Digital wellbeing education for adolescents: A conceptual framework

As digital media and technologies become increasingly integral to adolescents' daily lives, it is important that young people develop the knowledge and skills needed not only to navigate digital environments, but also to do so in ways that enhance, maintain and protect their wellbeing. Concurrent rises in adolescent digital engagement and declining mental health and wellbeing make this an urgent educational priority. This article introduces digital wellbeing education—the integrated development of knowledge and skills needed to navigate digital environments in ways conducive to wellbeing—as a distinct objective within compulsory secondary schooling. Existing educational approaches, including digital literacy, digital citizenship and socio–emotional learning provide an important foundation for digital wellbeing education but remain conceptually fragmented, with digital wellbeing under-theorised as an explicit educational goal. Integrating these traditions, we propose a novel competency-based framework comprising three domains: (1) functional, (2) critical and (3) social–emotional, emphasising the importance of their integrated and applied development through education. Informed by the Capability Approach (Sen, 1999), the framework understands these competencies as supporting the expansion of adolescents' capabilities to engage with digital environments in ways conducive to wellbeing, while acknowledging the personal, social and technical factors that may constrain this. The framework advances educational theory and practice by providing a coherent foundation for curriculum design, delivery and evaluation of digital wellbeing education in secondary schools, with particular relevance to emerging statutory ‘wellbeing online’ education requirements in England. We conclude by outlining implications and identifying key priorities for future research, practice and policy.