On Friday, May 3rd, we celebrate Global Digital Wellness Day, and what better way to honor the occasion than by brainstorming strategies to integrate digital well-being practices at your institution?

Smartphones and social media were designed for ease of use, so easy that students forget that what makes them happy is right behind those screens: friendships, active hobbies, nature, and play. It is up to us to create scree-free spaces to help them disconnect to reconnect.

Students are most enthusiastic about changes that complement their day-to-day lives. A big part of these are environmental triggers: external reminders that encourage digital wellness practices and remind students that it’s okay to not be on their phones. "If the norm flips, that's really what's going to make a longer-lasting change.”

Laurie Fritsch, MSEd, CHES, CTTS, Assistant Director of Hokie Wellness, and digital well-being expert Christina Crook, founder of JOMO(campus), invite you to a FREE Campus Digital Well-Being Learning Event at Virginia Tech on February 9th.

It’s hard to believe we launched JOMO(campus) this year. We prioritized our new college focus because we know that students suffer especially from tech overuse and that digital boundaries are needed to support their well-being and academic focus. We are proud to be part of that solution.

Students have ideas for how to improve wellness on campus.

This year’s Academica Wellness Survey revealed the sources of stress among postsecondary students and how they are coping using their institutions’ available resources.

JOMO(campus) educational advisor Laurie Schmidt Fritsch and CEO Christina Crook will deliver their "Strategies to Improve Digital Well-being in the University Environment" keynote at the 2024 NASPA Annual Conference

To kick off a digital well-being movement on your campus THIS year, we invite you to join our Spring 2024 Digital Well-Being Challenge Cohort. Gearing up for the second half of the semester, we will equip you with everything you need to run a successful challenge at your school.

We can remember a time before the Internet. They can’t. Today’s adolescents are living in the era of everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything—a time where AI blurs the lines of reality and digital capitalism drives the terms of social engagement to the extent that students are left wanting, wanting for something real.

Faculty were a vital element of the digital wellness initiative, created in collaboration with Christina Crook of JOMO (Joy of Missing Out), because they unwittingly create some of the unrelenting pressure for students to be always online.

We’re exploring the landscape of students, smartphones and social media, asking global experts to explain the hard truths about the mental health decline among youth on campuses worldwide and inspire us with evidence-based strategies that will turn the tide.

Real conversation nurtures, educates, and invigorates; there isn’t much for our well-being that it can’t do. A good and loving conversation is an express route to joy.

Digital wellness is a positive state of mental, physical, and social-emotional health pursued through intentional, authentic, and balanced engagement with technology and interactive media. Download our 10 Tips for a Digitally Well Campus to kick off the conversation with your team.

Instead of leaving our next generation with problems to solve, how can we make sure they inherit a world that we don't have to apologize for?

We’ve been seeing more and more instances of digital overwhelm in the news. In the Netherlands, the education ministry has decided to ban the use of portable digital devices when not specifically required for learning. Is this the answer?

We’re designing approaches to technology that support finding joy in missing out on mindless social media consumption and smartphone distraction. Here’s how we can work with you.

The JOMO common room intervention is helping build new student social norms by making it okay to not be on your phone.

Digital well-being must be a strategic priority for schools. Here’s how we can help.

Thanks to the distinctive JOMO campaign look, students are connecting the dots between the original in-class videos to the phone boxes to the residential challenge - all reinforcing the core messages and learning outcomes.