The countdown to mid-December is on and I could bet on what you’re busy with right now.  

Are you wrapping up your exams and paper submissions? Or unwrapping your PlayStations and video games that got dusty while you aced those exams? Or maybe you’re lingering on online shopping sites, waiting for the moment we finally start wrapping holiday gifts. Regardless of the task, we’re constantly plugged into the digital world.  

 In this episode of Well-being & YU, our host Susu B. sits down with Dr. Roxanne Cohen, a Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior Research Associate at the Young Lives Research Lab, Co-Director of the Rooted & Rising Leadership Program, and Co-Community Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. Dr. Cohen leads youth advisory committees shaping research on youth and planetary well-being in the digital age. Her work connects digital wellness, mental health, climate resilience and human rights, including co-developing a no-cost digital citizenship and well-being platform. 

Dr. Cohen brings a research-informed but deeply human perspective to what digital well-being truly means for students. Together, we explore how young people engage with technology, what “purposeful use” looks like, and how digital habits affect our mental and physical wellness. Importantly, Dr. Cohen highlights why students and youth should not be blamed for the role technology plays in our daily tasks, and why compassion, awareness, and small behaviour shifts matter more than guilt. 

Join us on this journey as we rethink the relationship between students and screens and learn how to take back control in a world that’s always “on”! 

Resources:

• Young Lives Research Lab 
• Focused on youth, education, and global good- leads research on digital impacts and youth well-being.  https://www.younglivesresearch.org/ 

• https://virtualwellbeinghub.ca/en/resources/student-health-at-york 

• Certificate in Digital Health  https://futurestudents.yorku.ca/program/certificates/digital-health 

• Student Counselling, Health and Well-being https://students.yorku.ca/counselling 
• Well-being Strategy: https://www.yorku.ca/well-being/strategy/ 
• Cyber-bullying and Online Harassment Guide and resources: https://infosec.yorku.ca/cyberbullying-and-online-harassment-resources/ 

• What Is Digital Wellness & Why It Matters for Your Mental Health https://www.healthcouncilcanada.ca/what-is-digital-wellness-why-it-matters-for-your-mental-health/

Susu B.: Hey, YU

Susu B.: Welcome to your future favorite podcast, if it's not already Well-being and YU with your host, Susu B. Before we dive in, I want you to do a quick brainstorm with me. How did you end up here? Was it an Instagram post that led you to this link? A friend who heard about it on social media and passed it along? Or are you tuning in from our website or through a podcast app? Okay, forget about how you got here. Let's talk about why. Are you taking a break from writing that research proposal or catching your breath between assignments? Maybe you're multitasking, scrolling while listening, or using this episode as a way to feel productive while avoiding your emails? Don't worry, we've all been there. However, you got here, and whatever you're doing right now, one thing is pretty clear. The digital world is part of nearly every step we take. I know I've already asked you way too many questions, but don't worry. Now we'll be the ones answering them. In this episode, we're talking about all thing’s digital well-being. What it is, how to achieve it, and why you should even care in the first place. In this episode, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Dr. Roxanne Cohen. Dr. Cohen is a postdoctoral fellow and senior research associate at the Young Lives Research Lab, co-director of the Rooted and Rising Leadership Program, and a co community Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. She leads youth advisory committees shaping research on youth and planetary well-being in the digital age. Her work bridges digital wellness, mental health, climate resilience and human rights, and includes co developing no cost digital citizenship and well-being platform. I really hope you can join us on this journey. A few mindful minutes can really make a difference. So, let's dive into our conversation with Roxy.

Susu B.: All right. Dr. Cohen, how are you doing today?

Susu B.: I'm doing great. It's a pleasure to be here with you all. Thanks for having me on the show.

Susu B.: Of course. I'm very happy to have you.

Susu B.: Actually.

Susu B.: Usually there are a lot of episodes that I come in knowing I'm going to be learning something, and this is absolutely one of them. I am excited to learn myself.

