How to Balance Happiness and Technology in the Digital Era | Amy Blankson | TEDxCMU

Summary

In her TEDx talk, Amy Blankson explores the intricate balance between happiness and technology in our modern world. Drawing from personal anecdotes and data, she addresses the heightened connectivity technology brings alongside its challenges like increased depression rates and distractions. Blankson shares strategies for managing these distractions, setting positive digital boundaries for children, and using technology to enhance well-being rather than detract from it. Her insights into establishing intentional technology use, teaching children about digital boundaries, and leveraging technological innovations for personal growth present a hopeful vision for maintaining happiness in an increasingly digital era.

Highlights

• Amy's journey into happiness began humorously with a unicorn story. 🦄
• Technology's potential is vast, from FaceTiming across the globe to creating 3D printed organs. 🌐
• Despite technological advances, depression rates have doubled and distractions are omnipresent. 😟
• Intentional technology use, like phone discipline, can reclaim significant time and focus. 📱
• Teaching kids about tech boundaries can empower them and protect against negativity. 👦👧
• Wearable tech like the Spire Stone offers real-time insights into stress management. 📿
• Innovations like Enable's 3D printed hands exemplify technology improving lives. ✋
• Remember, technology should serve as a tool for happiness, not a barrier. 🛠️

Key Takeaways

• Finding happiness amidst digital distractions requires intentional choices and strategies to manage technology. 🌟
• Technology can both disrupt and enhance happiness; the key is mindful utilization. 🤔
• Setting boundaries, especially for children, is crucial in a tech-saturated world. 🎯
• Innovative uses of technology, like wearables and 3D printing, can significantly enhance well-being and happiness. 💡
• We need to shape technology to serve us, ensuring it magnifies positive connections and outcomes. 🔧

Overview

Amy Blankson's TEDx talk draws listeners in with a humorous recounting of her accidental unicorn fame, a symbol that sets the stage for her insights into happiness and technology. She captures attention with relatable stories and fascinating statistics about our hyper-connected world. Her journey began alongside her brother's viral TED talk and has since evolved into her own exploration of how to best navigate technology's dual-edged sword.

She acknowledges the vast potential of modern technology, from life-changing gadgets to global connectivity, but also highlights its role in rising depression rates and pervasive distractions. Amy stresses the importance of intention and boundary setting, not just to manage distraction but to harness technology for greater good. Through anecdotes about experiments on distraction and innovative use of tech in her family life, she paints technology as both a disruptor and a tool for happiness.

