Journal Article Analysis – Digital Overuse and Subjective Well-Being in a Digitised Society
The growing popularity of the internet and technologies has an impact on all aspects of our society. With over 90% internet penetration in North America and Europe and Mobile subscriptions over 100% in many parts of the world, the Internet and technologies are becoming necessities of a person’s life. Although the abundance of digital information and communication brings positive transformations to society, there are some issues that all agencies should take seriously, digital divide, privacy, and health issue. As to the health issue, most studies focus on IT addiction or problematic use. Studies indicate a positive association between digital technology exposure and all four type of addictions (Wang, Sigerson & Cheng, 2019).
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This kind of study only considers internet use is dysfunctional when the amount of time spent on the technologies is considered reaching addiction level (Young, 2018). However, there are many people who spend a significant amount of time on digital technologies yet not addicted to it. How this overuse impact on the wellbeing of the users? This Buchi and his colleagues’ work is trying to answer the question. The study sample is from Switzerland which is a country with high internet penetration. The first difficulty of the study is how to measure wellbeing. They used subjective wellbeing (SWB) which is a self-assessment of an individual’s wellbeing in different domains. They also tested the relationship between SWB and Perceived Digital Overuse(PDO) and their relationship with the contextual and individual factors (Social Digital Pressure, Digital Coping Skills). Their result indicates that Results indicated that 28% of Swiss Internet users perceived digital overuse, which was strongly and negatively associated with well-being and digital coping skills can offset its negative impact. The author also indicates that internet overuse has become a social issue in this digital age and a new set of skills to cope with the challenges (Buchi, Festic & Latzer, 2019).
In today’s world, the internet and technologies are becoming necessities for most people. Although access to technologies is considered as a positive thing, internet overuse is a social phenomenon. This article provides some thoughts for policy-making and academic research to cope with the emerging social issue. It would be interesting to see a study on digital users from an Asian culture, as the Asian cultures seemingly had significant problems dealing with problem Internet use compared to the rest of the world(Young, 2018).
Reference:
Buchi, M., Festic, N. & Latzer, M. (2019). Digital Overuse and Subjective Well-Being in a Digitized Society. Social Media + Society, 5(4), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119886031
Wang, H., Sigerson, L. & Cheng, C. (2019). Digital Nativity and Information Technology Addiction: Age cohort versus individual difference approaches. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.08.031
We Are Social Ltd. (2019). Digital in 2019 Australia. Retrieved from https://wearesocial.com/au/digital-2019-australia?mc_cid=2627112634&mc_eid=632bbf90f7
Young, S. K. (2018). The evolution of Internet addiction. Addictive Behaviors, 64, 229-230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2015.05.016