Rethinking digital wellbeing through intersubjective recognition: An infographic

What does it mean to feel well or lead a “good life” in a digital world? And how might our wellbeing online be shaped not only by individual choices, such as screen time, notifications, mindful scrolling, but also by the ways we recognise and are recognised by others?

In collaboration with young people, we have developed an infographic to provide an alternative way to think about these questions.

Rather than framing digital wellbeing as a purely human-computer interaction issue, we reframe it as a relational and social experience, contingent on the quality of the interactions, encounters, and engagements we have online.

This perspective aligns closely with the approach we have been leading in our projects and which aims to foreground digital engagement through a pedagogy of empowerment rather than one focused on restrictions.  The idea is to approach such issues from a perspective in which digital users can exercise responsible agency, one that is deeply entangled with practices and perceptions of (em)power(ment), participation, and critical literacy.

Digital wellbeing is not just about what we do with technology; it’s also about whether our digital environments enable us to feel and make others feel valued, visible, and respected.

Beyond risk management approaches

Traditional approaches to digital wellbeing and safeguarding often focus on individualistic management strategies: screen time, digital detoxes, and other strategies aimed at self-regulating digital habits. These strategies are important, but on their own may send the message that the user alone is the sole responsible party and cause of such issues. These approaches let tech companies get off easy, as researchers have often reported. We also claim that they largely ignore the relational nature of digital experiences and the collective responsibility of digital citizens for contributing to healthy environments.

As a counter narrative to individualistic perspectives, we propose a recognition focused perspective to change the lens of analysis on issues of digital wellbeing, safety and safeguarding.  

Drawing on social and philosophical traditions of intersubjective recognition (see Honneth’s work, and also Murphy’s for a perspective anchored in education), this framework suggests that the project of a good digital life depends on digital users being acknowledged by others as capable, worthy, and legitimate participants in shared digital spaces. When users experience misrecognition, ie., disrespect, such as exclusion, invisibility, harassment, or worse, their digital wellbeing is compromised, regardless of how much self regulation they might exercise. Such a perspective can provide digital users with useful tools to understand how their sense of self is linked to their need for recognition (i.e., social validation), which cannot be individually sourced, as it stems from others’ perceptions and actions.

Recognition, understood as a reciprocal exchange in how individuals value one another, requires environments in which mutual recognition can be fostered; environments in which digital users can feel seen, heard, and supported. However, this is complicated by the designs and logics of engagement of complex digital ecosystems, which tend to encourage asymmetrical relationships and commodify interaction into performative displays of distinction and value. While these may generate momentary satisfaction, they rarely foster deeper forms of self-fulfilment, which from a perspective of intersubjective recognition is tied to one’s self-conception: self-confidence (derived from feeling cared for), self-respect (linked to one’s rights to be treated equally and with dignity), and self-esteem (reflected in meaningful connections and valued contributions to the wider community).

The infographic (download here) has tried to capture this, using a metaphor of roots, growth and flourishing to show how recognition is essential in fostering the moral individual and their contribution to an ethical life, while the opposite can lead to moral injury or worse, cognitive destruction.

Inside the Infographic

The infographic maps out the idea that recognition is essential to digital wellbeing through the perspective of a flower, a poppy and its (un)healthy roots. It illustrates:

• The relational foundations of wellbeing online: Wellbeing emerges through social exchanges, it cannot be solely an individual responsibility

• The forms of recognition that matter: this includes emotional affirmation, rights-based respect, and social inclusion. It does not consider numbers of likes, followers or shares as these are seen as performative, commodified and interest focused forms of validation that obstruct the fundamental need of interpersonal recognition
• The power we hold in finding fertile ground for our own wellbeing: seeking spaces where we can be recognised without compromising our integrity

Final thoughs:

As digital environments become increasingly embedded in everyday life, it is vital that our understandings of wellbeing reflect not only the realities of individual digital users but also the sociocultural, economic and technological designs that shape digital participation.

A recognition focused lens helps us remind us that digital wellbeing is not merely a personal responsibility, it is a shared one, produced through the ways we communicate and treat each other, design our technologies, and contribute to our environments.

This infographic invites young people, educators, parents, researchers, policy makers, technology designers, and communities to rethink digital wellbeing not as a private struggle, but as a collective responsibility grounded in human connection.