Two weeks ago we lead a professional forum with two workshops in Budapest, Hungary. This was for the lovely community of one of our strategic partners, SignCoders, who we are coordinating a 2 years long Erasmus+ project, “DigInclude – Developing Digital Skills in Disadvantaged Groups” with. The topic therefore was given: Digital Inclusion. However we really wanted to take a look at it from a different point of view and approach through Digital Wellbeing, a topic that we have some expertise in. We’d like to share with you how we see the connection between these two areas!
Digital Wellbeing, as you might know from a previous article of ours, “is the optimal state of health, personal fulfilment, interpersonal satisfaction and body-mind-spirit integrity that one can achieve while using technology”.
Our level of Digital Wellbeing, so the “how” of our relationship with technology defines the quality of certain areas of our lives (just like the quality of the area influences our Digital Wellbeing), which are the following:
- Productivity
- Environment
- Communication
- Relationship
- Mental Health
- Physical Health
- Quantified Self
- Digital Citizenship
One of these areas, as you can see above, is Digital Citizenship. Let’s take a moment to see what that means. Digital Citizenship is the continuously developing norms of appropriate, responsible and empowered technology. It includes both the rights and responsibilities of everyone taking part of our digital world in any ways.
One of Digital Citizenship’s goals is to create positive digital experiences for self and others.
So the question arises? Is it not our own responsibility to create these positive digital experiences?
- It’s also on us what will our digital spaces look like and how we’ll feel in the digital environment that we build.
- It’s also on us, how we co-exist in the digital spaces and what general beliefs and customs we do practice.
- It’s also on us what Digital Culture we create.
So what do WE want that our digital spaces look like? Kind? Fair? Transparent? Open? Accessible? Safe? We can wish for as many things as we want to, such as inclusive digital spaces (aka. Digital Inclusion). One thing is sure: whatever we’d like to see in our digital environment, we must do the work and stop for a moment to consciously design how we’ll do that. So that we stay well, so that our communities stay well. Digitally.
The professional forum with workshops inspiring this article are co-funded by the European Union in the framework of our Erasmus+ project, “DigInclude – Developing Digital Skills in Disadvantaged Groups”.
Hekate 