Good News About Digital Life: Most American Adults are Flourishing Online
It has been a couple of very busy weeks for our team at the Human Flourishing Lab. Last week, we published a report on Gen Z historical nostalgia with our friends at discover.ai. It explores how young people are engaging with and using cultural elements from eras they never personally experienced as a psychological resource. This week, we published a new national survey examining digital flourishing, which I'm excited to share with you today.
When we discuss digital technology's role in our lives, the conversation often gravitates toward the negative: social media's potential effects on mental health, concerns about smartphones disrupting face-to-face interactions, worries about online spaces amplifying political outrage, and questions about how digital engagement might affect our attention. While these concerns merit serious consideration, focusing exclusively on technology's downsides creates an incomplete picture that may actually hinder our ability to develop healthier relationships with digital technology.
In our new report, which I co-authored with Dr. Sophie Janicke-Bowles, we explore digital flourishing – a concept that helps us understand how people actively use digital technology to fulfill important psychological needs, build meaningful connections, and pursue personal aspirations. We measured digital flourishing across five key dimensions of online life: feeling comfortable presenting our authentic selves, feeling connected to communities, maintaining self-control over our engagement, participating in civil discourse, and drawing positive motivation from social comparisons.
Our national survey revealed that most American adults are actually flourishing in their digital lives. Over three-quarters of American adults report flourishing in at least three of these five dimensions. This suggests that many people are finding ways to engage with digital technology that support rather than undermine their well-being. Supporting this idea, we found that Americans who are digitally flourishing report better mental and social health than those who aren't flourishing digitally.
These findings take on particular significance when we consider the Gen Z subsample of our data. While Gen Z adults have grown up as digital natives, they also report higher rates of mental illness and loneliness compared to other generations. Consistent with the pattern in our overall sample, we found that Gen Z Americans who are digitally flourishing are also more likely to report good mental and social health.
This insight suggests an important path forward: rather than encouraging young adults to avoid or abandon social media, which isn't a realistic suggestion given how integrated it is into their lives, we might better serve them by understanding and promoting digital flourishing.
Digital spaces, like any social environment, can either support or undermine our psychological well-being depending on how we engage with them. As we continue to navigate our increasingly digital world, we need to expand our focus beyond technology's potential harms. How can we create online environments that encourage authentic self-expression, foster meaningful connections, and support healthy engagement patterns? How can we teach the skills that enable people to flourish in digital spaces?
Our research suggests that this isn't just an idealistic goal - it's already happening for many Americans. The challenge now is to understand how we can help more people develop the skills that support digital flourishing.
I encourage you to think about your own digital life through this lens of flourishing. How might you engage with technology in ways that support rather than undermine your well-being? What aspects of your digital life help you feel more connected, authentic, agentic, and motivated to participate constructively in public discourse?
At first glance, these two reports we've published over the past two weeks might seem to tell contradictory stories about Gen Z's relationship with technology. One reveals how young Americans are finding psychological value in nostalgic connections to pre-digital eras, while the other highlights how many young adults, along with adults across all age groups, are actively flourishing in digital spaces. But perhaps examining these findings side by side offers a deeper insight into how many young people are successfully navigating our technological age.
Looking to the past for comfort, guidance, and inspiration isn't in conflict with embracing new technologies. Instead, this balancing act might represent a particularly adaptive approach to life in our digital age. Just as previous generations found ways to integrate new technologies into their lives while preserving valuable cultural traditions, today's young adults are drawing upon the psychological resources of both historical reflection and digital connection.
Have a great weekend!
Clay