Digital Well-being

Morning sun rising over the hokie stone buildings on the Blacksburg campus and shining through the trees creating a lens flare.

Unplug

At Virginia Tech, we want our students to experience digital flourishing. Digital well-being occurs on a spectrum and flourishing is when we use our devices in a way that maximizes the positives and minimizes the negatives. In other words, we are benefiting from all the great things that technology has to offer. Devices supplement and add to our lives but do not take away from us reaching our full potential.

View this week's Digital Well-being Challenge!

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The Digital Wellness Institute has developed a tool to help people understand the 8 dimensions of digital well-being and assess a person's individual device use strengths and areas of improvement.

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Discover personal areas of digital flourishing and challenges – take the Digital Flourishing survey!
Find Alternatives to scrolling and commit to doing them.

Weekly Digital Well-being Challenges

Challenge 7/8: March 3-9

Name it, don't numb it. The next time you notice yourself using your phone to avoid your feelings, try a CRM skill instead.

Give yourself room to feel. It is very easy now, with the constant stream of stimulation available to us all, to avoid feeling. Whether you’re having a bad day, nervous about a big test, or avoiding a tough conversation it has become the norm to pick up our phone and scroll to avoid these uncomfortable emotions. We use our phones as a protective shield to avoid feeling, but avoiding feelings doesn’t make us feel better, it makes us feel nothing. You can't selectively numb, so when you numb the bad, you also numb the good, with this in mind use the challenge this week to take a break from numbing and take the time to check in with yourself about why you might be feeling the need to numb.

CRM skills are a great resource to use to recenter and ground yourself which can aid you in checking on how you’re feeling and what you need in the moment.

Podcast: Numbing With Our Phones: Why We REALLY Do It, and How to Begin to Change

Understand why we use phones to numb.
Explore alternative ways to cope with emotions.

Article: Your phone, your emotions and everyday life

Using your phone to regulate emotions.
Emotional state can predict which app you will use next.
Using technology not designed for emotional regulation to escape feeling.

Article: Are You “Zenning” Out or Numbing Out?

Don't think about or feel your stress.
Immediate relief but reinforces stress long term.
Leads to poor coping strategies .

Article: 8 Steps to Stop Numbing Your Emotions

Name that feeling.
Carve out time to feel.
Accept that the experience may be confusing.
Acknowledge that your feelings are worthy.
Notice if you’re taking on other people’s feelings.
Get curious about your feelings.
Talk about your feelings.
Learn to trust your feelings and yourself Use The Feelings Wheel to help identify your feelings.

CRM Skills