Beyond a Healthy Use of Technology: Understanding Technological Health

In an ever-increasing digital world, an individual’s well-being at home and in the workplace is increasingly contingent on their relationship with technology. While various concepts in prior research have been developed to address aspects of technology use and their impact on well-being, this paper argues for a holistic approach that synthesizes multiple dimensions of an individual’s relationship with technology. We refer to this new concept as technological health. Through a literature review and semi-structured interviews, we present and clarify our concept of technological health. We find that the dimensions of ability, autonomy, and desire form someone’s technological health. Like physical, mental, and other forms of health, adopting a health perspective of technology use can enable the creation of diagnoses and interventions to help individuals improve their relationship with technology.