Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?

Christina Naphor

15 June 2021

Dr. Cara Sidman

CHS 300: The Science of Wellbeing

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Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?
Introduction

Knowing that there is a strong social component to our wellbeing, what role do you feel

that technology plays in our social connection and how does it affect our wellbeing? I chose to

explore this question since maintaining a healthy balance with technology usage is critical to our

wellbeing. While many people feel that technology usage is beneficial to our social connection,

others feel that it is actually harmful to our wellbeing. I plan on conducting in-person interviews

and an online survey to learn exactly how polarizing this debate is in my own social circles and

to compare my own data with course and peer-reviewed data.

Participants

I chose to interview three participants to help further my research by offering me varied

insights. The first participant is Gianna Margaritondo, who is my 13-year-old cousin, and she is

currently navigating the social circles of Middle School while classes are meeting virtually due

to the COVID-19 Pandemic. I chose her because of her age and to gain a perspective into the

generation that was raised alongside the exponential technological and social media growth. My

second participant is Sean Gilliland. He is 33 years old and enjoys working on computers as well

as playing a lot of video games. I chose him because he is older than me, a male, and it would be

interesting to see his viewpoint on how technology usage affects his wellbeing since he is

actively involved in a lot of gaming communities where the gameplay is addictive and the online

environments can be toxic. My third and final participant is Megan McConnell. She is 32 years

old and is very tuned into optimizing her own wellbeing by meditating, performing yoga,

working out, and eating healthy. I think that she will offer a very enlightening perspective on

how she thinks it affects her wellbeing. Together, I believe these three participants will help in

the exploration of my curiosity question.

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Interview Data

1. Gianna believes that technology is mainly helpful for our social connection because of

the ease of communication, but our communication skills can be affected as well since

we are talking to a computer instead of an actual person. However, she feels it can also

have a negative impact on our mental health, a component of wellbeing, since it can be

so easily affected by things seen on social media for instance excluding people from

events and posting pictures of it online as well as cyberbullying, since it is easier to bully

someone behind a screen instead of in-person. She also believes the length of time we

spend on our phones every day is equally as damaging.

2. Sean is relatively neutral on the topic of how technology can affect our wellbeing and

social connection. He, like Gianna, believes that technology has a positive effect on our

wellbeing by allowing people to be able to communicate and play videogames together;

especially if your friends moved far away, you can still get together online by playing

these games. Conversely, he thinks that it can negatively affect our wellbeing when

using social media for lying, bragging, and harassing as well as affect the wellbeing of

children who are attacked online for playing a game such as Call of Duty.

3. Megan believes that technology is a double-edged sword in our world when it comes to

our wellbeing. Technology can be a beautiful resource when used mindfully and with

presence, but on the other hand it can cause unhealthy relationships between people and

technology as well as causes a host of invisible issues including but not limited to: body

dysmorphia, bullying, abuse, deception, and unrealistic life expectations. She thinks we

are currently living in an epidemic with an addiction to technology and feeling the need

to be connected 100% of the time.

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Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?
Course Concept or Skill Data

During Module 4, we learned about the role of social connection and Sherry Turkle

(2012) during her TED Talk illustrated how using technology to short-handedly communicate

impacts our ability and desire to build real, human connections. Online conversation does not

compare to real, genuine conversation which helps us to learn about each other and to develop

empathy. One of the most profound statements from her TED Talk was that “texting, emailing,

and posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that

means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch the face, the voice, the flesh, the body –

not too little and not too much, just right” (Turkle, 2012).

Peer-Reviewed Data

Many studies have been conducted to show the growing evidence of risks associated with

excessive technology use, especially with social networking and gaming aspects, among teens

and young adults, but this research study focused on discovering the characteristics of those who

are at elevated risks of becoming problematic users by sorting users into five distinct types.

Dwyer et al. (2020) explains that females in their twenties attending school and having greater

access to technology are the most likely subgroup to fall into the higher-risk category while

young people who live with both parents are the least likely to belong in this category (Dwyer et

al., 2020).

Survey Data

I chose to conduct an informal analysis by creating a ten question survey that I posted on

my social media accounts. I had 21 participants in total ranging from 13 to 54 years old. My goal

of the survey was to have participants reflect on their technology usage and the possible effects

on their wellbeing. I also wanted to see if after learning about their daily usage, if they would
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Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?
change their habits. The questions I asked built off of the previous questions and I created graphs

below to demonstrate the different responses.

