Being Online: what 41 artworks tell us about life in a digital world

News & insights
September 23, 2026
Ananya Choyal
By -

On 12 August, International Youth Day, DTH-Lab launched the Being Online: Digital Gallery in partnership with the Global Mental Health Action Network (GMHAN). The gallery forms part of the Lab’s efforts to make young people’s digital well-being a global public health priority. Ananya Choyal, DTH-Lab Policy and Research Associate and gallery curator, reflects on what the artworks tell us about growing up in a digital world.   

“The digital world may be turning less human, but it will only crumble down without human creativity as its essence. So despite all odds, I imagine, I dream, and I create, because that’s what makes me human. I just need to hang in there.“Reva Sawant, Being Online, Hanging in There.

The concept of Being Online began with conversations with our Regional Youth Champions about how we could better engage young people around digital determinants of health. They encouraged us to think beyond our usual methods of consultations and surveys and create space for young people to respond creatively.

Art was important to this method. So much of our work happens through research, consultations and policy language. But experiences of being online can be emotional, contradictory and deeply personal and language can sometimes reach its limits in capturing them. Art offers another way to express these experiences and imagine alternative futures. It gives us a different kind of knowledge that can sit alongside research and policy.

In December 2025, we launched a global call inviting young people under 30 to show us what being online meant to them through art. Following more than 100 submissions from nearly 40 countries, 41 artworks from 21 countries were selected for the final gallery. Through illustration, painting, photography, collage and other creative forms, young people explore how digital environments shape their identities, relationships, health and well-being.

What are young people telling us about being online?

What are young people telling us about being online?

The final collection gives us 41 different and sometimes surprisingly similar, ways of seeing and experiencing life in a digital world.

As I curated the collection alongside RYCs Nada Zammel and Melanie Kuhrn, seven broad themes began to emerge: Between Digital and Physical Worlds; Digital Overload and Disconnection; Self-image and Well-being; Identity, Privacy and Belonging; Emotions Online; Connection, Friendship and Support Online; and Striving for Balance.

Digital overload and disconnection emerged as one of the strongest themes. Many young people described the emotional and cognitive impact of constant connectivity, endless notifications, information overload and algorithm-driven platforms. Several artworks depict digital environments as noisy, relentless and difficult to disconnect from. 

While digital overload was strongly present in the gallery, we also saw young people thinking about balance, expressing joy and other emotions online, and showing digital spaces as places of friendship, support, creativity and genuine connection. 

Digital well-being has been visually described as a spectrum in the gallery, with digital overload on one end and connection, friendship and support on the other. But young people do not occupy a fixed place on this spectrum. They move between different states, with uncertainty, fear, joy and hope showing how precarious navigating digital environments can be.  

Reva Sawant’s “Hanging in There” talks about the fear of the digital world turning less human, while Sena Vardar in their piece “Digital Life Erases My Pain” describes digital environments as an equalizer for those with chronic illness. We wanted these contradictions to come through clearly in the gallery and show the broad range of emotions that digital environments evoke. There is fear about the future but also about the current state of privacy online. Alongside this is the hope of striking a balance between online and offline worlds by nurturing real-life relationships and taking time to disconnect. 

The struggle to clearly separate on- and offline worlds also comes through in artworks. For example, Cahaya Listian Putri’s artwork “Digital Human” or  Vedika Bhoye’s “When My Objects Don’t Behave” show just how entangled the two have become. In fact, some works call into question the idea that they are separate worlds at all. Damilola Kayode in their artwork titled “The Cost of Scrolling” describes time as a currency, split between constant digital engagement and personal growth and well-being. This makes the question of how we spend our time online not simply one of individual behaviour but also of platform design: the constant pull of algorithms complicates the seemingly simple choice between good and bad decisions. The pieces in the gallery show the complicated relationships that young people share with digital spaces.  

No neat boxes

No neat boxes

The themes helped us organize the gallery but they were never meant to be neat boxes. In fact, the more time we spent with the artworks, the harder some became to categorize. An artwork about digital overload could also be about mental health and well-being. Something about isolation could also be about connection. Several artworks moved between online and physical worlds so easily that separating the two didn’t really make sense.

This kind of nuance is particularly important. A lot of conversations about young people and digital environments still ask us to decide whether technology is good or bad, whether it connects or isolates us or whether young people are benefiting from it or being harmed by it. 

That isn’t what we saw in the gallery.

Instead, we saw young people navigating their own relationships with technology: sometimes wanting to switch off, sometimes wanting to stay connected, sometimes finding community online and sometimes feeling completely overwhelmed by it. These contradictions are part of what it feels like to be online today.

What does that ask of research and policy?

What does that ask of research and policy?

“Strangest of all, we’ve never been more connected, yet loneliness feels industrial – because attention is not intimacy, metrics are not meaning, and algorithms don’t love you back.”Gift Wamatuba, Being Online, Chained to the Algorithm

The fear of whether we can survive technology should never have become a reality, yet this is what some young people are telling us about where we are today. The impact of digital environments on identity formation, mental and physical well-being all come through in the gallery as consequences young people are already navigating.

As young people struggle between opposing feelings of overload and connection, fear and joy, while trying to find a balance between their online and offline lives, we need safeguards that make this easier to navigate. The responsibility cannot lie with young people alone to disconnect, set boundaries or make the ‘right’ choices while algorithms and digital platforms continue to shape those choices. We need to ask more of the technology industry and create digital environments that protect young people’s health and well-being.

The gallery is therefore also a call to those of us working in research and policy. Young people have shown us both their fears and their hopes for digital environments through their art. We hope researchers and policymakers will look at these artworks with patience, listen to what young people are telling us and, importantly, turn that listening into action.

Where do we go from here?

Where do we go from here?

We now have 41 artworks, but we also have a collection of experiences, questions and perspectives that we want to continue learning from.

Over the coming months, we hope to take Being Online into both physical and digital spaces and explore the collection more deeply. We want to understand what these creative expressions can tell us about young people’s experiences of digital environments and how this kind of knowledge can complement research and policy.

Young people can challenge existing ways of thinking and ask us to imagine better ways of living. We hope Being Online leaves you with new questions about what it means to grow up in a digital world and perhaps a few different ways of listening to the young people navigating it every day.

Explore the full: Being Online: Gallery

If you are interested in displaying the artworks or using them to stimulate further discussions with young people or decision-makers, contact team@dthlab.org

Click on the links below to read the reports:
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References

Ananya Choyal is the Policy and Research Officer at the Digital Transformations for Health Lab (DTH-Lab). She holds a degree in Sociology and Anthropology, as well as a Master’s in Medical Anthropology. With a strong focus on patient-centered care and educational equity, Ananya has conducted research on knowledge translation in healthcare, applying health frameworks across diverse contexts. She is a firm believer in co-production and is dedicated to building stronger health systems that are rooted in equity and inclusivity.

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