As digital environments increasingly shape how we teach, learn, work and connect, many of us are navigating tensions between constant connectivity and meaningful presence. Expectations surrounding responsiveness, visibility and participation often create digital fatigue while also intersecting with broader questions of communication inequities, culture and belonging. This interactive session invites participants to explore digital wellness as a shared and relational practice rather than an individual responsibility.
Grounded in MYfest themes of wellbeing, community building, critical pedagogy and socially just education, the session focuses on two guiding themes: recognizing the anxiety of digital disconnection and navigating cultural communication codes in learning spaces. Drawing from the work of Aymar Jèan Escoffery and bell hooks, participants will consider how digital practices and communication norms influence participation, relationships, as well as feelings of inclusion.
The session begins with a brief framing and reflective prompts before participants move into breakout conversations focused on one of the two themes. Through guided discussion, participants will share experiences, identify challenges, and explore practices that support care-centred engagement in digital and educational spaces. Participants will then use a Digital Wellness: Manual of Me worksheet to reflect on communication preferences, digital boundaries, personal needs and practices that help protect their space.
Participants can expect a highly interactive and reflective experience with opportunities for conversation, individual meaning-making, and collaborative sharing. By the end of the session, participants will leave with a draft of their own Manual of Me, practical ideas for supporting healthier digital relationships, and strategies they can adapt within classrooms, teams and broader learning communities.
Instructions for Participants:
We will use one of the two themes in breakout rooms: use the following two themes:
1) Recognizing the Anxiety of Digital Disconnection (Digital Fatigue) Reparative Media by Aymar Jèan Escoffery Excerpt: “Digital platforms have challenged this stability, pulling us away from our physical environments and onto our screens while constantly shifting the terms of engagement in digital space… The result is collective destabilization, a growing anxiety that challenges our ability to grow roots both in our local communities and online”.
2) Navigating Cultural Communication Codes in the Classroom (communication inequities) Feminist Theory From Margin to Center by bell hooks Excerpt: “Through repeated teaching… I have learned the importance of learning what we called one another’s cultural codes… She had been raised to pause and think before speaking, to consider the impact of one’s words… By sharing this cultural code, we created an atmosphere in the classroom that allowed for different communication patterns”. Additionally, the “Manual of Me” worksheet will be provided at the session.