Amy further delves into parenting in a digital world, emphasizing positive boundary-setting as a key skill. Her husband's experiences in adolescent medicine resonate with parents' digital dilemmas. Amy champions the idea of becoming shapers of technology, encouraging real-world applications like wearables for health insights and communities that leverage tech for social good. Her evocative storytelling and pragmatic approaches inspire a future where technology enhances instead of diminishes our happiness.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Positive Psychology In the introduction to Positive Psychology, the author refers to a personal anecdote shared by her brother, Shawn Achor, in his TED talk entitled 'The Happy Secret to Better Work.' When they were children, an incident occurred where Shawn accidentally pushed his sister off a bunk bed, illustrating a moment before experiencing pain, highlighting a context for discussing positive psychology.
• 00:30 - 01:00: The Impact of Technology on Happiness This chapter begins with a personal anecdote where someone named Amy experiences a moment of physical pain, and a friend attempts to cheer her up by joking about her fall, likening it to a unicorn landing perfectly. This light-hearted moment leads Amy to delve into the realm of positive psychology, a field that examines how positivity can influence our mental state and happiness. The chapter hints at her journey of understanding and embracing a new outlook on life, marking the start of her exploration into the positive impacts of technology and psychological well-being.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Distraction in the Digital Age The speaker refers to the unexpected phenomenon where their brother's TED talk went viral, earning a widespread viewership of over 15 million people and bestowing the speaker with a nickname, 'Amy the Unicorn.' As the speaker embarked on giving their own talks, they encountered businessmen who, recognizing them, would acknowledge them with a nod and by touching their golden unicorn pins. This metaphorically likened the speaker to Katniss from 'The Hunger Games,' highlighting a sense of unexpected fame and recognition in their journey.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Finding Grounding and Setting Intentions The chapter titled 'Finding Grounding and Setting Intentions' highlights a personal anecdote of a special opportunity to meet and work with Oprah on the set of Super Soul Sunday. The story amusingly unfolds with Oprah calling out for a 'Unicorn,' leading to a whimsical entrance. The narrative juxtaposes a childhood memory of the author being called a unicorn by their brother and a humorous moment where the author's seven-year-old child is found wearing makeup, bringing a sense of nostalgia, humor, and grounding through the shared familial experience.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Teaching Kids Positive Boundaries The chapter titled 'Teaching Kids Positive Boundaries' discusses the impact of modern technology on our lives. The narrator reflects on the reach and power of TED in spreading happiness amidst the hyper-connected nature of today's world. They believe that the truly magical aspect of modernity is how technology has transformed our lives with advancements like 3D printed organs and video calling capabilities that would have seemed unbelievable a decade ago.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Using Technology for Happiness The chapter titled 'Using Technology for Happiness' discusses the dual impact of technology on human well-being. It highlights the positive aspects, such as connecting with family across the globe, but also addresses the negative effects including an increase in depression rates, a significant rise in cyberbullying, and stress-related physical injuries like 'Tech neck' among teenagers. The narrative points out the paradoxical role of technology as a disruptor of happiness while being an enabler of connection.
• 03:00 - 03:30: 3D Printing and Community Engagement The chapter discusses the impact of rapid technological advancements on our happiness and health. It highlights the constant distractions we face, such as overflowing inboxes, continuous text messages, and a steady stream of new content from platforms like Netflix. The pervasive presence of technology in our lives is contrasted with the question of whether our well-being can keep up with these changes. This sets the stage for exploring the role of 3D printing and community engagement in navigating this fast-paced environment.
• 03:30 - 04:00: Conclusion: Mindful Use of Technology The chapter delves into the complex relationship between humans and technology, highlighting the challenges people face in trying to adapt to rapid technological changes. It discusses the feelings of being overwhelmed and frustrated as people struggle to understand the impact of technology on their lives. The chapter reflects on the recurring concerns expressed worldwide about the future direction we are heading in due to technological advancements and poses critical questions about where we want to go from here.

