In this brand guidelines series of blog posts, we introduce the core principles of our philosophy. Today we will look at our core values.
Open
- Open to new ideas and points of view
- Open to exploration, failure, recoveryInclusive, welcoming, respectful
- Being open to new ideas is crucial for good digital wellbeing
We are talking about a relatively new area of work but already 50 years of the human experience of the Internet. So obviously people have formed many opinions, myths but also individual experiences about digital technologies. To support everyone, we have to open to their frame of reference. The healing starts there. It’s not easy to put aside our own assumptions, but it is possible and leads to a more honest conversation where everyone can contribute with their point of view. Considering our understanding of digital wellbeing is still very limited, we need as many opinions and ideas as possible.
Collective
- Relational and collective
- Reconnecting with others
- Reconnecting with ourselves
Remaining focused on the collective aspect of mental health and digital technologies is vital in the increasingly individualised world. A lot of mental health challenges result from the notion of disconnecting from ourselves and lack of external validation. We see a lot of our clients suffering from isolation and from one to one clinical focus which does not include the humanity of support networks in this process and calls those networks “resources” (somewhat technical term). We hope to highlight the importance of human connection in healing and thriving process. Finding the right balance between the online and offline world makes perfect sense. However, we must not forget that disconnecting from digital technologies also means limited access to our friends, family and online audiences. Today, the boundaries of virtual and offline reality are very blurred, so we need to look at our collective participation critically and start asking complex, more relevant questions.
Curious
- Listening, accepting varied points of view
- Asking questions, exploring perspectives
- Questioning the status quo and mythology
We mention the individual biases in our first core value of openness, however here we would like to talk about trends, viral messages and other myths boosted by stakeholders who do not always have our best interest at stake. We have experienced wrong assumptions in some areas of digital wellbeing (for example, assuming that screen time is by definition detrimental to our health) and slowly move towards more balanced and careful statements. We need to be critical about repetitive comments we make, news stories we follow and policies or even research we quote. To find a meaningful set of solutions, we need to prepare to have a crucial discussion about topics we take for granted individually but also collectively.
Balanced
- Encouraging a wide range of sentiments
- Challenging leading narratives and trends
- Celebrating strengths, accepting failures
Historically, the discussions about digital wellbeing were very negative and have recently moved to a more balanced discourse. We need to cultivate the positive aspects of digital wellbeing and model balanced points of views with multiple perspectives. By admitting our mistakes and celebrating our victories, we can strive to achieve better digital wellbeing every day.
Defining business values at the beginning of our journey is key to the effective achievement of our mission. Those four core ethical pillars will be challenging to meet, and we are very clear that we never fully represent them – we can only aim to get better and better at them every day. We hope to use them as the four directions of our moral compass. We would love to hear from you about your personal and business core values and how those are followed and put in practice.
Photo by Jordan Madrid on Unsplash
