Digital Well-being
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.
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.
Get Started
- Discover personal areas of digital flourishing and challenges – take the Digital Flourishing survey!
- Find Alternatives to scrolling and commit to doing them.
Weekly Well-being Challenges
Challenge 15: December 8-14
Relax your eyes - try blinking more, the 20-20-20 rule, and use a blue light filter.
If you’ve ever noticed that your eyes are tired, itchy, burning, dry, or blurry after looking at a screen for too long, you are not alone! Staring at a screen can strain our eyes but there are several things we can do to help keep our eyes comfortable. Here are some resources to help you explore and practice the benefits of this week’s challenge.
“Humans normally blink about 15 times in one minute. However, studies show that we only blink about 5 to 7 times in a minute while using computers and other digital screen devices.”
- Computers, Digital Devices and Eye Strain - American Academy of Ophthalmology (aao.org)
Adjusting your device's brightness to match the lighting around you and setting up shortcuts on your phone to automatically go to blue light can help protect your eyes and improve sleep.
Note: For mobile, you may need to press and hold the download button