Susu B.: So, we'll get right into it. Typically, when referring to well-being. Many might think of physical or mental well-being. So, since we're discussing an underrepresented form of well-being, would you mind explaining what digital well-being is and what aspects of wellness it might encompass?

Roxy.: Absolutely. And just before I dive into the definition of digital well-being, I Just want to frame where what I'm saying is coming from. So, everything I share today is informed by Young Lives Research Lab's work alongside young people. And particularly two studies that I got to be a part of with Young Lives. one was a multi country study that included youth in Toronto's greater metropolitan area, that looked at kind of youth and planetary well-being. And then another national study called Youth Well Being in the Digital Age. Each were done in collaboration with youth advisory committees that guided and co led the work and all culminated in the creation of Canada's first, first digital wellbeing hub, which is available online to all. So, if you want to read the research or watch the research behind what I'm sharing today, you can visit digitalwellbeinghub.ca

Susu B.: Absolutely.

Roxy.: Little plug before I dive in and shout out to Dr. Kate Tillichek and Dr. Jim Stinson, who really led this work and led the literature reviews. Okay, so what is digital well-being? on a simple level, we can think about digital well-being as being about how digital technology is either contributing to our well-being or our lack of well-being. So, it's about our personal and collective relationships with digital technology. It's about our digital lives. Some definitions try and say this is positive digital well-being, right? So, it's maybe the balance between on and offline time or how digital tech is used to better our well-being. At Young Lives Research Lab, working alongside young people, we tend to invoke their own definitions of what it means to live well in relation to other young people, ecologies and the planet with digital tech and really turn to them to understand those nuances of what it means. So, in our most recent study of youth well-being in the digital age, we started with our partner UNICEF Canada's index for child and youth well-being. And their index really looks at what is this thing we even call well-being so often we think about it as this individual thing, like you said, my mental health, my physical health. But those are just two of kind of these interconnected areas of well-being. so, in UNICEF's index they identify nine dimensions that make up young people's well-being in Canada. And I really think it's about all of our well-being, you know, so it's thinking about are you happy and are you respected in the spaces that you're in? do you feel secure in your material needs? That's a part of well-being too, right? Shelter, education, food, clothing, health care, do you have a freedom to play really important for Children and youth, but important for all of us. Do you have that freedom to play outdoors? Is it unstructured? Is there that safety to play? is there a sense of belonging that's really key to our well-being? are young people protected, so protected from harm by adults and institutions and systems in their lives? And are they participating in the decisions that affect their lives, whether that's at their schools, in their families, in government, learning. Right. We know education is a huge part of our well-being, connected to the environment. So, are we connected to our natural environment and then health? Health is kind of the ninth element there.

Susu B.: Honestly, I could see the theme of digital well-being in every one of these because I can always think about like, am I really protected online? And things like that. We're definitely going to cover that as well.

Roxy: Exactly. So digital tech is present and involved in every one of those nine dimensions. Right. And so, we're really seeking to understand that more like under we belong. How is digital tech shaping our social networks and our connections to friends, family, community? Under we're secure. How is digital tech creating opportunities to have our basic needs met? But also, is it exacerbating systemic and structural inequalities? who has access to the Internet, who has access to technology? Who has access to safe outdoor, natural environments to counteract their time online? This is all part of the digital well-being conversation. And we found that young people speak a lot about digital life domain. So, it includes all these tensions we live with every day with digital tech. Right. We're dependent on it, but it makes us anxious. we're losing attention, we're losing time in our tech. But it's also saving time and creating opportunities to learn and do things faster. It's where we find joy, connection, where we get to learn. But it is also draining us and making us tired.

Susu B.: Which is why a lot of people think about the digital world as an addiction. Right. You can see the pattern of addiction all throughout these themes that you just identified.

Roxy: Absolutely.