How to Balance Happiness and Technology in the Digital Era | Amy Blankson | TEDxCMU Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 a few years ago my secret identity was revealed to the world by my brother shawn Achor and his TED talk entitled the happy secret to better work Shawn told the story of how when he was seven and I was just five years old he accidentally knocked me off the top of our bunk bed and sent me careening to the floor and before I could let out a
• 00:30 - 01:00 wail of pain and injustice he's blurted out the first thing he could think of to cheer me up he said Amy did you see how you landed no human lands on all fours like that cheering unicorn Jewish I suddenly began to imagine that the potential of this positive new identity and I was completely oblivious to the anxious expression on his face as he helped me back up onto the bed and so began my introduction into the world of positive psychology little did I know that my
• 01:00 - 01:30 brother's TED talk would one day go viral reaching over 15 million views and earning me the typecast is Amy the Unicorn Thank You Shawn what I didn't expect was that someday I too would be giving talks and as I went to my talks businessmen would pass me by and they would suddenly nod to me and tap on their tiny golden unicorn pins on their lapel as though I were Katniss from The Hunger Games or that I would one day have the
• 01:30 - 02:00 opportunity to meet Oprah on the set of super soul Sunday and get to work with her but not until she after she called out from behind the set bring out the Unicorn to which I galloped out gleefully to meet my idol it was one thing when my brother had called me a unicorn at the age of seven but something altogether different when my own seven year old was caught in my makeup drawer covered in my my best lipstick and she said mommy don't be mad
• 02:00 - 02:30 you're a unicorn nice try well being a unicorn celebrity is fun and entertaining I think the more magical part of the story is truly seeing the reach and the power that ted has had to spread happiness in our hyper-connected world we had technology in our world today that would blown our minds ten years ago technology from 3d printed organs to the ability to FaceTime with
• 02:30 - 03:00 family members on the other side of the world it's amazing but in the same ten-year period we've seen that depression rates have doubled we've seen that cyber bullying has increased by 88% and we've seen that the number of teenagers who've been to the chiropractor for stress-related injuries like Tech's neck have gone up by 50% now we live in a world where technology has been called the greatest disrupter of human happiness in history is this
• 03:00 - 03:30 really true or can our happiness can our health keep pace with the speed of innovation we live in a world now where we have so many distractions our inboxes are full to the brim we receive so many different text messages Netflix is continually uploading new episodes that we're supposed to keep up with we have technology creeping into every crevice of our lives faster than we know what to do with it and what we can currently
• 03:30 - 04:00 assimilate or even evaluate what this means for us and so we try to live our best lives but we find ourselves overwhelmed and frustrated we find ourselves not able to figure out what are we going to do with this technology gee how does it impact our lives and as I speak to audiences around the globe what I've noticed is that there's this deep concern that's been echoed over and again where are we heading right now where do we want to be heading in the future and when we when we think about this there's some burning questions that
• 04:00 - 04:30 continue to bubble up and emerge the questions like how can I be happy in the midst of all this distraction how can I teach my kids positive boundaries in the middle of this technological world dominated by negativity and how can I actually use technology to help me to become more happy to be more have more meaning in my life and so these three questions continue to resonate and I want to address the three of them today starting with how can we actually be
• 04:30 - 05:00 happy in the midst of all this distraction in our lives the average smartphone user user actually checks their phone 150 times a day now 150 times a day now if you conservatively estimate that each time you open and close your phone it takes approximately one minute that would account for 250 or 2.5 hours every day just opening and closing your phone unlocking and locking it two and a half hours that's the equivalent of 38 days a
• 05:00 - 05:30 year just opening and closing your phone this is crazy I mean the impact of distraction on our work is absolutely mind-boggling in my in the process of writing my book called the future of happiness I actually wrote a chapter on distraction and then so in the process of writing I decided I'm going to run an experiment to figure out just how distracted am I really and in the course of five minutes I discovered five or six interruptions in just that short period
• 05:30 - 06:00 of time a text message came through a news alert a calendar notification the doorbell rang and then my mom called and at which point I just gave up trying to focus I think sometimes we actually think that that distraction is thrust upon us but I actually think that sometimes we invite distraction into our lives I think that sometimes we make ourselves the victims of distraction because when I ran my five minute experiment I could have turned off my phone and it would have
• 06:00 - 06:30 eliminated three or four distractions to help me focus on writing my book but I didn't how many of you out there have been having a really important conversation with a friend or a colleague and in the middle of this important conversation a text message comes through and in the middle of that your flow of conversation is lost this is something that happens to all of us these days and it doesn't even surprise us anymore we find that we are so overwhelmed with the amount of technology coming into our lives that
• 06:30 - 07:00 these distractions seem normal in our lives a recent phone survey actually studied how many people would pick up the phone in certain settings and fifty percent of individuals said that they would pick up their cell phone in the middle of dinner which doesn't surprise me fifty percent said that they'd actually pick up their phone in the bathroom and even worse one-third said that they would pick up their cell phone during sex not okay I mean really we find that
