- 1. We’re Evolving into a Digital Era:
We’re evolving into a completely digital future, “the idea that all businesses would be done digitally”. Digital wellness is therefore important because we would need the stamina to stand and thrive in digital space (Everything within the Internet and Technology).
Digital wellness involves building and maintaining a balance in our offline and online life as we currently exist in both spaces.
It is with this in mind that we must prepare to function adequately and appropriately in this digital era that has come to stay.
- 2. MENTAL Health Balance:
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), “there is no health without mental health”, and since our productivity is largely dependent on our mental health; if we’re ever goong to maintain our wellbeing, then our digital space must be kept in check and balances.
The digital space is supposed to be designed to make live better and easier to operate, however, if not properly used and or managed, can defeat the purpose for which it was created.
- 3. Identity:
One of the dangers of digital space has to do with a person’s self-worth and identity. Identity is who and what you’re and not who or what people want you to be.
The digital space has a way (unconsciously some might say) of defining our identities if we’ve not on our own figured it out (as it does in helping us figure it out). Every time we use the digital space productively and to the beauty of our wellbeing, we’ve been able to establish balance.
Whether or not this is stable (our identities) determines how people respond to the various interactions that happen within the digital space and there interpretation is largely responsible (especially in young people) for whether they enjoy mental health or suffers poor mental health and or mental illness.
- 4. Addiction:
According to Medical News Today, Addiction is a “psychological and physical inability to stop consuming a chemical, drug, activity, or substance, even though it is causing psychological and physical harm”.
Our acceptance of this definition is based on the fact that there are activities within the digital space that we do in excess and cannot easily control (even though sometimes we want to control them).
We know that we’re guilty of this if there are aspects of the digital space that we’re compulsively involved in and that is affecting our overall wellbeing and productivity which breaks our psychosocial balance.
Digital wellness to this effect is therefore important, because we’re constantly surrounded by the digital space (and talking about entering a digital future) and our livelihood to a large extend, is designed to function within the digital space.
This is why when conversations around Internet Addiction Disorders (IAD) come up, and we think the thoughts of being away from technology- we get scared. If any treatment to build stability and stamina within the digital space will ever work- we’ve to first of all understand that our wellbeing matters both offline and as much online.
- 5. Enjoying the Digital Future:
The digital space has come to stay!
Digital wellness is not a process of denying the existence of the digital era, nor is it running away from it; it is rather the process of enjoying a productive and rewarding use of it.
It is for this reason that it is called DIGITAL wellness. It is using the digital space the right way at the right time (if any) for the right reasons to make your life better and by extension, the world better.