Susu B.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that was an amazing comprehensive definition for sure. I love how you even. Honestly, I did not. I never thought about even the well-being aspects when you said that physical and mental is such an individualistic thing. to think about that like, oh, me, me, and this is how I take care of me. But now I'm thinking about it in terms of like, oh, digital well-being. It is this interconnected play or interconnection with other people and how they impact each other as well. So, I'm glad You pointed that out. so, for many students screen time is unavoidable. To be completely honest, I relate to that. So, from attending zoom lectures to doing research or even unwinding through social media or gaming, what are some common digital habits among university students that you think might be impacting their well-being either positively or negatively? As you explained that there is the positive well-being approach, but maybe you can expand on that as well.

Roxy.: Generally, when we speak with young people across the country, they're telling us they're spending too much time on their digital devices for school, for work and also for their recreation time. And I know we're going to get into that in a bit. and more AI kind of slop is filling in that space that used to be for connection and for fun as well. So even kind of filtering into the recreation time where we could find that connection and joy. There's just so much AI slop that's now filling up our digital screens. and this kind of underlying concern that I think is positive for our well-being to be asking these questions of who designs this tech, who owns it, who benefits from it, who controls it and is it benefiting our well-being and not simply just the profit of big tech companies? Right. And that's a real tension in well-being there. that really determines a lot of whether it's kind of positive or negative for our health and well-being too. You know, social media as an example is that classic double-edged sword. It is incredibly beneficial for well-being for young people in particular, to be able to connect and find belonging in community that might be inaccessible to them locally. they can learn, start movements, have critical conversations, create ripples for change. But it's also incredibly damaging. In our study on the Partnership for Youth and Planetary well-being, when we asked young people what the greatest threat to youth well-being is, the most common answer was social media. Which is ironic because we still engage in it.

Susu B.: Absolutely, yeah, yeah. And it's tough to get off of it. Right.

Roxy.: on that too, this mindfulness, of misinformation and disinformation that's out there, there's so much of it and I think that's one where we accidentally spread it all the time. People of ages I will say as well, not just young people. Right. there was a Study done by Dr. Karasava at UBC earlier this year that looked at the hundred most viewed TikTok’s related to adhd. Right.

How many of us have a friend or a family member that has self-diagnosed themselves with ADHD or self-diagnosed their childhood?

Susu B.: You're probably sitting with one right now.

Roxy.: And we turn to these sources. And yet in this study they found that less than half of the claims about symptoms actually align with clinical diagnoses. So even, when folks are meaning well and they're putting out this content to help and support others, we have to be mindful that it might not be accurate information. And I really love this trend of citing your sources at the end of a video online or in the description to help address this challenge or even just asking each other those questions when someone shares a fact that they learned. Where did you learn it? Did you verify?

Susu B.: Yeah, honestly, I'm glad that you're mentioning that because I feel like that's such a skill that we learn. Even I'm a psychology major and that is a skill that we learn. And it reminds me of what you were saying earlier, which is like, who has the privilege to have this access? Because not everyone, not everyone is on social media. But also, not everyone has access to academia that teaches them that you need to question everything. because for example, I'm taking critical thinking in psychology right now, and this, the term that you just used, who's benefiting is what? my professor, Dr. Conder, she said that this is the question that we need to be asking. So not everyone, you know, has access to this like critical, skills training, and it is very dangerous for students, or for non-students as well, to need to engage with social, media or whatever platform digitally and not remember that. Oh, maybe I need to ask a question about this. Right?

Roxy.: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that applies on AI as well too. Right? We're so used to AI giving us those answers, but you know, sometimes it gets lazy and it lies things up.

Susu B.: Yeah, A lot of professors, honestly, from my experience it has been either or. Some professors are literally just telling me, do not use laptops anymore and just go back to notebooks. And some professors are asking us to use the AI, but be smart with it, like, you know, ask some questions, do your own research after. So, it has been this double, standard. And honestly, this introduces our next question because do you think there is a double standard when it comes to screen time for academics versus recreation?

