Digital Wellbeing Workshops: Helping Students Take Back Control
It was great to be back at my old stomping ground, Guildford Grammar School, speaking to the Year 7 and 8 students about social media, gaming, AI and addictive technology platforms.
In Dopamine Hackers, we look at something students experience every day but don't always understand:
Why are these platforms so good at keeping us hooked?
Social media, gaming and streaming platforms are designed around our attention. The more time we spend using them, the more opportunities there are for platforms to make money from that attention.
Once students understand that, the conversation about technology starts to change.
Instead of simply telling them to put their phones down, we can start talking about how these platforms are designed, why they are so engaging and what students can actually do to take back some control.
What do students learn in a digital wellbeing workshop?
When I ran Dopamine Hackers with the Guildford Year 7 and 8 students, we unpacked four key ideas.
How do social media and gaming platforms make money?
Students often understand that social media apps are free.
What they don't always understand is that "free" doesn't mean there isn't a business model behind them.
Platforms have a vested interest in keeping people engaged.
More time on a platform means more opportunities to show content and advertising, gather data and encourage people to keep coming back.
Once students understand this, they can start looking at the apps they use a little differently.
Why do platforms want to keep us hooked?
The students were particularly interested in understanding why it can feel so difficult to put a game down or stop scrolling.
The answer isn't simply that young people have no willpower.
Technology companies spend a lot of time thinking about how to make their products engaging.
Notifications, recommendations, rewards, infinite scrolling and other design features can all encourage continued use.
The important thing is helping students recognise these techniques when they encounter them.
How does dopamine relate to technology use?
We also talk about the brain and dopamine.
Dopamine is involved in motivation, learning and reward. It isn't simply the "pleasure chemical" that it is sometimes described as online.
What matters for students is understanding that our brains respond to rewards and anticipation, and digital platforms can be designed to provide plenty of opportunities for those responses.
A notification.
A new video.
A new level.
A message.
A like.
A reward in a game.
These small experiences can encourage us to keep checking, playing or scrolling.
Understanding this gives students another way to think about their own technology habits.
Instead of seeing themselves as simply lacking self-control, they can start recognising some of the design features competing for their attention.
Students need practical strategies, not just warnings
One of my favourite parts of the session was exploring ways students can "hack" their own dopamine for good.
The aim isn't to tell students that technology is bad.
It's to give them practical ways to build healthier tech habits and make more deliberate choices.
We looked at tools that gamify focusing, including Forest, Focus Friend and Opal, which were all big hits with the students.
These types of tools can make focusing feel more rewarding and give students another option when they are trying to manage distractions.
The bigger lesson is that students don't have to rely entirely on willpower.
They can change some of the conditions around how they use technology.
They can turn off unnecessary notifications.
They can create periods of focused time.
They can make distracting apps harder to access.
They can deliberately choose when they want to be online rather than automatically responding to every notification or recommendation.
Those are practical digital wellbeing skills.
Digital wellbeing is about understanding the system around you
A lot of conversations about student technology use focus on the individual.
How much screen time are they getting?
How long are they spending on TikTok?
How often are they gaming?
While these things can be useful to consider, I think we need to look at the bigger picture too.
Students are using products that have been deliberately designed to capture attention.
That doesn't mean every platform is malicious or that students shouldn't use social media, games or streaming services.
It means students deserve to understand how the technology works.
When they recognise that a platform is trying to keep them engaged, they can start asking better questions.
Why am I still scrolling?
What is this app trying to get me to do?
Is this actually what I want to be doing?
Am I choosing to use this, or have I just automatically opened it?
That awareness is a much more useful foundation for digital wellbeing than simply telling students to spend less time online.
What does Australia's social media minimum age mean for students?
Australia's social media minimum age restrictions have also changed the conversation around young people's technology use.
But even with regulation, students continue to encounter digital platforms, online content and technology in different parts of their lives.
That is why I don't think regulation alone can solve the problem.
Rules can change what young people are permitted to access.
They can't teach students how platforms are designed to capture attention.
They can't automatically give students the critical thinking skills to recognise when their behaviour is being influenced.
And they can't prepare students for every new platform or technology that appears.
Students need those skills as well.
Regulation isn't enough. Students need digital literacy too.
This is where digital wellbeing connects with digital literacy and online safety.
If students can recognise when a platform is trying to capture their attention, exploit their insecurities or influence their decisions, they are in a much stronger position to decide for themselves how they want to use it.
That is a very different message from simply:
"Get off your phone."
We will never be able to protect young people from every risk they encounter online.
There will always be another platform, another feature or another digital trend.
What we can do is equip students to become critical, tech-savvy consumers.
What should schools include in digital wellbeing education?
A useful digital wellbeing program can help students understand:
how technology platforms make money
why companies compete for their attention
how social media, gaming and streaming platforms encourage engagement
how reward and motivation can influence technology use
how notifications and other design features can affect attention
how to recognise when their technology use is becoming automatic
practical strategies for managing distractions
how to make more deliberate choices about their technology use
These conversations are particularly useful for students in Years 7–9, who are developing greater independence with technology and starting to navigate more platforms on their own.
The goal isn't to make students afraid of technology.
It is to make them more informed about it.
Helping students become more deliberate technology users
The Guildford students were absolutely wonderful. They were engaged, enthusiastic and excited to share their answers as we worked through these ideas.
And that's what I love about this kind of workshop.
We're not simply telling students what they should or shouldn't do.
We're giving them the information to understand what is happening around them and then letting them think about the choices they want to make.
Digital wellbeing isn't about achieving a perfect relationship with technology.
It's about having enough awareness and control to make deliberate choices.
If your school is looking for a digital wellbeing workshop for students, Dopamine Hackers explores social media, gaming, streaming, AI, attention and healthier technology habits in a practical and engaging way. It is designed to help students understand the technology they use and think more critically about where they choose to spend their attention.
