Chasing rainbows: children’s well-being in a digital world

As David Šmahel, a Professor of Psychology at Masaryk University (Czech Republic) argued that well-being is an interdisciplinary term spanning physical, psychological and social dimensions.  Cognitive and economic aspects could also be added to its many definitions. Well-being can be defined by its absence (anxiety, stress, physical abuse, peer problems) as well as presence (happiness, self-esteem, good health). The relation between technology and well-being depends on multiple factors at the individual level (age, gender, skills), social level (peers, family, educators), and country level (technology provision, culture, media), for these all shape how children engage with the online environment (encountering risks and opportunities).

“Do we need agreement on what well-being is across the different disciplines and different types of research? My answer would be no! It is more important to think about well-being contextually, in relation to children’s everyday lives and the issues we are studying” (David Šmahel)

Well-being is complex and multidimensional, opening up many possible directions for research. So it is not necessary to reach agreement about it. What is important is to examine diverse hypotheses about the short-term and long-term effects of technology use on children’s well-being.

Many of us think of well-being as the presence or absence of mental health problems, suggested Dr Richard Graham, a Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist. Yet well-being is much more. Conceptualising it in relation to flourishing (Keys, 2005) allows for consideration of personal growth, autonomy, positive social functioning – and this highlights questions of child development of interest to child psychiatry. Although positive psychology can be hard to apply during a crisis or for vulnerable groups, incorporating self-help and resilience can give us a long-term perspective on well-being.

We may need different measures of well-being for the different stages of child development. However, childhood and adolescence is hugely influential for what happens later in life. A good measure that links young people’s digital lives to well-being could be used to support their problem-solving and shift away from the narrow focus on screen time.

“Someone’s digital life is like their fingerprint – you need to understand their life and opportunities and whether use of technologies is disrupting that. In mental health, this sometimes takes you away from opportunities for development and enhancing well-being.” (Richard Graham)

Kitty Stewart, an Associate Professor of Social Policy at LSE, focused on how socio-economic inequalities affect well-being. She argued for a conception of well-being that includes having enough to eat, warm housing, appropriate shoes and clothes to go out in. It also includes the opportunity to play and enjoy being a child, to be included as a part of society doing the things that other children are doing, to be loved and appreciated, and to have the opportunity to develop one’s talents and abilities. Poverty makes a difference to all of these.

“The level of family resources clearly really shapes the level of digital access that is available to children. It has been really interesting to see this play out during the current lockdown and the closure of schools and the huge inequalities in the type of replacement schooling that children are experiencing.” (Kitty Stewart)

Poverty is damaging, first, because of its negative effects on parents’ stress, anxiety, and depression in families. Second, poverty can prevent parents from providing the scaffolding needed to support children’s safe and beneficial use of technologies. Thus poverty can be linked to children’s overexposure or problematic exposure to technologies.

While it may seem obvious to link well-being to children’s rights, this is problematic, both because children may experience well-being when their rights are infringed and because realising their rights may not necessarily result in well-being. Thus argued Laura Lundy, Professor in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University, Belfast. Children’s human rights do not address joy, flourishing, being loved – the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is concerned with the minimal requirements to be met by the State, not everything that society may wish for its children.

Nonetheless, in seeking to realise children’s rights according to the UNCRC, it is important that we have a good understanding of what is beneficial for children, including in relation to the digital environment.

“Children currently do not have the right to access the digital environment unless it impacts on the enjoyment of other rights, such as the right to access education on an equal basis… If the UNCRC was being drafted today and if children were involved as they should have been, it would be deemed sufficiently in children’s interest.” (Laura Lundy)

In developing an understanding of children’s well-being in relation to the digital environment, it is important to include children’s participation, so that the concepts and measures used are informed by children’s experiences and voices, recognising their right to be heard.

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Header image by Julia M Cameron on Pexels.