Disconnect to recharge: Well-being benefits of digital disconnection in daily life

Many perceive their digital media use to be out of balance and cope by recalibrating and reducing their use. One prominent goal of such digital disconnection is to improve well-being, yet past studies have yielded inconsistent results on whether this is an effective strategy. We test the associations of digital disconnection with a set of positive, negative, and social indicators of well-being in a two-week experience sampling study. N = 237 digital media users reported on T = 12,407 situations in their daily lives. Results show that in situations in which participants disconnected more than usual, they reported higher levels of affective well-being, energy, and social connectedness (within-person effects). In contrast, those who generally disconnected more than others reported no differences in well-being (between-person effects). Intrinsic motivation for disconnection positively moderated the associations with affective well-being, energy, and social connectedness between persons. Disconnection was not related to perceived stress, neither within nor between persons. The study further explores whether well-being effects differ depending on the aspects of digital media participants disconnected from. Overall, findings demonstrate how disconnection can be understood as a dynamic calibration of digital media (non-)use to achieve momentary – but not necessarily lasting – improvements in well-being.