Lunch №1: Digital Well-being
TLDR: Relationship to our digital devices, well-being, distraction, digitization as evolutionary pressure, how we communicate with digital assistants, digital culture and overwhelm in the workplace.
di-gi-tal
adjective
Relating to smartphones, computers, and other networked electronic devices
well-be-ing
noun
The freedom to spend one’s time in a way that aligns with one’s personal values
Appetizers
A few months ago, I attended the first in a series of lunches meant to discuss the topic of digital well-being. The group consisted of thinkers, entrepreneurs, researchers, and change-makers who were all interested in exploring the intersection of digitization and what it means to live a good life. In our first meeting, held at Das Dach, we wanted to discuss how we relate to our devices on an individual level, as well as how this relationship affects well-being in the workplace.
How do we feel when we check our phones 84 times a day? Do we even notice how we feel, or has the digital world become a buffer-zone to our emotional life? I really enjoyed the conversation, and want to share some of the insights that I found particularly useful or interesting. I hope they offer some inspiration to you as well!
Wellbeing
What does well-being really mean? Many people are talking about ‘digital well-being’, but it is not always clear what they mean when they say ‘well-being’. Are we talking about wellness, or being healthy? Bettina Rollow, one of the co-founders of Das Dach, suggested a much more subtle definition: the ability to balance feelings of security, love and predictability on the one hand, with innovation, change and growth on the other. Without belonging (security, predictability) we don’t have the confidence and clarity to explore the world. Without becoming (change, growth), our safety is boring and stifling.
To find balance in this oscillation requires a high level of self-awareness and reflection. However, this can be really hard in a world dominated by digital technologies. More than ever, these technologies have complicated how we engage with ourselves, and made it easier to avoid self-reflection.
Distraction
Instead of checking in with how I’m feeling, I can browse endless feeds of user-curated memes, compulsively check slack messages, or fill every moment of silence with music and podcasts. Although these activities are not bad in themselves, they often hijack our attention. Rather than contributing to our sense of well-being, they facilitate a compulsive avoidance of discomfort and distract us from things that we value– like family, friends, meaningful projects etc. People that spend prolonged periods of time in these distracted states report feeling discontent, anxious, or overwhelmed; they feel like they’ve worked a lot without getting anything done.
Evolutionary Pressure
Of course, digitization isn’t all bad! It has (and will continue) to improve our quality of life all over the world. Simultaneously, it enables a level of global connection that has never been possible before. Harnessed correctly, it could lift us into a new era of global awareness. In this way, digitization has huge potential to do good in society, but it can also help us grow in our personal lives, acting as a catalyst for change and self-reflection. It can ultimately enlarge our capacity to host difference and complexity.
Joana Breidenbach, host of the lunchtime conversation and co-founder of betterplace.org and the betterplace lab, said during our conversation, “digitization acts as a sort of evolutionary pressure on human beings. It creates an environment in which we have to deal with huge amounts of uncertainty and complexity. If we let this settle in us, I think we will experience more empathy, as well as a greater sense of multiperspectivity.”
Like any evolutionary process, this takes time, and differs for each individual. It might help to think of our interaction with digital technologies as an ongoing experiment (which, after all, it is).
Try Experimentation
One of our participants, the artist and designer Mike LaVigne, did this quite literally. He plunged himself into as many forms of digital tech as he could find, for as many hours of the day as possible– something like the opposite of a digital detox. Although he learned a lot of new information, this left him feeling anxious and overwhelmed, yet still craving more content at the end of the day. He ended up changing his behaviour in a few key ways, ditching digital technologies that weren’t important to him, and keeping those that were.
While most of us admitted to having complicated relationships with social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter (platforms that thrive off of “likes” wield a lot of power over our feelings of self-worth and dignity), many also felt that other apps were very useful. For example, apps like Flipd or freedom, which help you focus, or Clue, which is a period tracker. Other apps like Todoist, or Slack help people organize their time and communicate with ease and clarity. Voice recorders help people remember important thoughts or document conversations. Even apps like Instagram and Spotify inspire people who want to discover new visual or music artists.
Experimenting with digital technologies doesn’t have to be extreme. It doesn’t have to look like total abstinence or complete immersion. It can be a perpetual negotiation about what really enhances our quality of life, and what saps our energy by distracting us from what’s essential. However, when considering our relationship to digital technologies, we should also think broader and more long-term, which we’ll be doing below (in a societal way).
Would you be so kind as to explain to me what virtue is?
Digital assistants are a good place to start thinking about our relationship to digital technologies. As we become more and more dependent on the internet, our devices inevitably know more and more about us. At a certain point, our digital assistants could know more about the facts of our life than our partner or friends. They know what products we buy, our work schedules, what kind of music we listen to, as well as details that are a little more private like the porn we watch or where we buy weed.
This detailed knowledge of our behavior feels scary, unless, of course, we can rely on the absolute loyalty (to us!) of our digital assistants. However, few people actually trust their devices, and this is for good reason. Tech companies use our data to personalize ads, update products, keep us on a particular site for as long as possible to increase ad revenue, etc.
People feel a rising mistrust in digital devices, for one, because they seem to be taking advantage of us, rather than working in our interest. Max Senges, a digital philosopher at Google Germany, suggested a different mode of interaction with our devices, which would not only improve trust, but also the amount of real value that we glean from such tools. The suggestion was that we have a Socratic dialogue with our digital assistants.
