“Digital Well-Being”. Developing a New Theoretical Tool For Media Literacy Research

In this paper we show that a new problem is arising for users of digital media, who deal with an overabundant flow of information and social relationship options throughout the day. They increasingly need specific skills to channel digital stimuli towards personal goals and benefit, avoiding excessive multi-tasking, fragmentation of daily time and overconsumption of new media. We argue that these side effects are starting to represent a menace for people’s well-being. We show that existing frameworks of digital skills do not explicitly consider abilities to cope with communication overabundance. We also recognise that this question is not merely one of individual skills since the use of digital media is framed within social norms and expectations about what is “good” in the digital environment. Drawing from an interdisciplinary body of literature on the concept of “well-being”, we offer a definition of “digital well-being” as a state obtainable not only by the individual through his/her personal “digital well-being skills”, but also as a characteristic of a community whose norms, values and expectations contribute to its members’ comfort, safety, satisfaction and fulfilment. In the concluding section, we show the fruitfulness of the concepts of “digital well-being” and “digital well-being skills” for interdisciplinary social research and policy.