Digital Awareness

Digital Wellness

Digital wellness is the pursuit of an intentional and healthy relationship with technology in the workplace and in personal life. The need for digital wellness corresponds to the many facets in which the unconscious use of digital technologies can affect our health:

Excessive time in front of the screen can force the muscles involved in the eye focus and cause eye strain. Also, when looking at digital screens, the eye does not blink so often and this causes dry eyes and minor eye irritations. You need to rest your eyes from time to time or even do certain exercises.

Phenomenon that especially affects younger people. There are studies that conclude that 77% of the adolescent group suffers from sleep problems. Long game sessions or frequent notifications received on the phone during the night can alter our sleep patterns.

Having digital devices around, especially if notifications are turned on, affects our ability to stay focused. In addition, some attention-demanding applications, such as social networking applications, try to create a habit for the user to constantly check the application.

The constant stimulation provided by the digital world can be used as a source of inspiration. However, it can also reduce creativity if the user passively consumes the content and reduces the time for contemplation and reflection.

Recent studies indicate that teens who spend more hours online a day are more likely to commit suicide. This is related to the phenomena of cyberbullying or cyberbullying, which are especially invasive, as the abuse is received through devices that accompany the victims at all times.

Good practices for digital wellness

There are specific applications that help take into account the digital wellness of the user, adding productivity features that mute smartphone notifications during sensitive times of the day or alert users when daily screen time has exceeded healthy limits.

Technology also helps you maintain a healthy lifestyle

Don’t forget that technology doesn’t hurt us, it hurts us to misuse it. There are many mobile apps and services designed to help us have a healthy lifestyle. In this way we can:

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity, also called information security, is the practice of ensuring the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of information. It involves a set of tools, technologies, training, and best practices designed to protect networks, devices, programs, and data from unauthorized attacks or access.

The main threats to cybersecurity appear in the form of malware, such as computer viruses, spyware, Trojans, and keyloggers. These programs usually aim to allow remote control of the attacked devices, damage them and / or extract information from them.

These attacks often involve social engineering, which seeks to manipulate people to obtain confidential information or induce users to download malware through some sort of deception. A common type of social engineering is phishing, which is used to obtain sensitive information (for example, passwords, credit card information) through an email, a phone call, or a text message. It is usually disguised as an official message from a trusted entity.

At the individual level, digital awareness related to cybersecurity involves a set of good practices, such as:

Strong passwords

Using secure passwords that combine letters, numbers, and special characters is key to preventing unwanted access to our accounts and personal information. The length of the password is also important. It is recommended that you use a different password on each account to reduce damage when a password is compromised. Pay attention to any clues that may be indicative of unwanted external access to our account, and to change passwords periodically.

Avoid open Wi-Fi networks

Wi-Fi connections in public places are prone to attacks, so it's a good idea not to use them, especially those that don't implement security features. If you use these types of open Wi-Fi networks, be very careful when accessing any web page and make sure that at least secure browsing (web addresses starting with HTTPS and with a valid certificate) is enabled. In all cases, avoid accessing sensitive information (e.g. bank accounts) on a public Wi-Fi, as well as disabling the Wi-Fi interface when not in use.

Do not share personal information

Be careful when sharing any kind of personal information online and pay special attention to social media, businesses and the people who contact us.

Verify identity

It is important to check the officiality of corporate accounts and the veracity of the individual profiles we contact online to prevent impersonation and social engineering attacks.

Digital Development

Digital development is key to the economic growth that comes from using new technologies. The ICT sector is generating value and has become a new industrial revolution, known as Industry 4.0.

It is important to identify the opportunities provided by new technologies, find the value they provide and know the applications of each emerging technology. Properly identified and implemented, these new markets and economic models can create new jobs and increase the gross domestic product (GDP) of any region.

Digital development must ensure that digital transformations can be understood and supported by society. It also involves recognizing the impact of this digital transformation in all business sectors to regulate new uses of technologies, allowing a smooth coexistence.

Digital parenting

Digital parenting describes the efforts and practices of parents to understand, support, and regulate children’s activities in digital environments.

It is important to increase digital awareness in current and future generations. While academic education plays a big role with different digital inclusion and awareness programs, parents should also be educated and become role models for their sons and daughters on how to use technology safely.

