Journal of Mobile Computing, Communications & Mobile Networks Review Article
Engineering the Mind: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Digital Well-Being
Abstract
Digital technologies now mediate most domains of human activity, yet the engineering disciplines that build these systems have historically treated user well-being as a secondary usability concern rather than a design objective. This paper presents a multidisciplinary review and conceptual synthesis of digital well-being, integrating human-computer interaction, cognitive and motivational psychology, software engineering, and technology law. The objective is to consolidate fragmented, single-disciplined accounts of digital well-being into one coherent framework and to identify the structural gap that has allowed persuasive and manipulative design to persist despite growing scientific and regulatory attention. A narrative-synthesis approach was used, critically appraising peer-reviewed literature drawn from human-computer interaction, psychology, neuroscience, business ethics, and law journals published mainly between 1994 and 2025. The review shows that digital well-being is best explained by three converging strands of evidence: motivational psychology, particularly self-determination theory and its Motivation, Engagement and Thriving in User Experience (METUX) extension, which explains why autonomy-supportive design sustains healthier engagement than restrictive or guilt-based interventions; reinforcement-learning and neurobiological accounts of variable-reward interfaces, which explain compulsive use; and an emerging legal literature that reframes manipulative interface design as a breach of a service provider's duty of loyalty rather than a mere consumer-protection violation. The synthesis further shows that engineering curricula and regulatory instruments remain poorly coordinated with this evidence base. The paper concludes that sustainable digital well-being requires safety-by-design engineering practice, psychologically grounded interface evaluation, and coordinated legal and educational reform, and it proposes actionable recommendations for software engineers, educators, and policymakers.
Keywords
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