Are you ready to tame the tech?
Can you remember more than three phone numbers without looking at your phone? Welcome to digital dementia; the shrinkage of people’s memory-making capacity because of digital reliance?
Such concepts and idea dot the book, ‘Dear Digital-We need to talk.’ Author Dr Kristy Goodwin wants to help you take back control of your attention and use technology in ways that will support your performance and wellbeing! She’s a scholar no less! Dr Kristy Goodwin has completed a PhD on the impact of digital technologies. Her roster of clients includes bluechips like Apple, Ernst and Young, Qantas and many more, so we can safely take her word for what she’s saying!
Here are our key bookstrapping insights:
1. The author talks about the benefit of understanding how devices impact our brains and cause neurobiological changes. She emphasises how we can cultivate healthy and helpful digital habits that work with our brains and bodies, rather than against them.
2. Dr Kristy answers the question ‘Why you should mono-task, not multi-task convincingly in the book. She encourages the reader to ‘build a fortress around their focus,” across all realms. Whether its work or personal relationships.
3. Here’s the big reveal of the book for me; how to we recognise that we give technology more power than it needs to have? “The only place I know to start is awareness. To notice when my boundaries start bending. When the people I love start blurring into the background, behind people I neither know nor will ever meet,” says the author. Very well put!
4. This book provides thirty six micro habits to reset our boundaries when it comes to tech, without fear of #digitaldetox. Each reader may find something relevant to them.
5. Truth be told, there have been many books about #digitaldetox. This book thankfully does not advocate it at all. In fact, it explores why detoxes don’t work. Neither does it propose ‘digital amputation.’ Which is great because no one is really willing to let go of their phones anyway!
Finally, the author talks about how one of the most intimate relationships we have today is unfortunately with a screen! And it need not be as toxic as its made out to be.
Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Twitter @OfficialReetaRG.