Good digital parenting practices

The recommended attitudes to achieve good digital parenting are:
Conversation. Have conversations with children about key aspects of digital awareness, such as their digital footprint, identifying scams or fake news, cyberbullying, and digital wellness.

Parental controls. Use parental controls in apps to restrict inappropriate content for boys and girls, and limit screen time.

Be a reference model. Demonstrate digital awareness habits about cybersecurity and digital wellness.

Celebrate. Encourage good online behaviours and maintain a positive and alert attitude about the opportunities and benefits of responsible digital living.

Digital Citizenship

A digital citizen is a person who uses information and communication technologies to participate in society, politics and government.

This concept means fully integrating digital technologies into society and having, as a political priority, a regulation of new technologies so that legal gaps are not generated and new economic models can coexist fairly with existing ones.

Being aware of the impact of ICTs on society and politics and using them in an ethical way to achieve improvements is the final step in becoming a digital citizen. A digital citizen is therefore a person with a high level of digital awareness.

Digital Inclusion

Digital inclusion refers to the activities needed to ensure that all people and communities, including the most disadvantaged, have access to information and ICT.

Digital exclusion is seriously affecting the elderly, as the world is being digitized and many everyday aspects are increasingly dependent on digital devices. The move to digital banking, with the closure of local bank branches, e-business models, online bureaucratic procedures, and even healthcare systems that require online interaction, are situations that affect to the elderly and may deprive them of their independence.

People with disabilities are also a group very prone to digital exclusion, but technology can be of great help to them in terms of daily life, employability and social inclusion. Healthcare technology is especially important for these people, so it is important to keep them up to date with technological advances and the knowledge that allows them to make the most of them.

Digital inclusion must be a shared responsibility for all societies and governments, both families and educational institutions must guide younger citizens, the elderly and people with disabilities in their learning process.

Online Education

There are currently a wide range of options for online education. The options and technologies dedicated to online education will continue to grow as it offers many advantages of flexibility and availability.

Educational institutions envisage a hybrid education model for the near future, in which traditional and online education coexist, and are beginning to adapt their programs to the digital age.

While being able to receive education or training remotely from home and at your own pace can be very beneficial, it’s also important to identify official, high-quality online education options. There are unofficial online educational academies that offer invalid certificates and often offer misleading information and mislead their clientele.

Digital Identity

Digital identity is the set of information that identifies a person online and is closely related to the digital footprint, as it is the trace of information that a person leaves after any online activity.

It is important to understand how our actions affect our digital identity and how other people, entities and companies perceive us based on our digital footprint.

This can affect our daily lives in unexpected ways. For example, more than 75% of employers are actively researching candidates online and, in addition, around 70% have decided not to hire a candidate based on what they have found on social media; therefore, online activity can even affect a person’s employability.

The recognition of one's own digital identity and its fingerprint, helps to find ways to build a solid profile, bearing in mind that the image we leave online will affect us in the future.

Data Protection

Data protection, also known as privacy of information, is related to the proper treatment of personal and confidential data that online entities must follow to protect such data, so that it is not shared or leaked improperly. 

It is necessary to understand the data protection rights and carefully read the terms and conditions of the agreement for each online service, as sharing our personal data with third parties may affect our online privacy and fingerprint, or it can even be used to manipulate or deceive us in the future.

Personal information must be used in a manner that ensures adequate security, including protection against illegal, unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or damage.

Reliable information

Reliable information is information extracted from official and contrasted sources, in the face of online phenomena such as fake news and misinformation. The ability to verify the veracity of information obtained online is necessary to counteract the growing viral spread of false information cultivated by social media.

It is important to know the tools for the search for reliable information, as the dissemination of false news can even threaten the individual safety of people; often this misinformation leads to health problems or economic loss, and can even affect governments by degrading democracy with the phenomenon of high political polarization and sensitivity to manipulation.

Good practices for finding reliable information

Read the full article. Go beyond the headline and try to understand the whole story.

Check the sources. Find out if the sources are reliable and if they match the article.

Check the date. Check if the information is up to date or if the information is still valid.

Think about whether the article is a satire. Check if the content conveys real information or is a joke.

Be neutral. Try not to be biased when looking for information. Look for the true facts, even if they do not match your previous beliefs.

Consult experts. Check out what you read with experts on the subject.