Roxy: Yes, and with a caveat I will share. You know, I think both of these domains of well-being are academics and recreation are being taken over by digital tech and AI and have been for quite some time. Right. And they're so deeply embedded. But yeah, when we're talking about academics and learning. It's almost like it's expected, it's required in schooling to be on our tech, especially pre-AI. Right. I think before AI came on the scene it was tech in schools is expected because it's expected in workplaces. And what is school preparing us for other than to be those productive citizens and is often framed as positive. And yet the recreational time is framed as harmful. Recreational time online. Right. We have Canadian standards and guidelines that say you're not supposed to spend more than two hours a day recreationally online. None of us follow that. But there's no standard for academics. There's no standard that says you should only be spending this amount of time online productively or on our devices. And again, there's that question, who's benefiting from that?

Susu B.: Right.

Roxy.: and I also think that you know, to again recognize that mix recreation online is not all bad. Video gaming is highly beneficial until it becomes excessive. Right. Being online purposefully for recreation can be really beneficial to young people's well-being and to all of our well-being until it becomes that excessive just scrolling without real purposeful intention about what you're doing online. but one thing I want to share on this question of academia and online and AI and these tensions is I think it's important too to recognize that as AI is proliferating our learning spaces, to ask about what larger stories of systemic change is the AI takeover illuminating? If you don't mind, I'm going to share a really quick story from one of our interviews. Okay. I got to interview young people across the country, about their relationship with digital tech, which was really,

Susu B.: I can tell you're passionate about it.

Roxy.: And I talked to this one young woman and she's in high school and at the beginning of the interview I'm getting to know her, and she talks to me about how she loves to learn. Loves learning. It's one of her passions in life. She's an avid learner. About an hour later in the interview, I asked her about AI in school. I said, do you use AI in school? And she goes, oh yeah, AI does all my homework for me. It does all my homework. And I know I'm not really learning. I was like, well, hold on a minute here because you just told me that you loved to learn and now, you're telling me you use AI and you know that you're not learning with it. So, I'm a bit confused. Can you explain what's going on here to me? And through conversation, you know, we landed on this point that, well, the real problem is the school system, that it's not necessarily always training young people, or providing them with the skills and context they need to find, find that well-being now and to create more thriving, livable futures as well. And so, when there's that disconnect and you don't feel like school is really meeting your needs, well, of course there's that AI there and she preserves her learning passion for when she's in control of learning and can really study what she loves. So, I think, yes, AI design needs to be looked at. Yes, our usage of AI is a problem, but also, I think it points to this larger problem of how academia and formal schooling is structured in this first place and this broader call to transform education to really meet the needs and well-being of young people today and in the future.

Susu B.: That was beautifully said. No, that makes sense as well. it's sad, but I'm glad someone at least recognizes it with research that's happening, to understand that this is not the real problem or there are associated problems with AI. We absolutely know that. or I hope people know that. But there are, there might be more problems embedded, in the system that I glad, I'm glad you, you worded it this way, that she saves her passion for learning. It's not that. Oh, she just doesn't like learning. No, she saves it. But for when, oh, I'm gonna do my own research on this topic because I can. Or stuff like that. No, and I'm glad you also got the statistics.

Susu B.: Really?

Roxy.: Or like, the official, description of how. Oh, more than two hours is not okay recreationally. But come look at, you know, how long it takes me to finish a research proposal, for example. That's definitely more than two hours of screen time. Or even as you connected it to the workplace. You know, if we're expected to do.

Roxy: Eight hours of work in front of.

Roxy: The screen, how does that really work?

And then you have your two hours of recreation on top of that and all of a sudden 10 hours a day is spent online, another 10 hours sleeping and you got four hours. Or you're probably online as well. Exactly. Yeah. online and scrolling doom scrolling in my dreams, you know. Yeah. So beyond well-being, there's also digital safety, which is another thing we were talking about protection, for example. Right. with students constantly browsing both trusted and untrusted sources, cybersecurity is still a major concern.

