Designing for Digital Wellbeing: A Teenager Focused Conceptual Framework for Developing Mobile Apps

Digital wellbeing is a growing research topic and global concern that is advancing alongside digitalization. As human activities become increasingly digital, profit-driven companies increase their efforts to capitalize on these constantly available consumer channels, using dark design patterns to divert and exploit the attention of users. These manipulative tactics aim to increase shareholder value at the expense of the user’s digital wellbeing. Teenagers are disproportionately impacted by this phenomenon. This dissertation investigates the existing literature and applications relevant to digital wellbeing and teenagers, along with the design and development of mobile applications for promoting this wellbeing, focusing on motivation strategies such as gamification, social interactivity and user autonomy, among others. A conceptual framework tailored to teenagers’ specific psychological and behavioral needs is proposed, based off findings from a literature review and analysis of existing applications. An example implementation is proposed based off this conceptual framework which utilizes a hybrid approach for cross-platform development. The conceptual framework is validated through a research-backed A/B testing simulation, where the effectiveness of its principles is quantified in terms of engagement, retention, and learning.