Digital Wellbeing for All: Expanding Inclusivity to Embrace Diversity in Socio-Emotional Status

The ubiquity of information and communication technology contributed positively in enhancing lives, mainly in increasing productivity and economic growth, while their impact on life satisfaction and wellbeing has been a hidden cost. Digital media shall empower users to maximise their digital wellbeing, i.e. healthy and regulated relationship with technology. Similar to usability, people differ in their needs to achieve and maintain their digital wellbeing. A technology design shall be inclusive in how it helps users to increase their digital wellbeing and reduce possible harm. Typical inclusivity dimensions in Human-Computer Interaction research include gender, race, physical and cognitive abilities, with the aim of making the product usable by the wider possible user set. However, another range of inclusivity dimensions becomes prominent and that is the diversity in users’ socio-emotional characteristics such as susceptibility to online pressure (technical and social), resilience and others. Such characteristics can be traits, e.g. introversion, or temporal status, e.g. being in a low mood. In this position paper, we are proposing digital wellbeing as a target for an inclusive design where technology designers need to anticipate and reduce the negative impact of their products and services on the wellbeing of users through considering their diverse socio-emotional status.