Susu B.: Do you have any advice on how students can navigate the digital world? more Safely,

Roxy: yes. And I think it's important to note, before I get into some practical tips, that it's important not to blame young people themselves for the way that these platforms have been designed. Tech has been designed to keep us unsafe. And I mean that both physically and emotionally and mentally. It's a design choice and it's not the mistake of children and youth or any of us that feel that kind of unsafety online. And of course, yes, we're using those platforms and there are ways that we can, on our own and with communities, ensure those safety and privacy features. Right. we have lots on the digital wellbeing Hub that can support this. I'll just name some. Right. There is a lot of tools out there to support. There are scam checkers, and we have access to kind of trusted scan checkers on, digitalwellbeinghub.Ca.

Increasingly, young people are being the victims of scams. Right. We often hear about seniors, older folks, being trapped in these scams, but increasingly we're seeing folks under 40 in Canada being caught up in victims of scams, including from things like DIY investing. Right. Not trusting banks, going through, even through trusted friends and family friends who say, I have a great source for you here. It's going to make money. We do this DIY investing, and we end up losing money. But there are tools. There are provincial commissions that are set up to regulate these investments. You can even call them and check in with an expert about an investment, even from a friend recommendation, before you actually put in your money.

Susu B.: Oh, that's amazing. I did not know that.

Roxy: Yeah. there are also tools to fact check. So, we have a few tools that we found and collected on the Hub that help you to fact check media sources, online posts that you find to see if the information is accurate or not. There are things like the folks that run the CA domain, the cira, they have a free DNS resolver security tool that's available to all Canadians that can be installed on your phone or on your browser.

Susu B.: So, what is DNS?

Roxy.: Don't ask me. Sounds very something that would be helpful, right?

Susu B.: Security tool. Okay.

Roxy: But this is the thing. Why don't we know what this means?

Susu B.: Right?

Roxy: Why is this kind of the most basic security tool we could access? But even me, who's studying it, I have to go back to my notes to find you that definition. Right? So, these are these pieces to even just inform ourselves. Right. I think folks who are what we'd call youth today missed this gap of digital literacy because Adults were scrambling to figure it out. We didn't know what it meant and what safety measures needed to be taught to children and young people. And so, there's a lot of us that just missed that training, because it didn't exist. And so going back for ourselves to gain those digital literacy tools and is huge. Even around pieces like cookies, do you really know what those are? I didn't accept. Yeah, we all just accept. And yet that's providing a lot of information that's unnecessary and you're actually allowed to click no, reject or accept only the minimum required. And that's part of that safety. just one last thing that I'll share on this. You know, when we interviewed young people, there's kind of this universal understanding that there just is no privacy online.

There is no privacy is a statement we heard time and time again. And I like to challenge this a little bit, like, why do we accept this? Is this even acceptable? And again, who benefits? As you asked. And yet we can choose how much of our information we share. We had one young participant that I interviewed where he talks about how even the game apps, they want to know your birthday, they want to know everything about you, your email, your phone number, and unless it's an official thing like a bank or government or school, he gives fake information. Why do you have to give your real birthday? We don't really question these things very much. But that is a tool in our tool belt to make sure that if something gets hacked, our little game that we do when we're bored gets hacked and all of a sudden they have our birthday and our email and our phone number and then we're at risk. And so really thinking about who you're giving your information to and why and do they really need it.

Susu B.: You just made me realize that students could be people pleasers sometimes. Because I'm m honestly thinking about it now. Even with the cookies, the first time I accepted like it to me it was kind of something new. Like I feel like it's recently something that I'm seeing. Like, oh, except cookies. I didn't even know what that was. And I was like, honestly, that was what happened in my brain. I'm just giving you like a.

Roxy.: Walk in my brain.

Susu B.: I was like, oh, cookies. Like, you know, it just sounded like something nice, I wasn't sure. And then I was like, okay, accept cookies. I don't know. That was okay. Sure. Same thing as, you know, you just feel like this need to be honest on the apps and tell them your Exact birthday or your exact whatever. Like, there's no one that's gonna judge you behind the screen that, oh, you lied about your birthday, you're not gonna be allowed into Instagram anymore. No, you know, it's, it's, it makes sense that it is something that is a pattern between us as students or maybe, you know, youth in general, that we just give information when we really don't need to. So, are there common digital safety mistakes that students make? besides maybe giving these, like, you know, easily giving this information or stuff like that?

