Abstract
The recent increase in the technology use among all populations and the age groups brings to life an emerging concept of digital wellbeing. Despite ongoing research, there is still no common definition of digital wellbeing, as well as a lack of representative studies. Additionally, the absence of valid measurements, particularly for certain institutional settings, is leaving a gap to fill.
With the help of the mixed-methods approach, the main research question will be answered: What are the key digital wellbeing needs of university students and staff from diverse cultural backgrounds? To answer it, we will study (1) how do university students, staff, and experts from diverse cultural backgrounds define and describe digital wellbeing? (2) how does culture influence the subjective digital wellbeing of university students and staff? and (3) how can a digital wellbeing measure for students and staff be designed to screen a healthy relationship with technology while maintaining balance in technology use?
The findings will bring valuable theoretical adjustments to the current theories around the concept of digital wellbeing. In particular, such components as practices, experiences, attitudes, and cultural influences will help to understand the concept of digital wellbeing within the institutional context of Higher Education across Europe as perceived by students and staff.
Besides the scientific contribution to the field, our research aims to bring a practical solution in the form of a new measurement scale to self-monitor digital wellbeing. This will be a standardized, culturally adaptive measure for the digital wellbeing assessment. Once developed and validated, the scale will be suggested for implementation in the mental health support strategy of the participating Open EU universities.
Main partners