Each participant had varied responses as expected to each of the questions. The median

age of all participants was 32 years old. 13 participants reported using phones for both personal

and work use, while 7 use it for personal reasons, and 1 uses it exclusively for work. Most

participants would rather text to communicate, at a staggering 62% of participants, instead of

calling. The two bar graphs below illustrate how long people perceive they use their phones for a

day versus the length of their actual daily screentime. Participants reported they believe they

mainly use their phones for social media followed by messaging and streaming services; that

belief held true when asked to list their main 5 apps they used. They expressed that they were

mostly unsurprised after learning their results. When asked if they would limit their screen time,

only 8 out of 21 participants responded yes. Lastly, there were some common themes found

across their answers in regard to my curiosity question. They cited it helps them relax, boost

social interactions, stay informed by being a useful tool for knowledge. While some are

unconcerned since they know when to step away. On the other hand, in regard to technology’s

negative aspects, they also mentioned the following: knowing they overuse their phones;

technology is toxic, addictive, and causes distractions; they know they need to limit their usage

since it can be detrimental to their mental health; it takes away from family time; it causes

anxiety when they are away from their devices; and body image and overall life expectations

become unrealistic when comparing yourself to the world of social media.

Do Participants Prefer Com-
municating via Texting or Call- Will Participants Change
ing? Habits After Learning About
Screen Time?
Yes
Call 33%
38% Text
62%
No
67%
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Participants' Perceived Daily Average Screen Time

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-1 hour 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 7-8 8-9 9-10 10-11 11-12 12+
hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours

Number of Participants

Participants' Actual Daily Average Screen Time

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0-1 hour 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 7-8 8-9 9-10 10-11 11-12 12+
hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours hours

Number of Participants

Discussion

Before conducting any of my interviews and online surveys, I already formed my own

opinion about technology usage for communication purposes and how the overuse of it actually

affects us. I believe that we are becoming too dependent on technology use and are not able to

effectively communicate in person anymore. I often see people gather together and be glued to

their cellphones. So effectively while they are together in one place, they are actually alone.

Personally, I love being around people and socializing. I make it a point to try to keep my phone
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Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?
off to the side and not use it frequently when I am with good company. I will also admit that

since I am not glued to my phone, I can be terrible at remembering to capture memories when I

am with loved ones. I want to become more mindful of this, so I can remember to use this

technology tool to capture these fleeting moments.

First, I would like to mention that I had the privilege to watch Gianna grow up into the

teenager she is today. However, she is a part of a generation that grew up surrounded by

technology. I became concerned with noticing how attached she is to her smartphone even when

she is surrounded by company. I thought that interviewing her would help her change her

perspective and become mindful of the dangers of technology addiction. I was surprised that her

responses at her age were more mature than I initially expected. Gianna mentioned that

technology is a great way to remain connected with her friends. However, she was actually able

to recognize the dangers to not only her mental health, but to her physical health from her

obsession of social media. She told me she might be willing to change her habits, but it is largely

a generational issue. Gianna’s thoughts impacted what I originally believed about her generation.

I think if they choose to be a little more mindful about their technology usage, it could really

benefit their formation of genuine relationships which is key to their development.

Sean is a person who would rather spend his time outdoors instead of being cooped up

inside. He used to turn to using social media out of boredom, but now would rather play a video

game or watch tv shows and movies. During the pandemic, he actually set up a projector and

firepit outside in his backyard for this sole purpose of gathering with friends. He expressed to me

that, like Gianna, he is also able to see the positive and negative ramifications of using

technology. When communicating online, he recognizes that it is hard to relay emotions in

messages as compared to having an actual conversation with a person. I originally thought he

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would be glued to technology since he does play video games and there is a strong social aspect

to it. However, he described himself as being anti-social online in these types of forums because

of the harassment, bullying, and bragging involved. Sean recognizes the importance of

communicating in person and sees the dangers that technology usage presents. This aligns with

my original viewpoint in regard to my curiosity question.

Megan, my final interviewee, was extremely opinionated on the matter. She regularly

practices mindfulness especially during meditation. Naturally, I originally expected her

responses to be geared towards the negative aspects of technology as well as the importance of

reducing usage. While technology could be a beautiful thing if used healthily, it still causes a

host of invisible issues that is harmful to our wellbeing and to our ability to form connections.

She relates it to being an addiction; regular detoxes, from any addicting substance, is important

to our overall wellbeing.