Roxy: Or, I would say, I mean, they're common for all of us. But yeah, this, this trustingness that is now being challenged. Because I think if we asked anyone in this room, you know, who do you trust online? The answer is I don't know. Right. Who do you trust online other than, you know, maybe the formal academic sources. It's hard to know, but I think really just getting more critical, asking more questions, asking more questions about, again, who we're giving our information out to and why. These are kind of the questions that set us up for more digital safety. Because at the end of the day I could tell you, you know, five things to look out for. But then next week there's going to be five new things. Because anyone who's trying to get that information from, us online, they're also innovating, they're smart, they're good at what they do. It's really about developing that instinct within ourselves to be able to question things and really think about what is best for my well-being here.

Susu B.: Right. And also, even that's what I learned in critical thinking. It's like even academic sources, a lot of, journal articles, they get retracted. And when they get retracted, you're, you know, it happens because people like us read it thoroughly that they recognize that, oh, something doesn't add up here. So, I'm not saying, I'm not dismissing the amount of work that researchers put in, but sometimes it happens that, even from academics’ websites, because I feel that's a mistake that I fall into. I go on Omni York U. The libraries are amazing. but then I feel like my critical thinking just stops once I'm on Omni, because I just feel like, oh, everything is just safe and secured here. But, you know, you got to critically also criticize journal articles. Don't be scared to even criticize that as well.

Susu B.: Yeah, I love that point. another area where digital well-being has an impact is our physical health. things like posture Eyesight and even sleep. what are some ways students can develop good digital hygiene to take care of their bodies while still, using screens for school? We're just talking about, you know, the eight-hour work, you know, schedule and just like sitting there on the screen.

Roxy.: Yeah. Okay. So again, I will answer your question, but with a caveat that this should not be left to young people to fix.

Susu B.: Right.

Roxy: The Surgeon General of the US has posted warnings, as have the Canadian Pediatric association and many others, about the physical and mental health risks of excessive time online.

And yet, as you just said, we are expected. It's required that you're online on these screens for what, eight hours a day for job or school. And this is physically unhealthy. So, it's structural. And yes, there's things we can do as individuals, but to perhaps be a bit kind to ourselves and recognize this kind of structural limitations that we're in. But there are of course things we can do. you know, there is the classic 20, 20, 20 rule, if you've heard of it, after you've on a screen for 20 minutes, should look 20ft away from you, like in the distance, far in the distance for at least 20 seconds. It helps to reset our eyes. it also is just a bit of a mental relief on the brain to get to look at something far away. That's generally good for our mental health and well-being to be able to see far. Getting up and moving regularly, it's hard to do when you get stuck on that screen. You're passionate about something you're in. It's really hard to remember to get up and move maybe every 20 minutes. We're also doing a little stretch, doing something from our bodies, learning how to incorporate that when we're on online spaces together as well. Which can be awkward and strange, but highly effective. So, for example, in our Partnership for Youth and Planetary Wellbeing study, we had an amazing youth, committee, youth advisory committee here in the GTA and they were from all over. We weren't very close to each other physically and so we often met online. We'd meet at like 9am on Sunday mornings when people were available. Who's got the energy to critically think and be kind of passionate academics at that hour. So, before we did anything, we would do a 7 minute calisthenics practice together. Daigo Taizo based in Japan. that just helped get our bodies moving. It's good for your spine health. you can do it anytime, anywhere. You can do it sitting, standing, but just doing that little practice together to start a meeting, it was just so energizing and something that it felt really awkward to lead. I will admit every week I was like, should I do I do it? But then they started to ask for it. Right. Because it's something that feels good for our bodies. We're still in line together, but it doesn't mean we have to be sitting down the entire time.

Susu B.: Yeah.

Susu B.: and one more that. Two more. Sorry, I'll share quick. one is so a major thing that came out of our digital well-being study was this question from young people. How do I rest and play without my phone and without my devices? How do I actually do that? It's hard to remember the options that are available to us. So, on the digital well-being hub, we've created a community playbook of different ways that you can play and rest without your phone.

