Digital detox: How digital well-being application ‘Forest’ helps users improve digital health in China

With the increasing penetration of digital devices to manage everyday life and public concern about the negative impact on individual health and well-being, media coverage and research on ‘digital detox’ have accelerated in the last decade, as an alternative to tech ‘addiction’, as well as being heavily capitalised upon by many tech and wellness companies. A key solution presented is the introduction of various digital well-being applications to help individuals improve digital health by building health boundaries around technology, such as screen-time-limiting applications. Much of the literature on digital detox and the studies on these applications is largely Western-centric and often carries out quantitative analysis. The research presented in this paper, therefore, fills this research gap through a qualitative analysis of Chinese users’ engagement with the screen-time-limiting application – Forest, and examines to what extent Forest helps individuals improve digital health. Through a triangulation of the walkthrough method and semi-structured interviews, this paper argues that Forest helps users reduce unintentional digital use via the embedded app designs of gamification, self-tracking and community support. However, its contribution to individual tech-life balance is limited in consideration of the problems of commodification of digital detox and the cultural context in which Forest is used. In short, through the commercialised co-optation to digital detox, the public’s anti-tech sentiment (which criticises digital capitalism) is transformed by technology companies into a pursuit of productivity improvement and self-optimisation consistent with Western Neoliberalism and Chinese involution culture, reinforcing the original power system and making digital detox lose its power of critique.