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Optimizing digital wellbeing innovations: A call for personalized, integrated, and contextual approaches

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Rapid proliferation of digital technologies presents a paradox: expanding health access while introducing risks such as digital overload, privacy concerns, and negative mental health impacts. A conceptual and implementation gap remains in defining and optimizing wellbeing in a digital world, particularly because digital wellbeing refers both to interventions intentionally designed to promote health and to everyday digital environments that influence wellbeing indirectly. We convened a multidisciplinary think-tank of 24 scholars in May 2025 at New York University Florence, using a structured, mixed-format process to identify gaps and generate integrative concepts for advancing wellbeing within digital and hybrid care ecosystems. The group found that current digital health tools often fragment wellbeing into siloed biomedical paradigms and may be shaped by commercial incentives that favor engagement over flourishing. Consensus emerged that integrated wellbeing is a multidimensional construct spanning physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, and nourishment-related dimensions, supported by technologies only when they augment human relationships, context, and autonomy. Key themes included clearer conceptual boundaries; persistent gaps in design, safety, regulation, and health equity; human-centered frameworks that augment rather than replace human support; bridging digital tools with nourishment and nature-based practices; and personalizing strategies across the lifespan and across low- and high-resource settings.

Source: Global Public Health

DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2026.2725413