Susu B.: Wow.

Roxy.: that's user generated as well. So, if you have an idea, you can add it and it automatically populates it on the list. So, it's a shared space where we can ask these questions together and figure it out. and I will also share my number one tip after doing these digital well-being interviews is to get yourself an old school alarm clock. Maybe even one that has a CD player and a radio on it. because how many of us of any age, we use our phones in bed? It's the last thing we're doing. We're scrolling late at night, we're not getting good enough sleep, which means we don't even have the energy to play outside or do these imaginative things outside of our devices as much as And then you set your alarm for the morning and you put your phone down and you wake up and the phone is the first thing you pick up because that alarm rings and the moment you're on your phone, oops, I'm on my email. Oops, I'm on Instagram, oops, I'm reading depressing news. Something is grabbing my attention because it's so instinctual, it's so automated in our behaviors. And the recommendation is you're not supposed to be on your screens. You know, experts say three hours before bed, but let's be realistic. Can we get 20 minutes before bed without our phones? You're not supposed to be on it first thing in the morning. It doesn't do well with our emotional regulation to be immediately comparing ourselves to others or consuming all this negative information from the world. So, get an alarm clock.

Susu B.: Yeah. And also, even emails. Because although it's productive but just first thing in the morning, let me work. You're just, like, telling your brain, oh, this is the priority. That's the main thing. And I'm glad you said this suggestion, honestly, because, you know, sometimes I want to turn off my phone, but I just can't because, like, oh, I have. My alarm is going to go off, so how am I supposed to just, like, turn off the phone? Right, yeah, I'm glad you. You absolutely even answered my next question. I was talking about, like, you know, unplugging without unplugging, completely. So honestly you answered that. And I'm definitely checking out the hub because, simple things, even fidgeting, like getting some fidgets, could also help with playing around or sitting there or meditation. Mindfulness is also something you could definitely do. Listen to this podcast, for example. That's definitely something as well.

Roxy: Just to add one more thing to that question, I wanted to share a story from another one of our participants. He's, also a high school student, who successfully nursed himself off digital technology. Not entirely, of course, but to a reasonable level. For him, it started for financial reasons. His family was on a really strict budget, and he wanted to do his part and not use as much electricity by using his screenshots. And after he's done it for himself, he's now helped multiple friends to successfully reduce their screen time. And I had to ask him; how do you do it? What's the secret? and really, there is no secret. It's a habit. Right? We are forming these habits, and if you want to get rid of a habit, a negative habit, you need something else to replace it. So, for him, it was about, first of all, having an accountability buddy. Accountability buddy, who can help you. And you can say to them and set a really small goal, like, I want to spend 20 minutes less screen time in the evening after dinner, before I go to bed. Just 20 minutes less. Right? And you let a friend know, this is my goal, and then you have them there. If you feel the itch, that urge, give them a call or a text. I know it's on the screen, but it's just for a moment to say, I'm getting the itch. And they can, you know, give you that encouragement.

Susu B.: And it makes you have more connections, too.

Roxy: Exactly. And then find something else to replace it. Maybe you learn how to sew the holes in your socks, or maybe you pick up a musical instrument or just draw or journal or just sit there bored for 10 minutes, you know, And Pick something that you want to replace it with and then set that reasonable goal. Get an accountability buddy and you're off to a good start.

Susu B.: Yeah. And honestly, you know, your brain takes time to get rewired. So, you know, that said, sit down and be bored. Honestly, at least do it. I think one professor suggested, 28 days. At least do it for 28 days. Let the brain get rewired and then if it doesn't work out, maybe then come and talk to me or something. But you know, take your time, with things. And I'm glad that you even, in this, story, you also mentioned this financial well-being aspect as well, because that's also something that was mentioned here. so, to wrap it up, we all have this moment where we hear a great talk like the one we're. Having right now on digital wellness, feel super inspired. Maybe you even like, you know, run into that talk on a reel on Instagram. and then an hour later we're still doom scrolling. What helps make these changes tick, especially when tech is so embedded in our lives?

