Call for Papers

Recently, researchers have been examining the unforeseen issues caused by the excessive use of personal devices and online services, especially as companies increasingly employ "attention-capture" tactics like guilty-pleasure recommendations and automatic content playback. These strategies exploit users' psychological vulnerabilities, aiming to boost advertising revenue, resulting in tangible repercussions on users' perceived agency and often leading to a perceived lack of control over their technology use. These problems gave rise to a new kind of psychological "digital wellbeing," investigated in fields such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and psychology. 

Traditional strategies employed by practitioners and researchers involve the creation of Digital Self-Control Tools (DSCTs), i.e., mobile applications and browser extensions that empower users to monitor their usage patterns and implement interventions, such as timers and lock-out mechanisms, to self-regulate device usage. Yet, researchers and the users themselves are starting to warn that achieving digital wellbeing is a path of personal growth that requires education more than self-monitoring strategies. 

The objective of this workshop is to establish a venue for the academic and industrial communities to discuss ongoing research and ideas at the intersection of digital wellbeing and education, aiming to promote the development of strategies and tools to "teach" users – particularly children and teenagers – to use technology more meaningfully and consciously. This objective can be achieved in multiple ways, such as by creating novel DSCTs that include educational aspects, serious games, or collaborative platforms to introduce and support digital wellbeing learning at school.

Topics of Interest

The topics of interest for the workshop include, but are not limited to:

• participatory and co-design of digital wellbeing systems;

• tools and strategies to teach digital wellbeing at school; 

• strategies and tools for measuring students’ digital wellbeing; 

• novel DSCTs that include educational aspects; 

• gamification strategies for digital wellbeing; 

• ethical, social, and political factors.

Participation and Submission

We will invite submissions of position papers in the ACM Primary Article Submission Templates (single column), of 2-4 pages in length.

PDFs of submissions can be emailed to Alberto Monge Roffarello (one of the organizers) at alberto.monge@polito.it. They will be reviewed by all organizers based on relevance, originality, and overall quality. Upon acceptance, at least one author of each accepted paper will be required to attend the workshop. Virtual participation will be made possible.

All workshop participants will need to register for the workshop. Accepted papers will be included in the workshop proceedings. We aim to submit the proceedings to CEUR-WS. Notifications will be mailed to the authors within 15 days of receipt (and no later than the date reported below).

Important Dates

Workshop submissions due: March 31, 2024 April 7, 2024 (please send us a tentative title and the list of authors by March 31, 2024) 

Results announced: April 19, 2024

Camera-readies: May 5, 2024

Registration due: May 10, 2024

Workshop date: To be announced