Coping with Digital Wellbeing in a Multi-Device World

Digital well-being in an age of mobile connectivity: An introduction to the Special Issue

“…In both media effects and media studies research, digital disconnection is both implicitly (e.g., Vanden Abeele, 2021) and explicitly (e.g., Fast, 2021; Nguyen, 2021) recognized as an act that might be conducive to digital well-being. 2 In media effects research, for instance, a growing number of studies explore the effects of limiting—mostly mobile—connectivity on well-being and its associated outcomes, often using synonymous or adjacent concepts to digital disconnection such as “smartphone abstinence” (Wilcockson et al, 2019), “social media abstinence” (Hall, Xing, et al, 2021), “digital detox” (Schmuck, 2020), and “smartphone disengagement” (Matthes et al, 2021).…”

“…After all, if there is no meaningful negative association for digital disconnection to have any impact on, it is logical that such disconnection produces only marginal effects (Hall, Xing, et al, 2021). But how can we accept this explanation, without delegitimizing the experiences of Rosenberg and Vogelman-Natan’s (2022) participants, as well as participants in various other disconnection studies (e.g., Nguyen, 2021; Ytre-Arne et al, 2020), who describe being endlessly connected as burdensome, and finding relief in varying practices of disconnection?…”

“…Despite its various definitions, however, one observation that stands out across the multitude of conceptualizations is that the concept of digital well-being frequently emerges to give expression to the challenges that people perceive in our ever-increasingly digital world in which mobile media use renders individuals ubiquitously connected. Matthes et al (2021), for instance, situate digital well-being in the context of the “Permanently Online, Permanently Connected” lifestyle (Vorderer et al, 2017), Nguyen (2021) discusses digital well-being in relation to the challenges of living in an “always-on” society, and in their recent editorial for a Special Issue on agentic perspectives on mobile media (non-)use, Karsay and Vandenbosch (2021, p. 782) speak of “endless connectivity” as a key challenge of our modern times that may jeopardize digital well-being. Interestingly, these terms resonate with observations of early researchers in the mobile media and communication community.…”

“…While current literature often thinks of self-regulated disconnection as a remedy to the consequences of excessive and uncontrolled mobile media use, for socioeconomically and digitally disadvantaged populations other interventions may be more important for attaining digital well-being (Karsay & Vandenbosch, 2021; Valasek, 2022). Relatedly, motivated by digital inequality scholarship, research could focus on the digital skills that become ever more important to navigate and manage the increasingly complex digital information environment, and that can help prevent perceptions of overuse and overload (Gui et al, 2017; Hargittai & Micheli, 2019; Nguyen, 2021), thereby fostering digital well-being.…”

“…As mobile connectivity is increasingly taken for granted (Ling, 2008), individuals are also increasingly expected to be permanently online and permanently connected (Vorderer et al, 2017). This state of being ‘always-on’ (Nguyen, 2021) is often experienced as a burden to well-being. As a result, people describe their relationship to mobile devices as ambivalent (Ytre-Arne et al, 2020), oscillating between feelings of resistance and resignation (Park & Kaye, 2019, p. 224).…”