Digital Influences and conceptions of masculinity: Rethinking wellbeing through a lens of interpersonal recognition

This brief offers an alternative perspective on digital wellbeing recommendations that draw on risk management approaches to ensure the safety of young people. These strategies often take the form of advice to cancel, report, and block users, or to step away from the platform after toxic online encounters. While such measures may provide immediate relief for the targeted individual, they do little to address the underlying issue: the quality of interactions in online environments. They also do not equip those affected with the resilience needed to cope with the potential moral injuries that can arise from these experiences, nor do they provide language to understand and contextualise the perpetrator's actions.

Through a conception of intersubjective recognition (i.e. social validation[1]), we aim to reframe wellbeing as a reflexive, interpersonal experience. This approach offers an empowering vocabulary for understanding the impact of negative digital experiences, while also helping individuals intentionally seek out and cultivate positive ones as a way of taking charge of their wellbeing.