All three interview participants soundly agreed that technology is an important tool in our

lives, but it is important to be mindful about our usage. Sean and Megan are of similar age and

grew up in a generation that experienced a childhood without an overabundance of technology

available. However even across different age groups, all three of them believed in similar ideas.

Technology can be useful in our social connection, but can have a lasting effect on our

wellbeing. Technology is addictive and can be dangerous. Too much of anything can easily

become a bad thing if we overindulge. Both Sean and Megan know when to step away, while

Gianna is still growing and navigating the social world around her. Even if seems impossible to

fully walk away from using social media, we can regularly detox to recharge our wellbeing.

Sherry Turkle’s TED Talk illustrated exactly how detrimental technology usage can be

for our wellbeing. She mentioned how the ability to remain connected 100% of the time is
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Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?
shaping our way of being and that being alone needs to be immediately remedied by grabbing

our phones or else we would become anxious (Turkle, 2012). As I mentioned earlier, people can

be physically together, but actually alone when using our electronic devices. Sherry Turkle

inspired me to explore my curiosity question since her viewpoint closely resembled my initial

thoughts on the subject. However, her TED Talk was given in 2012 when some social media

sites widely used today either did not exist yet or were in its early stages. I wonder how much

more impactful she could have been if her presentation was given in the last few years.

Dwyer et al. (2020) further added to my initial thoughts by providing necessary insight

into which groups are most at risk at becoming problematic users. Type 1 users, mostly young

and educated woman with access to technology, were the most at risk at becoming problematic

users since they were the most intense users. They use it for everything including texting, music,

apps, and emails (Dwyer et al., 2020). Initially, I suspected that young women were the most at-

risk population since social media can negatively affect our wellbeing. This study However, their

study had several limitations. First, their study did not observe outcomes such as subjective

feelings, markers of relationship stress, and objective outcomes. Second, their study was limited

to teens and young adults, so there is no way of knowing if the patterns observed here would

apply to older adults. Third, while the data contains a variety of technology used, it does not

mention the frequency of use. Lastly, it is missing data on pornography usage which is viewed as

being potentially addictive.

The survey I conducted with 21 participants further solidified my initial thoughts on the

matter. Most people stated that they would rather not communicate by talking and would rather

text. The lack of genuine communication is affecting our ability to connect with one another in

the absence of the digital space. While some believe using technology is truly a positive thing by
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Is Technology Affecting Our Wellbeing?
staying connected and fostering their wellbeing, others still believe that it can be harmful. What

surprised me is the staggering amount of people unwilling to change their habits even if it would

benefit their wellbeing. My study I performed had many limitations due to the limited number of

participants and differences in age range.

Conclusion

Together all of four of these methods reiterated that technology usage and its effect on

our social connection, as well as wellbeing, is a polarizing topic like I initially thought. The

course material initially inspired me to explore this matter. Then, by conducting interviews as

well as a survey I was able to get answers for some of my compelling questions within my own

social circles. Finally, the peer-review article was able to add to my knowledge base further. All

of these methods added to myself formulating the best answer to my question. The ability to

recognize if technology usage is hurting your wellbeing is completely subjective to each person.

Overall, I learned that most people do believe it does more harm than good. The usage of

technology can be beneficial if we know how to step away. When we are unable to separate

ourselves, we lose the ability to form social connection since sending a text is easier than

actually talking to a person. Wellbeing relies on having strong social ties and I do not believe we

can properly form them if we are glued to our devices. It is critical that we are able to exist in a

world that is not always reliant on using technology if we want to achieve optimal wellbeing.
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Take-Home Message

Social connection is key to achieving optimal wellbeing however technology threatens to isolate us
further. We need to be mindful about our usage and make an effort to verbally communicate with one
another so we can thrive.

Wellbeing Intention

I intend to further optimize my wellbeing by scheduling regular detoxes from social media. Technology
usage is emotionally draining and damaging since we are constantly in competition with one another. We
are all at different phases in our lives and therefore should not be wasting our time comparing ourselves
to what we see online. Life is a journey best enjoyed in good companionship. In building real social
connection, we can boost our sense of wellbeing.
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References

Dwyer, D. S., et al. (2020). Technology use: Too much of a good thing? Atlantic Economic

Journal: 48(4), 475-489. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-020-09683-1

Turkle, S., (2012). Connected, but Alone? [Video]. TED.

https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_connected_but_alone?language=en