post by Lucy Hitcham (2023 cohort)
An introduction to the Digital Good
I first became aware of the Digital Good Network shortly before the start of my PhD in 2023, the same year the Network was set up. Their vision for understanding how digital technologies shape our worlds and how we can work towards a good digital society resonated with me and my optimism for how technology can improve our lives. For me, this is about understanding how digital technologies can be used for the good of people’s mental health. So I took note of their goals for the research programme and the opportunities they would be offering and bided my time, waiting to apply for the summer school at the right point in my PhD. To my delight, I was accepted to the 2025 summer school cohort at the University of Sheffield.
Going back to school
The summer school took place over the course of three, packed days of activities and networking. After a fun, and unexpectedly competitive, rock-paper-scissors icebreaker, we moved into Pecha Kucha presentations where the sheer range of backgrounds of those attending was immediately striking and continued to shape our conversations for the rest of our time together. This really brought it into perspective just how valuable interdisciplinarity is when tackling such complicated issues around technology and our society.
The next couple of days were filled with sessions to help us think, learn and challenge ourselves through an engaging line-up of talks and interactive sessions. I was introduced to new theories, methodologies, approaches and encouraged to challenge my own assumptions. The keynote by Professor Dorothea Kleine grounded us in this at the end of the first day by asking us to think about how equality, justice and sustainability should be central when we consider digital innovation. Something which is important to me as I continue to think about how ethics and responsible design should play a role for mental health technologies to make them “good”. What followed was a fascinating mix of workshops on theory, co-design, data visualization, online harms and digital ethnography.
 |  |
đź“·photos credit: Digital Good Network
For me, these sessions helped me reflect on the direction of my research and how I can conduct it. Reema Patel’s workshop introduced the Theory of Change framework, motivating me to ask what change I would like to see, how I should frame this issue and where I see opportunities to intervene. Meanwhile in Dylan Yamada-Rice and Susan Lechelt’s sessions gave me space to appreciate the creativity we can incorporate into our research and give me hands-on experience with such participatory methods (including Play-Doh!). This reminded me that creativity is not a distraction from rigorous research, but often, it is what makes rigor possible especially when working with our communities.
So what does the digital good mean to me now?
As I move forward with my work, I carry with me new questions and approaches to my research. For me and my research topic, I hope for a society in which digital mental health technologies can be looked at with optimism, can offer safe and effective care, and are designed in a way that considers need, design and responsibility. But I also come away with a boost in my curiosity, creativity and confidence and a renewed sense of belonging and purpose, for my research but also as a member of this valuable research community. The value opportunities such as this, for connection and learning, is hard is measure but is something I would recommend to any researcher.