life is out of b