• 07:00 - 07:30 distractions leave us feeling so desired so needed that it can become intoxicating and addictive and instead what we realize is that in the process of choosing after happiness with our technology we wind up running right off the happiness cliff like Wiley coyote we splat to the bottom of a canyon before we realize that the ground has dropped out beneath us and we're no longer feeling as happy as we thought we were these distractions invade our lives and find ways to keep us from getting to the things that we really want to do in life
• 07:30 - 08:00 to find our potential to be the kind of people that we want to be so is the solution to take a sort of digital detox or a South Beach tech diet I don't think so I think that we know from past experience right that diets are just short-term interventions they're not long-term solutions instead I think we need to learn how to live with the complexity of life and not escape from it I think we need to find a way to be in this world and find happiness in the midst of the distraction it's time that
• 08:00 - 08:30 we ground ourselves and intention it's time that we find a way to actually be able to do find something that grounds us into what we really care about what we're really doing in the same way that a third prong on an electrical outlet helps to channel and focus our energy so we need to tap into a third prong which I define as a system of guiding beliefs and principles that help us decide when where why and how we use technology in our lives now this might mean for you it
• 08:30 - 09:00 might mean setting a rule in your family that during the dinner hour you're going to set up a phone stack in the middle of the table and the first person to reach to grab their cell phone loses dessert or maybe it means setting an intention when you wake up in the morning that the first thing you look at in the morning is not going to be your cell phone which might be hard some other people that I know of actually had to set up visual reminders to help them control the impulse control and to help them be more the person that they want to be my friend Raj Daniels runs a tech startup
• 09:00 - 09:30 in Dallas called open time and he decided that he was surrounded by technology so often he needed a simple gut check to help him remember when he should be checking his phone and so he set up and said when he thought about UNT's wiping to unlock his phone he would look at his phone lock screen and it said towards my goals or away from my goals and if he found that his intention for opening his phone was moving him away from his goals he simply tucked the phone back in his pocket and proceeded with his day visual reminders like this
• 09:30 - 10:00 are so important for helping ground us to our intentions helping us to become the person that we want to be and it makes it that much easier for us to turn off non-essential notifications when we connect why this matters to us and who we want to be and how we hope to get there so the second question I often hear from people is how do I teach my kids positive boundaries in a negative digital world one of my husband his name is dr. Bobo which is a whole other story
• 10:00 - 10:30 he's actually an adolescent medicine doctor at a clinic in Dallas called young men's health and wellness and in his clinic every single day parents and their teens come in and the parents are always asking how do I set appropriate tech boundaries for my teens and in particular there was this one day a woman walked in she was agonizing over whether or not to her son who was socially awkward get us a snapchat account and she knew the statistics she knew that social media accounts can often lead to greater
• 10:30 - 11:00 isolation that it can increase the chance of bullying but she awesome knew that if she didn't let her son get a social media account it might actually further isolate him from his community parents feel like they're stuck in a catch-22 but the truth is that technology is just a tool bullying and isolation can happen anywhere but what's important is thinking about how we can set up our children for success by teaching them positive boundaries for living in a technological world dominated by negativity we need to teach
• 11:00 - 11:30 our young people positive skillsets for coping in the modern world we need to teach them positive habits like journaling gratitude acts of kindness meditation exercise we need to help our young people align the positive offline identity with their online identity rather than trying to keep up with the Joneses we need to teach them the importance of authenticity which dr. Brene brown refers to she defines it as the process of embracing who you are as
• 11:30 - 12:00 opposed to who you think you're supposed to be every day when we teach our young people how to create greater authenticity in their relationships we set them up for a future of success because social support is the greatest predictor of long-term happiness and success in our lives we need to also help our young people we by setting up invisible fences and our environments to help them learn where boundaries ought to be for the future and one of these invisible boundaries that I set up recently in my house is called kids Wi-Fi and it's simply a router that
• 12:00 - 12:30 plugs into the wall like a nightlight and it hops onto my home router Network and it enables me to control not only when my kids are on the internet but also what they see and what their friends bring into my house as well and I kid you not one day after installing kids Wi-Fi my fashionista nine-year-old daughter came running to me she said mom the Internet's broken what were you searching for sweetie I'm just cute girls short skirt that Oh
• 12:30 - 13:00 score one for Mom we as parents can't be everywhere all the time and it's time that we start learning how to fight fire with fire by using technology to help us automate so many of these boundaries that we can't protect our kids from everything by using invisible fences we set ourselves up to be able to help make invisible senses not invisible kids because sometimes we think that fences actually hold us back but instead they make us more mindful they make us more
