Drawing from a two-year ethnography with sixteen adults in Flanders and Brussels, Belgium, this study disentangles the social, material, and individual obstacles experienced in day-to-day life that hinder and foster digital well-being. Findings show how these obstacles are interrelated, laying bare the tensions that cut across social relations, digital devices, and spaces. Moreover, (gendered) responsibilities and social relations impact whether someone can, or even desires, to overcome obstacles to digital well-being. We thus observed a “constrained agency” that limited individual efforts in feeling digitally well. Emphasizing the relational characteristics of connected everyday life, the study argues that identifying where agency is constrained can make visible the layers and tensions in people’s experiences with digital media use. To put this into practice, we echo the call for a re-imagination of digitized everyday life that questions underlying inequalities and privileges, seeing a need for individual and collective strategies that can foster sustainable digital well-being.

中文翻译：

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从幸福到负担：关于数字健康的社会、物质和个人障碍如何影响日常生活的民族学调查


这项研究基于对比利时佛兰德斯和布鲁塞尔的 16 名成年人进行的为期两年的民族志研究，解开了日常生活中阻碍和促进数字健康的社会、物质和个人障碍。研究结果显示了这些障碍是如何相互关联的，揭示了跨越社会关系、数字设备和空间的紧张关系。此外，（性别化的）责任和社会关系会影响一个人是否能够，甚至希望克服数字福祉的障碍。因此，我们观察到一个“受限的能动性”，它限制了个人在数字感觉方面的努力。该研究强调了互联日常生活的关系特征，认为确定代理受到限制的地方可以使人们使用数字媒体体验的层次和紧张关系可见。为了将其付诸实践，我们响应了重新构想数字化日常生活的呼吁，质疑潜在的不平等和特权，并看到了对能够促进可持续数字福祉的个人和集体战略的需求。