The Durham digital good life project: Co-producing understandings of wellbeing with young people
Project Team:
Dr Cristina Costa, Durham University, UK
Dr Michaela Oliver, Durham University, UK
Dr Yuanya Zhang (Research Assistant)
In partnership with Durham Youth Council
The Durham Digital Good Life Project is a youth-centred research initiative exploring how social media shapes young people’s self-esteem, identity, and well-being. Rather than advocating for withdrawal from digital environments, the project promotes critical engagement with online spaces, especially in relation to two key challenges:
- Toxic behaviours, such as cyberbullying
- Digital influencing, including the promotion of unrealistic lifestyles
In collaboration with Durham Youth Council, the project develops alternative approaches to digital wellbeing that move beyond traditional adult-centric safety narratives. These often restrict young people’s digital freedoms without equipping them to navigate online spaces in healthy, autonomous ways.
Drawing on recent research (Costa & Oliver, 2023; Digital Youth Index, 2023), the project positions digital wellbeing as a vital component of digital literacy. It recognises the complex role social media plays in young people’s lives as a space for socialisation, learning, and self-expression, and highlights the need for recognition and validation in digital interactions (Taylor, 1994; Honneth, 1996, 2014).
Rather than framing digital challenges as reasons to ban or limit technology, the project advocates for youth empowerment through practical guidance, digital cultural knowledge, and co-produced strategies for navigating digital life. This includes addressing issues like echo chambers (Habermas, 2025), information regimes (Han, 2022), symbolic violence, and fabricated realities (Reckwitz, 2020), while fostering resilience and critical awareness.
The Durham Digital Good Life Project aims to reframe digital wellbeing as a shared responsibility, one that values young people’s voices, experiences, and capacity for informed decision-making in the digital age.
The research team thanks the project funder, ESRC IAA, for the funds to conduct this project.
Associated publications:
Costa, C., Oliver, M., & Oliver, P. (2026). Rethinking digital wellbeing through a perspective of intersubjective recognition. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19205844