The Future of Happiness: Getting Unstuck in the Digital Era - Amy Blankson (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of author Amy Blankson’s talk titled “The Future of Happiness: Getting Unstuck in the Digital Era” at TEDxBYU 2019 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

The ATM Worker’s Plight

Imagine walking up to an ATM machine, typing in your PIN code, expecting to receive cash out when instead you receive this message: “Help! I’m stuck inside the ATM machine. Please call my boss.” This is a true story. It happened in Corpus Christi two years ago when an ATM service worker was working on a machine when all of a sudden he heard the door latch shut behind him just as he realized he had left his phone in the bed of his truck.

For three hours the worker yelled and screamed but nobody could hear him inside of this soundproof vault. So finally he gets this bright idea that he’s going to start flipping these notes through the cash dispenser except that everybody who drove by thought they were being pranked and they drove off. So finally one person took his notes seriously and they actually phoned the authorities who came and freed the poor ATM worker.

Technology’s Captivating Nature

The experience of being held captive by technology is frightening but it’s one that’s all too familiar to us. Former Google ethicist Tristan Harris once said that “Phones are a little bit like slot machines in that they offer highly attuned rewards that hijack our attention.” And we do this all the time.

How many times do we pick up our cell phones every day? It turns out 150 times a day. We’re picking up our phone to check our email in case we might get an important message and we’re thinking maybe we can just get a little bit ahead of it and then we can get to the things that we really want to be doing.

Except that research shows that for every email you send out it produces four more in return. Emails don’t die.

They spawn like zombies from “The Walking Dead.” Again and again and again. And of course you’re familiar with the Facebook Like button. We know that the Facebook Like button has been around for a long time now but when Justin Rosenstein created that button he actually intended it to be an “awesome” button to send out bits of positivity out into the world.

Unfortunately, that particular button turned out to be far more addictive than even he predicted. And so we’re beginning to see that these compulsions are part of designs that have been created by companies incentivized to capture our attention. We’re stuck by design.

Alarmist News Messages

And if this makes you feel like you’re part of some dystopian novel or that there’s literally a larger conspiracy going on that is taking control of our lives, you’re not alone. These headlines hit daily: “Screen time is the equivalent of digital heroin” or “Social media is destroying the very fabric of our society.” These alarmist news messages play an important role of bringing our attention to messages that we absolutely need to hear.

But they also scare us. They paralyze us because we don’t know what to do with this information. I talk to audiences all over the world and when I’m speaking with them I see and hear individuals on a daily basis who don’t know what to do in the future. They’re worried about their kids. They’re worried about their communities. They’re worried about their schools and their workplaces. This fear is beginning to take over as we feel like we are literally held captive by our technology.

Empowerment and Enlightenment

But I think that we’re actually more empowered and enlightened than the news media would lead us to believe. Even though it seems like these problems are bigger than all of us, I think that we actually can do something about it. And it’s not to excuse the news media or big tech from creating more humane forms of technology, which they absolutely should.

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But it’s to recapture the power that each one of us has to create the future that we want to see. Fortunately, over the last year we’ve seen both Apple and Google come out with digital well-being initiatives, which is a baby step in the right direction. But there’s so much more that needs to happen. We are not victims of technology. We can take control of the future. But it’s going to take being a little bit more thoughtful about our approach.

Shaping the Message

For the last few years I found myself to be increasingly frustrated when I heard the news media issue reports like these and give no sort of action with which to do. And then all of a sudden I had this aha moment where I realized that for the last two years I had been blogging for Forbes. And I realized I was the media. All along I had the power to shape the messages I was putting out there. And I didn’t realize my power.

Now you may not be a writer, but each one of us has spheres of influence and control in which we can use our power. So I ask you today, what will you do with your power? Blogging for Forbes now, what I like to do is to really thoughtfully put out content that will specifically speak into people’s lives but give them an action to do, something with which they can digest and move forward in their lives and share positivity with people around them.

And this isn’t to dismiss the difficult things that are happening in our world, but rather to report with a sense of journalism that’s responsible and responsive to the communities around us. I think it’s time to start advancing the conversations that we’re having, beyond just lamenting the fact that the world has changed, right? And to thinking maybe these differences that we’re seeing today are not all that different from what we saw years ago.

Susceptibility to Distraction

Advancing the conversation means asking the deeper question, why are we as humans so susceptible to distraction? Whether it’s newspapers or phones, we continue to be drawn in to these types of distractions. Why is that? So I think it’s time that we start moving into what I call a mindful response, moving from observation into action.

And we do so by unlocking our very own ATM for mindfulness. Starting with A for awareness. I believe that awareness starts with tuning in rather than zoning out on our devices. Because the temptation is to swing between these two camps. Either we choose not to see the problems of the world and therefore we don’t fix them, or we see all the problems and we think that they’re so permanent and pervasive that there’s nothing that we could do about them.

But I think there’s a third option, and that is, what can I do about this? Because the belief that our behavior matters is the start of being mindful about this issue. That’s the very definition of optimism, the belief that our behavior matters.

Living with Technology

When I first started researching the intersection of happiness and technology, my initial thought was that the solution would be to swear off all digital devices and return to simpler times. But I very quickly realized that to do so would mean walking away from all of the benefits of technology. And that’s not what I wanted to do either. I think we need to learn how to live with the complexity of life and with technology and not escape from it.

