25 April 2022 @ 13:30
Digital Wellbeing and our use of Technology
As a topic, Digital Wellbeing relates to how the use of digital technologies (such as personal devices, social media and other apps/platforms) which can impact on our lives. With more children, young people and adults being online, Digital Wellbeing is an increasingly important safeguarding aspect in our broader emotional health and wellbeing.
In-line with how we address Online Safety fundamentally being concerned with behaviours rather than the technology per se, our digital wellbeing can be affected by a number of things. This may include how long we spend using our devices, how we interact with others (and how they interact with us), what content we are exposed to and, what we are influenced by. Much like broader wellbeing, it can contribute both positively and negatively to other areas such as our overall physical and mental health.
With recent increases in the amount of time we are spending online, digital wellbeing is seeing increased attention and has quickly been recognised as an area that needs support for both children and adults. To support this, our colleagues at the South West Grid for Learning have once again developed an excellent set of freely-available resources to support this aspect of Online Safety through their Digital 
Wellbeing Hub which contains a variety of useful information, guidance and resources.
You can access the Digital Wellbeing Hub via the Supporting Resources page in our dedicated Online Safeguarding section of the site.