Across Australia and globally, harmful online experiences are emerging as a significant public mental health issue. Excessive screen time, gaming saturation, algorithm-driven doomscrolling, exposure to harmful content, and technology-facilitated violence (TFGBV) are fuelling anxiety, depression, and trauma, particularly among young people and other vulnerable groups. Loneliness, social withdrawal, and escalating digital fatigue are becoming widespread as people spend more time online and less time engaged in meaningful offline connection. Away from Keyboard (AFK) Inc. is an Australian charity dedicated to preventing online harm and promoting digital wellbeing through a prevention-first, safety-by-design lens.

This presentation explores how prevention-based strategies can protect mental health before harm occurs. Using doomscrolling, gaming saturation, and excessive screen time as case studies, we will examine how addictive design patterns and online harm create and reinforce cycles of isolation and distress. We then expand to broader harms, including TFGBV, grooming, and the erosion of healthy social development, demonstrating how the same prevention principles can be applied across the spectrum. Participants will gain practical tools and frameworks grounded in evidence, lived experience, and trauma-informed practice.

Key learnings:

Understanding digital saturation and its mental health impact. Participants will learn how design features, over-consumption of content, and extended gaming drive anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal.

Strategies to disrupt addictive design patterns. We will provide actionable interventions at individual, community, and systems levels to reduce risk and improve wellbeing.

Models for rebuilding offline connection as a protective factor. Practical examples will show how communities can create balance between online and face-to-face interactions to strengthen resilience.

This session does not speak on behalf of Indigenous communities but affirms the principle of “nothing about Indigenous Peoples, without Indigenous Peoples” and welcomes collaboration with Indigenous researchers and practitioners.