Digital Wellbeing: A Critical, Creative Workshop
An event co-organised by the Mental Health Humanities Researcher Network and ‘Imagining Wellbeing’ researchers at the Centre for Urban Wellbeing, University of Birmingham
Digital infrastructures organise our everyday lives in cities, communities, workplaces, and our real-world social networks. As urban spaces become increasingly digitised, we now have to build our mental health on and with this scaffolding; our experiences of mental distress and mental illness are caused, exacerbated, supported and even treated in the virtual world.
This workshop gathers people from a range of social and disciplinary backgrounds to ask critical questions about impacts of the digital on our physical and psychological environment. These will include:
- How can we mitigate the harm caused by overreliance on digital infrastructures?
- What can be done to challenge platitudes around digital support and its invasive surveillance?
- Can we collectively explore online learning and learn to navigate space with digital tools?
- How do digital innovations affect or attack human creativity, and what can we do to address this?
- What alternatives to accepted methods of technological engagement can we use or develop?
With experts working across related areas, we aim to reflect on lived realities and explore the possibilities of mental wellbeing in a digital world through creative means.
We’ll be sending round more details via our mailing list in the coming weeks.