TEDxReykjavíkSalon: Beyond Social Media
The third TEDxReykjavíkSalon event, titled Beyond Social Media, took place on the 15th of June, in Listastofan! Rather than bringing experts in technical issues relating to social media — like cyberbullying or big data, we chose speakers that shared much more in common with our audience as well as with us, the passionate TEDxReykjavík-ers: they live a good chunk of their lives online. Together, we took up the challenge of exploring what it means to be human in a digital space, how we relate to one another, how social media ties into our happiness and mental wellbeing, as well as our lives overall.
The aim was to bring everyone present in a common journey beyond social media, as humans, first and foremost.
All of our speakers raised the issue of mental health concerns and how we navigate social media while exploring the map of our souls.
Tara Tjörvadóttir, our first speaker of the evening, was not new to TEDxReykjavík.
She has made it into our hearts last year at our main annual conference with her talk “Can Social Media Improve Our Mental Health”.
Once again, she grasped our full attention. Tara turned upside down the widely spread idea according to which social media usage is directly proportional to mental health issues occurrence. In return, she showed us how we can use this tool — social media — to create a better world and heal ourselves. We can reach out to one another and thereby fight stigma when it comes to dealing with depression and other mental struggles we treat like taboo most of the time, says Tara.
Dino, our next invitee, took us further into the journey by inviting us to ask ourselves what social media does to us. He too, found a way to open about his emotional struggles through Facebook. And he too, found a strong support in this safe environment. But there is a flip side of this safe space. The risk — we are prisoners of our own device, the same device that has so much capacity to liberate us. Revolutions, social change were mediated by and started through social media, after all. So where is the catch? It’s a question of attention management along our common learning curve, the way we are going to navigate this new mediums. With a background in journalism, Dino is used to pointing this out in his regular workshops on the topic of our evening.
Another way of ‘dealing’ with social media was offered to us by Tristan, our third speaker.
Apparently, we can meditate anytime, during any activity.
Tristan is a meditation teacher herself and an open social media addict, like so many of us. By accepting addiction to social media we move towards a better use of it. Nevertheless, it is also through social media that breakthrough innovations reach the larger public. For example, those that rely on tech to bring meditation to a new level. Anything can be used as a vessel for meditation, as Tristan demonstrated to us by leading us into it live. That was just what we needed!
Just like our previous TEDxReykjavíkSalon — Beyond Food, and TEDxReykjavíkSalon — Beyond Economy, this event featured two sessions, each of them including 2 presentations, followed by the moderated panel discussion and Q & A from the public. Apart from the 3 speeches already mentioned, we had a 4th one in which we were introduced to the artwork exhibited in Listastofan. Martyna Daniel — co-owner of Listastofan, 2016 TEDxReykjavík speaker, and last but not the least currently part of the TEDxReykjavik organizing team — made us aware what the images surrounding us were whispering about. Rossana Schiavo’s installation ‘Imagine in Black and White’ gave life to her personal research to investigate the most hidden aspects of the ego in the landscape.
We had one thing in common by going beyond social media: we too, reflected on the egos that have manifested through the landscape of social media.
With such rich food for both mind and soul, there were so many starting points for discussing. Our audience was as always, active and beautiful! We were so thrilled by the sharing that had taken place, from the stage to the audience and vice-versa.
Of course, things would not have been the same, had our bodies — aka bellies — been left behind! Our food sponsor, Kumiko, took care of it. They provided refreshments beyond words.
To sum up, It was another evening well spent with TEDxReykjavík! Next time we invite you to go beyond TED(x) with us!
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