ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2025
New Perspective on Digital Well-Being by Distinguishing Digital Competency From Dependency: Network Approach.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Serial Mediating Role of Cognitive Flexibility and Digital Literacy in the Relationship Between Metacognitive Awareness and Digital Well-Being.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2026Article
- Digital connectivity and social wellbeing in a polycrisis setting: longitudinal, nationwide, population-weighted evidence from Myanmar, 2021 to 2024.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2026Article
- Trust-driven healthy engagement with conversational AI for mental health support in young adults: a mixed methods study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Linking cyberbullying sensitivity to life satisfaction: The mediating role of digital well-being.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Pathways linking AI dependence to psychological distress: the mediating role of self-esteem and the role of academic achievement.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Psychometric properties of the Arabic Perceived Digital Well-Being Scale (PDWS) in Saudi young adults.PloS one · 2026Article
- Data governance transparency and psychological wellbeing in digital platforms: the roles of trust and emotional regulation.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Artificial intelligence anxiety, digital well-being, and future career concerns among engineering and information technology students in Jordan.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2026Article
- Psychometric validation of the English version of the digital wellbeing questionnaire for young adults.PloS one · 2026Article
- Translation, cultural adaptation, and psychometric validation of the Arabic version of the Digital Life Balance Scale in an Arabic-speaking university student sample.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Perceived Digital Well-Being Scale in the United States and United Kingdom: Psychometric Validation Study.JMIR mental health · 2025Article
- Scoping review of interventions aimed at promoting healthy screen use among adolescents.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Understanding smartphone use patterns in higher education: A latent class approach to behavioral and health risk typologies.PloS one · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn the digital age, there is an emerging area of research focusing on digital well-being (DWB), yet conceptual frameworks of this novel construct are lacking. The current conceptualization either approaches the concept as the absence of digital ill-being, running the risk of pathologizing individual digital use, or follows the general subjective well-being framework, failing to highlight the complex digital nature at play.
objectiveThis preregistered study aimed to address this gap by using a network analysis, which examined the strength of the relationships among affective (digital stress and web-based hedonic well-being), cognitive (online intrinsic needs satisfaction), and social (online social connectedness and state empathy) dimensions of DWB and their associations with some major DWB protective and risk factors (ie, emotional regulation, nomophobia, digital literacy, self-control, problematic internet use, coping styles, and online risk exposure).
methodsThe participants were 578 adults (mean age 38.7, SD 13.14 y; 277/578, 47.9% women) recruited from the United Kingdom and the United States who completed an online survey. Two network models were estimated. The first one assessed the relationships among multiple dimensions of DWB, and the second examined the relationships between DWB dimensions and related protective and risk factors.
resultsThe 2 resulting network structures demonstrated high stability, with the correlation stability coefficients being 0.67 for the first and 0.75 for the second regularized Gaussian graphical network models. The first network indicated that all DWB variables were positively related, except for digital stress, which was negatively correlated with the most central node-online intrinsic needs satisfaction. The second network revealed 2 distinct communities: digital competency and digital dependency. Emotional regulation emerged as the most central node with the highest bridge expected influence, positively associated with emotion-focused coping in the digital competency cluster and negatively associated with avoidant coping in the digital dependency cluster. In addition, some demographic differences were observed. Women scored higher on nomophobia (χ
conclusionsThe network analysis revealed how different aspects of DWB were interconnected, with the cognitive component being the most influential. Emotional regulation and adaptive coping strategies were pivotal in distinguishing digital competency from dependency.
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