And to do that, we have to think a little bit about the future. The digital natives in the audience will recognize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with one adjustment. While they may think that Wi-Fi is actually one of our basic human needs, unfortunately, not everyone in the world has access to technology. It’s what caused the beginning of the first digital divide.

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But I believe that we’re actually entering what I call the second digital divide. And it’s a divide about mindfulness. It’s about the way that we use technology. And it separates the individuals trying to move their way up to the top of the pyramid, stunting those who are not mindful about their technology and elevating those who truly are.

Mindful Leaders

It’s the reason why we see such influential leaders like Ariana Huffington, Anderson Cooper, Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors starting to publicly pivot into the way that they’re using technology today. They’re doing so because they recognize that leaders who are mindful are more charismatic, more productive, more creative. They’re seen differently. These leaders understand that it’s time to start giving intention to our attention.

And when you do so, it changes our outcomes. Which leads me to T for transformation. To truly close the gap of the digital divide, we need to start making changes in our everyday behavior. And there’s certainly many ways to do this.

One of the ways that I was most fascinated by last year was an interesting announcement by President Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asking 8 million women worldwide to actually take a 10-day social media fast. Now, I was fascinated by this. I’m not a member of the LDS church, but I felt like this was a fascinating study of human behavior and behavior change voluntarily. And so I sent out a survey.

The Social Media Fast

I received more than 2,000 responses from women worldwide. And I learned a lot in the survey. Number one, I learned that 82% of the women didn’t want to do the fast. They did it because President Nelson asked them to or because they felt guilty.

But when you think about it, who among us wants to make major behavior lifestyle change? It’s hard, right? So what’s interesting to me is that after these women did this, after these women did the fast, these were the results: 60% reported feeling more productive. 40% had better sleep. 13% had less back and neck pain. 14% were exercising more. 45% had more focus. 41% felt more at peace and happier. And 55% felt more present with their friends and family.

Absolutely. Behavior change is hard, my friends. It’s hard to get started. But when you have community around you, behavior change becomes that much more possible. For a world where we feel like we have so much against us, that we feel sucked in by social media, we still have the power to choose when and where we give our attention.

The National Day of Unplugging

Which is another reason why I participated this year in another initiative called the National Day of Unplugging. It’s actually out of a Jewish tradition called a Tech Shabbat. And this year, more than 100,000 individuals worldwide participated in the Tech Shabbat, doing things instead of plugging in, like spending time with family and friends, exploring the great outdoors, maybe trying a new hobby. And so this was my first year participating.

And what this Day of Unplugging did for me was really help me hone in on my priorities. I didn’t miss at all the constant pinging of my phone. I did not miss having to have my phone within arm’s reach. But what I did miss was the opportunity to call my family when I was out of town, and to sing my children to sleep that night.

All of a sudden I wondered, why am I disconnecting from the very people that I want to connect to? Transformation doesn’t always have to mean stepping away from our devices. Sometimes it just means rethinking the way we’re using them to use them more intentionally, to move up the Maslow hierarchy of needs, to close the gap of the second digital divide.

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Magnifying Positive Change

Which leads us to M for magnification. This is truly looking at positive examples of people who are doing a phenomenal job of creating positive change worldwide. I had the opportunity to travel to the World Government Summit in Dubai, and I helped release the UN Global Happiness Report.

And when I was in the room, there were people from all different countries in the room, and they were talking about all different dynamics and aspects of well-being. But it wasn’t until we started talking about digital well-being that heads across the room began to nod. I realized this is an international issue. This is something that we are all struggling to find answers to together.

And I think part of the way we do that is in the words of the UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, when he says that we’re moving out of the age of information into the age of imagination. 65% of the jobs of the future don’t exist yet today. In fact, he says the greatest currency we have is not dollars or data. It’s in our minds. The future is in our minds.

Creating a Movement

Change is happening in our very midst, which is why it’s so important that we create a movement collectively, a grassroots movement to see culture change in our society. And it’s part of why I helped to found an organization over the past year called the Digital Wellness Collective that’s literally brought 90 different organizations together now to start wrestling with these issues. It’s an amazing beginning step, but there’s so much more that needs to happen.

For this to become a movement, we need feet on the ground. We need developers who are creating human-centered design. We need business leaders who are willing to model digital boundaries at work. We need funders who will support this conversation and the application of humane technology. We need influencers to speak up on their different platforms. And we need you. We need you to spark conversation among your peers, both offline and online. This is how we get unstuck in the digital era.

Technology: A Double-Edged Sword

When I think back to the story of the ATM worker, I have to smile to myself because even though it was technology that originally trapped him, it was a human being that freed him, a human being that knew how to use their smartphone to call for help. We live in a complicated world.

Is technology distracting? Yes. Is technology consuming? Yes. Can technology be addicting? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. Right? Sometimes I think that we fear that we’ve opened Pandora’s box. We fear that whatever we’ve let out into the world, we can’t put back in. But if you remember the story of Pandora’s box, there was one thing left at the bottom after all the contents had been released. It was hope.

My friends, fear is a powerful motivator, but hope is a better one. With awareness, transformation, and magnification, we can shape the future of technology instead of it shaping us. And by doing so, unlock the power of the imagination to create a better future. Thank you so much.

The Future of Happiness: Getting Unstuck in the Digital Era – Amy Blankson (Transcript)