Given that effects of digital media use and content are often short-lived, the first study draws on mobile experience sampling and digital trace data to understand how situational contexts shape the dynamics between digital media use, disconnection, and short-term well-being outcomes throughout the day. In this project, 105 participants filled out multiple questionnaires each day over the course of one week. The results show that, on average, taking a break from digital media does not affect short-term well-being outcomes (i.e. affective well-being, social connectedness, daily life satisfaction). Here, digital skills also do not play a major role in people’s everyday disconnection experiences. However, people’s reactions to breaks from technology vary greatly. Some people experience no or negative effects of disconnection on their well-being, while others experience positive effects. The study also finds that when people take a break from digital media while being with co-present others, this has short-term positive effects on their well-being. This project gives a nuanced picture of the benefits – or lack of these – of what taking breaks from digital media can do for people’s well-being.
The second study entails a three-wave panel survey over the course of one year to investigate the long-term relationships between digital media use, digital disconnection, and well-being outcomes. It also examines the antecedents of people’s disconnection behaviors, such as how social norms about digital disconnection exert their influence. First, the results reveal that normative perceptions of being digitally available are still more dominant than norms of digital disconnection, in today’s digital society. This means that people feel more pressured to be available digitally than to disconnect from digital media. However, normative perceptions of digital disconnection can weaken the influence of norms of digital availability – and help people manage their digital media uses. The results also show that individual resources, such as one’s mindfulness, can help people cope with conflicting expectations around digital media use. These insights are relevant for developing interventions to promote digital well-being. Further analyses will reveal how people’s digital disconnection behaviors are related to subjective well-being over time, and how digital skills shape this relationship. Overall, this project provides important theoretical and methodological innovations on studying contemporary digital media behaviors.
The project ran from 2021-2023. The results have been disseminated at key national and international conferences in media and communication science, such as at the Netherlands-Flanders Communication Association (NeFCA) and the International Communication Association (ICA). Research reports are currently in production, or in review with key journals in the field of media and communication science, and will be made available open access upon publication.