Roxy: Yes. Well, I will say first of all that this is not a mistake. This is built into the design of digital technology to make us stay engaged at all costs. and these designs themselves need to be regulated and need to be changed in order for us to have that well-being fully. Right. The well-being of young people over profits and company must be centered, as Dr. Kate Tilichek often says. there's a documentary film, the Social Dilemma, by the center for Humane Technology, also found on the Hub, that addresses these concerns and really shows that even AI is just going to make these designs more problematic, as we're seeing with chatbots, AI companions released into the lives of young people without knowing the full impacts of it. So just again, that kindness to ourselves to recognize that this is structural and systemic as well. and again, to be just asking the questions. Right. One of our youth committees created a beautiful conversation card deck. It's available for free on the Hub. and there's a question that they ask in there that says if all digital technology was designed for well-being, what do you think it would look like? I think that's a beautiful and important question to ask and I think at its root it would look very different than it looks right now. so, what can we do with the structures that we have right now? Well, again, I think the number one thing is being intentional and purposeful about our digital tech use. Research after research study shows this is the difference between it being Harmful or helpful for our well-being, our intention and purposefulness versus just scrolling to scroll or being just passive consumers. Right. I think a lot of the time we spend online is as passive consumers. And perhaps a bit of a challenge here to become more active, more creators, more engagers if we're going to be online and to be intentionally choosing tech that does prioritize well-being and human rights and mutual flourishing because it exists. Right. Are you looking on Google or are you looking on Ecosia that uses their profits to plant trees? are you listening to music on Spotify, or are you listening on these alternative little platforms like the Neenah Protocol that uses blockchain to bring financial benefit to both the listener and the artist? these are questions that we can be asking because there is good tech out there and there are good apps. One piece of, if you want to do better with your tech or even learn more about how digital tech is impacting your well-being, this is the last piece I'll share. is mood journaling. Get a journal and keep track of how it feels to be online and what kind of online engagement makes you feel, what kind of way.

So you log on and you note down, you know, how were you feeling before you logged on? Scale 1 to 10 even works. Go online and log down. What are you doing online? How did you feel after you log off? How long did you spend? And this practice of noticing can be really inspiring to be more intentional. Right. In our interviews, we asked 36 young people across the country, how do you feel after you've been on social media? 33 of them out of 36 said tired and drained. I said, is this emotional tired? Is it physical tired? They said both, all versions of being tired. Those who didn't feel drained, it was because they only spent five minutes at a time on there. Very intentional, had that control, very intentional about their feeds, really choosing and maybe saying on Instagram, I'll watch the news and maybe some depressing things and get informed. But on TikTok, it's all cats in common and being intentional about the digital spaces and how we're curating that for ourselves and then really thinking, how does this make me feel? And I think asking that question might just open that space to be curious about the ways that digital tech can really benefit us and to maybe start to diminish the ways that it creates harm in our lives.

Susu B.: That was wonderful. Thank you very much. Honestly, that was, everything that you need in this guide to digital well-being is honestly what honestly said in this question. And with that said, this wraps up our interview. Thank you very much, Roxy, for being my guest today. it was wonderful having you.

Roxy: Thank you so much, Susu.

Susu B.: I really want to thank our special guest today, Dr. Roxanne Cohen. I really enjoyed our enlightened conversation. Thank you, Roxy, for being such a valuable resource. You can also find links to all the services Dr. Cohen mentioned in the show notes for this episode, along with more valuable information, tips and resources. Visit our website at go.yorku.ca/wbpodcast. Click on the episode's link and look for the episode Digital Wellbeing: A Guide to Healthy Tech Use. This episode was co-produced by the Well Being and YU Podcast team. Our podcast coordinator is Prabhleen Luthra. Our technical editor is Jhonathan Varela Gonzalez. And I'm your host, Susu B. And as usual, we'll leave you with the quote of the day. The number one thing is being intentional and purposeful about our digital use. Thank you for listening.