Imagine, for example, if Alexa asked us every so often if we still want those cleaning products that she orders every month on a set schedule. Do we still want that brand, do we actually need this? What is it that we do want or need? This kind of dialogue fights against the possibility that we become static in our behavior because our devices don’t grow with us. Cleaning products are a rather banal example, but there are other areas where this kind of dialogue could become very interesting. Alexa (or any other device) could not only ask questions that challenge our consumer choices, but other meaningful areas of life, such as our relationship with ourselves and others.
Be nice to your AI, please.
Other aspects of our interaction with digital assistants should sound an alarm. Most of them have female voices and no apparent self-respect. They allow us to talk to them in any way we like.
Jörg Rheinboldt, CEO of the accelerator APX, recounted a conversation he had with his two teenage sons about Alexa. He was concerned because the device, although it always spoke politely, did not encourage polite behavior in return. There was no difference, for example, between, ‘please turn out the lights’ or ‘turn out the lights!’ He worried that this would habituate a degraded level of conversation, in which one cares little about the effect of words. Will we be able to manage one kind of conversation and behavior with human beings, and another mode of behavior with machines? And what about when the differences become very slight? For example, people with bionic parts, or sex dolls made to be hyper-realistic even in the warmth of their bodies and the texture of their fingernails? How well will we be able to distinguish these modes of behavior, and are we okay with treating machines like servants, even like slaves?
One might say in response, machines don’t have a nervous system, they don’t experience pain or suffering. Though this may be true, it is more fruitful to flip the question around and ask, “What does it do to the psyche of a person to treat another thing like a slave?” If you ask this question, the conversation immediately becomes less theoretical. It bypasses the hypothetical question about whether or not machines can feel, and looks at the real implications of power in the human psyche.
Well-being in the Workplace
One major problem we face on an organizational level is information overload. Hamburg trend expert Birgit Gebhardt pointed out that employees are often required to know and perpetually acquire more and more software expertise. Many employees feel the need to be ‘completely’ educated on a specific topic before presenting information to clients, superiors, or peers. The amount of information available online and in databases means that any research aiming at completeness will be done hastily, and the employee is left with a sense of inadequacy.
There are some companies that cannot get around the integration of new software, or, in a slightly different vein, some teams choose to try new tools because they feel it sparks innovation.
Jörg spoke about his personal practice in order to keep his imagination fresh and unconstrained by the limitations of one particular tool. “When a new tool comes out I just go ahead and try it to see if it is useful for me. Likewise, I encourage my team to do the same, and if something is useful we integrate it.”
Mike added that a similar practise applies to whole teams, so that the ideas aren’t constrained by the particular devices, tools, and software that each individual is using. He told us a story about when the first iPhones were coming out and he intentionally continued to use his old flip phone. Not because he wasn’t intrigued by the iPhone, but because he didn’t want his team to become constrained by the limitations of the apple products.
This kind of nonchalant investigation into new (or old) technologies, puts the individual in power rather than the technology or the company. When an employee feels that they must learn 5 new tools in the next week, it’s not their curiosity or imagination that is stimulated. Rather, they feel at the mercy of the software, and are fighting time in order to keep their job.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that people who are inspired and supported within the workplace do better work. There is less absenteeism and burnout, and employees become more innovative, imaginative, and take more responsibility. This creates a solid business incentive to take digital well-being seriously.
Companies can take various steps to aide the well-being of their employees. Katy Campbell from APX told us about a manifesto of sorts that exists within her team called 11 things it’s okay to do at APX. The idea of this manifesto was to create a sort of document which outlined their cultural values. There are no rules in the document, and it never forbids you to do anything. It just says, ‘these are some things that we want to promote here, and if you want to help do that, you are welcome to’. For example, its okay to take a day off, or email on the weekends. It’s also okay to ignore emails on the weekends. Coming up with a ‘manifesto’ for your team doesn’t have to mean creating a written document, it just means talking with the people you work with, and deciding together what is okay within that space. It is the quality of this reflection, both in the workplace and in our own personal lives, that forms the fulcrum to a value-based relationship with digital technologies.
In the aftermath of this discussion, a short booklet was created, called A User’s Guide to Digital Well-being. I also suggest checking out the Center for Humane Technology IF you want more info.
Jump to our second lunch on e-health and digital therapies.
Want to know more about the participants?
- Joana Breidenbach: Anthropologist, co-founder of Betterplace, Betterplace Lab, and Das Dach, co-author of New Work Needs Inner Work
- Katy Campbell: Senior Manager APX
- Birgit Gebhardt: Trendexpert in new concepts of work, mobility and design
- Elke Kux: Environment, Health & Safety Manager Capgemini Europe
- Mike Lavigne: Artist, designer, and co-founder of Das Dach
- Ben Mason: Project Lead: “Digital Routes to Integration” at betterplace lab
- Robert Martin: Project Manager at Porsche Digital
- Jörg Rheinboldt: Managing Director at APX Axel Springer Porsche, serial entrepreneur and investor.
- Bettina Rollow: Specialist in organisational development, co-author of New Work Needs Inner Work
- Siena Powers: Freelance writer and researcher at Das Dach
- Max Senges: Philosopher and Lead for R&D Partnerships and Internet Governance at Google
- Astrid Wallner: Head of PR and Communications at Mazars
- Matthias Wolf: Corporate Social Responsibility manager Capgemini
Chef:
Felix Thoms
As far as necessary, all rights to the images used here have been clarified with the artists or producers. For some images I have paid a small amount of money. For others I made a donation to non-profit projects in agreement with the artists. However, most of the creators agreed that their works are used here free of charge. I’d like to express my gratitude to all of them.
