The aim with this paper is to address the perennial question what it means to lead a good life, and to rephrase that question in a context where human life has become enmeshed in digital media for information and communication. The purpose is to contribute to recent debates on mediatization , to relate to the notion of existential health and well-being, and finally to suggest a normative agenda for how media studies can engage with concerns over the role digital media plays in our lives. In doing so I draw on findings from my previous and current research on bystander photography at accident sites, and pathologization of media use as found in the establishment of diagnoses such as interned addiction disorder and gaming disorder. The aim is to illustrate how these phenomena initiate public negotiations and provoke imaginaries about what is a good life in an age of deep mediatization. This approach has normative as well as critical implications.

Central research questions: how has the question of “the good life” been addressed in relation to technology? What definitions or notions of a “good life” are present or implied in public negotiations of digital technology? How can the relation between digital technology and the responsibilities of the welfare state be understood in terms of “the good life”?

”The good life” was introduced as a philosophical problem already in ancient Greece, most notably by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Since then it has resurfaced throughout Western history of ideas where it becomes intertwined with intellectual investment in science and technology and the modern project. Critical theory introduced a potential conflict between the rationality that governs technological progress and the rationality of the good life. Recently, the concept of “the good life” attracted media scholars’ attention, and it was the theme for ICA conference 2014. It is also behind the interest in concepts such as ”media life”, ”digital existence”, ”elemental media”, ”deep mediatization”, and the paper engages in a discussion with that research and the question what it means to live a good life under these conditions.