Positive online engagement
Growing meaningful relationships online is essential for digital wellbeing. Students should practise empathetic, kind, and respectful communication, avoiding nasty behaviours such as cyberbullying. The more you engage in positive online activities the more confidence you will be.
Did you know that studying digital citizenship can support you in shaping your own self-identity? (Choi et al., 2017).
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avoid Digital Stress
Digital stress is a condition that involves the inability to deal with emotional issues caused by technology use (Steele et al., 2020). For example, during the lockdowns for the Covid-19 pandemic, depression and anxiety were on the rise due to excessive technology use. This stress resulted from information overload and the desire to excel in such skills as online multi-tasking (Reinecke et al., 2017).
Image by Kieth Rivera via canva.com
Image by Kieth Rivera via canva.com
Images by Sketchify via canva.com
Types of Digital Stress
Fear of missing out (FOMO)
Feeling worried about being excluded from friendships or social events
Availability stress
Feeling like you need to be constantly available
Being overwhelmed from the amount of digital input in your life
Infinite scrolling
Infinite scrolling is webpage design feature that enables you to continuously scroll down the page when reading information.
(Yang et al., 2023)
Switching tasks on a digital device might appear effortless, but it carries consequences. Each time a person shifts from one task to another, the brain undergoes a process of reconfiguration, leading to decreased efficiency as it readjusts to the new task at hand.
Constant task-switching can result in a number of negative impacts such as:
- Mental fatigue.
- Stress and anxiety
- Reduced focus.
- lower completion of tasks.
It's valuable for you to be mindful of these consequences, as these impacts could hinder your friendships, or add pressure in your school and family life. On a positive note, as you gain more experience and exposure to digital technologies, you will develop greater proficiency at managing multiple online tasks (Grange & Hougton, 2014). This supports the importance of digital wellbeing.
switch SMART