By: Jacob Martinez
When we talk about technology, we wonder how it affects our everyday life with both the positive and negative effects. In my opinion, technology has a ton of negative effects as it controls people's lives. Students and workers become distracted from their work because they can’t seem to put their phone down. This then causes their work to be less efficient and reduces their brain activity. However, a positive effect of technology being a part of our lives is that work or even school can become easier because of the different applications that we have. Students are required to write essays and conduct research for their schoolwork, along with being able to take notes.
To further determine whether technology is negatively affecting our digital wellbeing, I read the article “Digital Wellbeing as a dynamic construct” by Vanden Abeele. This article explains how technology helps operate our daily lives because of the variety of content that it provides, the different services that we need, as well as being able to hold contacts to make connections with different people. Vanden Abeele explains that the overall definition of digital wellbeing should be researched in depth to learn about maintaining a healthier mobile media habit.
The article explains about one’s digital well being and how we have to determine the differences. Vanden Abeele argues “that a more valid conceptualization of digital wellbeing is attained if we differentiate digital wellbeing and addiction and acknowledge that ubiquitous connectivity brings both value and discomfort to our lives.” They explain that there are about 4 things we must consider to further understand digital wellbeing.
The first consideration being to avoid medicalization, explains the addiction with people and their technology. However, researchers must determining one’s own addiction to their mobile device. In the article, Vanden Abeele explains that “such a dependence is diagnosed by gauging the individual’s behavior against widely recognized symptoms, such as suffering from withdrawal symptoms when technology is removed, requiring more usage to attain the same effect (“tolerance”) and being mentally preoccupied with the technology or its use.” If people cannot look at their phone for a brief period of time as well as having withdrawals, then they can be diagnosed with addiction to their mobile device.
The second consideration would be acknowledging hedonic and eudemonic experiences. This consideration explains the specific criteria the needs to be met, such as people not being able to have control over their phone, along with having an impairment from not using their mobile device. I think that this is an important consideration because it helps specify what criteria needs to be met before determining ones digital wellbeing. The third consideration is acknowledging temporal variability and person-specificity. This basic consideration explains our connectivity to our technology and our relationship with it.
The fourth and final consideration is acknowledging ambivalence. This consideration explains our positive and negative experiences, with how we can find a basic solution to having a successful digital wellbeing. Vanden Abeele explains different “interventions such as digital detox programs and screen time apps (e.g., Apple Screen Time) build on this assumption. But by attempting to eliminate the negative outcomes of connectivity, we risk sacrificing its positive outcomes.” Overall, I believe that we can find plenty of solutions to better our digital wellbeing and can improve technology usage, along with our connectivity to it.
Comments