• 13:00 - 13:30 free and they ultimately make us happier and teach our kids where appropriate boundaries are for the long run the third question I often hear from audiences is what okay technology is great and all but how do I use technology actually make me happier in a meaningful way we're fortunate enough today to be living in a time where the cognitive revolution has collided with the technological revolution giving us the opportunity to peel back the layers of our mind to really understand what's happening in our lives on a day to day
• 13:30 - 14:00 basis in real time and fitness trackers are just the beginning we have new technology new wearables in our environment that are going to be transformational for understanding how to bring about positive change in our lives over the past few years I've had the opportunity to be able to test out a number of gadgets and apps actually hundreds actually hit this point and I have literally been shocked by posture trainers I've been pricked by blood testers I've had my skin peeled off by velcro adhesive I have gotten my skin in
• 14:00 - 14:30 the game and in the process of this I've actually discovered some really amazing wearables and gadgets that I find to be transformational in my life and one of those is called the spire stone and the spire stone is a small lava shaped rock that clips on to your bra strap or your waistband and all it does is it measures your breathing to help you understand are you feeling tense or calm or focused and if you're feeling tense it begins to vibrate well this technology was fascinating to
• 14:30 - 15:00 me I'm at naturally anxious person and so I liked the feedback loop of being able to understand my breath patterns and remember to breathe but about five days into testing this device it went from fascinating to fundament transformative for me through a series of unfortunate circumstances my daughter who's nine at that time Anna she managed to break her neck last summer and it was in our backyard pool and fortunately she's fine now and she's back to doing backflips all over the house but at the
• 15:00 - 15:30 time it was a really dramatic moment for our family and I remember driving on it to the hospital and I happened to be wearing my spire stone at that point and on the way to the hospital the spire stone said that I was surprisingly calm the whole way I was combed through the doctor visit and the x-rays and the fitting for this massive neck brace that she was going to have to wear all summer it wasn't until after we were walking out of the hospital that the spire stone started to vibrate saying you're feeling tense I said I know my daughter just broke her neck but
• 15:30 - 16:00 what it made me do in that moment was really stop and think about why I was feeling tense and here's what I realized I realized in that moment that I was actually feeling tense about how other people in the hospital were going to perceive me as a mother of a daughter with a broken neck instead of thinking about how my daughter was feeling in that moment as she was contemplating her new reality for the summer of no swimming no lacrosse no gymnastics and that 30-second feedback loop helped me to be able to refocus and to mindfully
• 16:00 - 16:30 pivot from being self-absorbed to being more the mother that I want to be this is technology at its finest and there are so many examples of technology that give me hope for the future technology from water filtration devices that are helping to solve the global water crisis to websites that are now helping to crowdsource information to help and natural disasters and these are just the beginning there's so many technologies what's amazing to me what's so beautiful about the digital era is that you don't
• 16:30 - 17:00 have to have an engineering degree to create the next big advancement you simply have to have an idea and a growth mindset towards technology being able and willing to collaborate and learn and to do something to actually do something with your idea for instance my family family friend in Dallas they have a daughter who's seven years old and she was born with something called sim brachydactyly which means that on one and she was born with nubs instead of fingers never stopped this little girl
• 17:00 - 17:30 from doing gymnastics she can do cartwheels and monkey bars with the best of them but until just recently she started to develop some painful blisters on her wrists from trying to grip the monkey bars in unusual ways and so I told her mom about a resource I'd read about online called enable and enable is an organization it's a global community of volunteers that helps other people learn how to 3d print prosthetic hands from scratch for just $30 you can do it at home it's amazing a week later my
• 17:30 - 18:00 friend calls me and she says Amy you got to get over here I said okay I'm coming got to her house and she said my husband was so inspired by the Enable website he spent all weekend in the frisco library and he managed to print our daughter a hand and was symbol dit overnight and i got to watch as his daughter put on the hand for the first time and grabbed a cup with this huge smile on her face this is the story of one technology one idea spreading happiness through the use of technology and it was amazing to me
• 18:00 - 18:30 it's the story of how one website led to a global community that inspired a father to go find a 3d printer to build a hand for his daughter and it's a story I share with you today so that we can go on social media so that people understand the importance of looking at resources like this so that we can help make the world a better place because technology is a magnifier and it's only as good as the connections that we make with it we should be shapers of Technology not the other way around because the tank the same
• 18:30 - 19:00 technology that leads to bullying is the same technology that can now lend a helping hand for all the frustration and the distractions and the dangers of technological era let's not lose sight of where we're going and where we want to be going in the future let's be part of the solution by mindfully choosing to use technology for its best and highest purposes this is the future of happiness and it's up to us to create it thank you so much
• 19:00 - 19:30 you [Music] [Applause]