New Perspective on Digital Well-Being by Distinguishing Digital Competency From Dependency: Network Approach

Background In the digital age, there is an emerging area of research focusing on digital well-being (DWB), yet conceptual frameworks of this novel construct are lacking. The current conceptualization either approaches the concept as the absence of digital ill-being, running the risk of pathologizing individual digital use, or follows the general subjective well-being framework, failing to highlight the complex digital nature at play. Objective This preregistered study aimed to address this gap by using a network analysis, which examined the strength of the relationships among affective (digital stress and web-based hedonic well-being), cognitive (online intrinsic needs satisfaction), and social (online social connectedness and state empathy) dimensions of DWB and their associations with some major DWB protective and risk factors (ie, emotional regulation, nomophobia, digital literacy, self-control, problematic internet use, coping styles, and online risk exposure). Methods The participants were 578 adults (mean age 38.7, SD 13.14 y; 277/578, 47.9% women) recruited from the United Kingdom and the United States who completed an online survey. Two network models were estimated. The first one assessed the relationships among multiple dimensions of DWB, and the second examined the relationships between DWB dimensions and related protective and risk factors. Results The 2 resulting network structures demonstrated high stability, with the correlation stability coefficients being 0.67 for the first and 0.75 for the second regularized Gaussian graphical network models. The first network indicated that all DWB variables were positively related, except for digital stress, which was negatively correlated with the most central node—online intrinsic needs satisfaction. The second network revealed 2 distinct communities: digital competency and digital dependency. Emotional regulation emerged as the most central node with the highest bridge expected influence, positively associated with emotion-focused coping in the digital competency cluster and negatively associated with avoidant coping in the digital dependency cluster. In addition, some demographic differences were observed. Women scored higher on nomophobia (χ24=10.7; P=.03) and emotion-focused coping (χ24=14.9; P=.01), while men scored higher on digital literacy (χ24=15.2; P=.01). Compared with their older counterparts, younger individuals scored lower on both emotional regulation (Spearman ρ=0.27; P<.001) and digital self-control (Spearman ρ=0.35; P<.001) and higher on both digital stress (Spearman ρ=−0.14; P<.001) and problematic internet use (Spearman ρ=−0.25; P<.001). Conclusions The network analysis revealed how different aspects of DWB were interconnected, with the cognitive component being the most influential. Emotional regulation and adaptive coping strategies were pivotal in distinguishing digital competency from dependency.