A Digital Wellness expert and Africa’s first certified digital Wellness Educator, Oluwatosin Olabode has called for an increase in Digital Wellness awareness and sensitization in Nigeria.
Olabode, who made this known in an interview said Digital Wellness awareness is impacting negatively the productivity and general well-being of Nigerians.
He explained that the concept of digital wellness is still relatively new in Africa.
The Digital Wellness Lab of the Boston Children’s Hospital in the US defines Digital wellness as “a positive state of mental, physical, and social-emotional health pursued through intentional, authentic, and balanced engagement with technology and interactive media.”
Increasingly, digital wellness is now deemed important because it enables employees to be more engaged and productive, as well as lead healthier lives during and outside of work.
Olabode however said in Nigeria, only very few people are beginning to understand the relationship between technology devices and human behaviour which is what digital wellness is all about.
“Over the years of working with these young people, it became clearer how much technology and social media, for instance, were impacting their overall well-being (this was more negative than it was positive). Realizing that the use of technology can either impact us positively or negatively is what began my journey into the digital wellness world,” he explained.
Olabode, who manages the mental health non-profit, Strengthening Society Today Foundation, and is the author of Digitally Well: Structures and Society in the Tech Era’, noted that there is much work to be done to salvage the young population of Nigerians from suffering the intense consequences from lack of awareness of digital wellness.
He is optimistic that awareness of digital wellness will grow over time in Nigeria as people become more aware of the connection between the use of digital tools and health with general well-being.
“It’s difficult to make specific predictions about the future of digital wellness, but I am certain that it has come to stay. We are now witnessing the integration of the online and offline worlds as there is hardly anything we want to do that does not require some form of technology.
“For this reason, digital wellness will continue to be an important topic in the years to come, as technology becomes even more integrated into our daily lives, and people want to ensure that they are using it in a way that promotes their optimal health,” he said.
