Digital well-being: dream or reality?
The Covid-19 pandemic has been affecting the entire world for almost two years. In 2020, the health crisis caused a halt in most traditional professional activities, allowing a “break” in our daily life. For most of us, it resulted in a return to the fundamental values and relationships of life: family, friends, and ourselves.
Well-being became one of the key words to have a better life during this difficult period when remote work and digital activities prevailed over social interactions. But is taking care of one’s well-being compatible with maintaining an active digital life?
Is digital responsible for all (social) ills?
According to the “Work differently” foundation, 61% of people under 35 are dependent on their smartphones and suffer of “digital addiction”. It can be explained by the fact that digital technologies facilitate access to information, allows to do several things at the same time and prevents boredom. However, older generations do not like this idea. Over 73% of parents consider that digital tools reduce concentration by dispersing the attention of adolescents and young adults.
Digital tools also cause, for some people, poor sleep quality, depression, loneliness, and increased stress. Indeed, new technologies could create new fears, such as low-battery anxiety. They could have disastrous consequences for our brains by changing our relationship to the world. The screens disrupt how we communicate. We all had a time with friends when everyone looks at their smartphones without interacting with each other, sometimes speaking in an interposed way via the device…
According to a study conducted by comparitech.com, we spend on average 6 hours and 55 minutes a day in front of a screen, and more than 8hours for the 18–34 year olds. By constantly interacting on screens, we are less able to read deeply to understand complex writing and develop a critical mind. We interact in real life just as on social networks where attention is fast and content is brief.
Digital as a lifeline
Digital displays and connected technology kept business and people active during the pandemic. We may have been socially distanced, but digital technology allowed us to continue to live closely during lockdowns. We were able to continue to study through distance learning, we developed remote work, videoconferencing allowed us to see our grandchildren or grandparents; nephew and niece grow up, the list goes on.
The Basic Psychological Needs Theory defines three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and social belonging. These needs would be the source of motivation and optimal functioning. Each of them was made possible over the past two years thanks to the current digital tools. We certainly spent more time online for working, communicating, learning, entertaining, engaging, and ordering good. In a nutshell, those tools helped make our jobs and lives feel like they were still in a pre-Covid era.
It is interesting then to stop focusing on the “ill-being” and to start looking at how digital technology can promote well-being in a positive way for the next few years.
Well-being through apps
Wellness applications can be segmented into 3 categories:
- Health, such as sport and nutrition applications
- Social well-being: organizational applications, personal development, creating habits
- Psychic balance, for example applications for meditation, sleep cycles, daily gratitude
Many “Wellness” applications are now on the market. A market valued at more than $4,500 billion with +3,6% growth per year according to the Global Wellness Institute and based on IMF data. How to interact with users to get such results? The choice is wide.
WellTech is a new market with players who has understood the current and growing trend of well-being. They often use data to quantify it and convince users to download their application or pay a subscription. Data collection is easy if the user is interested in tracking their biological rhythm, physical activity, calorie expenditure, time and sleep quality and more. A smartwatch is often enough for Welltechs to have access to massive amounts of data at the individual level. But what is the real impact on individuals? To what extent do these applications make the everyday life easier?
The answer to this question remains tough. It is no secret that these applications work if they are used for a specific and controlled purpose. Personal development apps tend to make life sweeter; sports apps keep us motivated and help us achieve our goals, organization apps assist in our every day schedule. The point is to find the balance and to know how to profit from those apps.
Is it possible to link well-being and digital in the professional world?
Well-being at work is a concern for all companies in order to keep employees motivated on a daily basis. The commitment of the employee will be total if they flourish in their work. Just like digital technologies can help improve someone’s well-being in a private setting and social circle, we can take some of those lessons and apply them to the work life.
Digital well-being at work corresponds to all the possible improvements in our daily working life thanks to powerful, useful and responsive digital tools. They can be integrated to promote communication, collaborative work, productivity by facilitating certain tasks or to train employees. But well-being can also come through connected objects (IoT): pens that transfer paper notes to the computer, chairs that intelligently adapt to the shape of our backs, improve the remote working experience, the options are almost endless.
Once again, the thing is to find a healthy balance and avoid the blurred lines between work and home. The key? Disconnect from work devices and services when you go home (or when you are done working from home.)
So since it’s time to decide on our New Year’s resolutions for 2022, will you use digital to help take your professional and personal goals to the next level?
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
