The Impact of Technology on Behavior & Happiness


Book Description

Behaviors are changing. But why? Attention spans are decreasing at an alarming rate. Patience is down. Communication skills, written and interpersonal, are eroding. Manners are lost in self-absorption. Tempers are short, rudeness runs high, and cell phone dependency approaches neurosis. Frustration is relentless, with angry reactions just keystrokes away. On-line engagement times are rising, as are cyber-crime and bullying. Social media has turned from a happy community to a dark and negative place that tracks our every move. The web archives and analyzes where we go and what we say, building behavioral profiles to sell to advertisers and thieves. Road rage keeps rising, digital addiction is skyrocketing, and political unrest is fracturing societies and friendships. Information inundates us but the web has erased all lines between fact and fiction. Politics swirls in a cauldron of emotional toxins. Campus stress and suicides are up, while coping and resilience skills diminish. How and why are these things happening? More importantly, what can you do to protect yourself? The answers to all of these and more are here. The trends are indisputable, the research startling, and cognizant awareness required to protect your head is vital. After all, if YOU don't look out for you... who will?




When Kids Call the Shots


Book Description

If you want to fix your rebellious and disrespectful child, you need to start by fixing yourself. Are your kids pummeling you with demands and bossing you around with impunity? Have your once-precious preschoolers become rebellious, entitled, and disrespectful to authority? While there are plenty of so-called experts who might try to validate your convictions that you have done all you can to “fix” your “difficult” children, the hard truth is, they’re not doing you any favors by placing the responsibility solely on your children. Parenting struggles rarely originate from just one side. Instead, they erupt at the volatile intersection of a child's personality with a parent's own insecurities and behaviors. In When Kids Call the Shots, therapist and parenting expert Sean Grover untangles the forces driving family dysfunction, and helps parents assume their leadership roles once again. Parents will discover: Three common bullying styles used by kids Parenting styles that contribute to power balances Critical testing periods in a child’s development Coping mechanisms that backfire Personalized plans for calmly exerting authority in any scenario The solution to any problem begins with learning to control what you can control. In parenting, you’ve already learned how impossible it is to control your kids. Begin by controlling you!




Positive Technology: Designing E-experiences for Positive Change


Book Description

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the potential role that digital technologies can play in promoting well-being. Smartphones, wearable devices, virtual/augmented reality, social media, and the internet provide a wealth of useful tools and resources to support psychological interventions that facilitate positive emotions, resilience, personal growth, creativity, and social connectedness. Understanding the full extent of this potential, however, requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the scientific principles of well-being into the design of e-experiences that foster positive change. This book provides an overview of recent advances and future challenges in Positive Technology, an emergent field within human-computer interaction that seeks to understand how interactive technologies can be used in evidence-based well-being interventions. Its focus of analysis is two-fold: at the theoretical level, Positive Technology aims to develop conceptual frameworks and models for understanding how computers can be effectively used to help individuals achieve greater well-being. At the methodological and applied level, Positive Technology is concerned with the design, development, and validation of digital experiences that promote positive change through pleasure, flow, meaning, competence, and positive relationships.




Outsmart Your Smartphone


Book Description

Do you have "smartphone syndrome?" This refreshingly honest how-to guide will help you find balance and build meaningful connections in a screen-obsessed world. Do you spend hours every day on your smartphone or tablet? Reading the news, shopping for clothes, checking your email, and catching up on social media? Do you scroll through blog articles and text with your friends while waiting in line at the DMV or the grocery store, avoiding any chance interactions with actual human beings? If so, you aren’t alone. Most of us are stuck on a hedonic treadmill of push-button notifications, friend updates, and text messages. But the real question is—are we happy? And, if not, how can we increase our happiness in the age of tech? Outsmart Your Smartphone is not a book about the evils of technology—it’s a road map for achieving happiness using all the tools available to you, including your phone. With this smart and irreverent guide, you’ll find seven steps to help you use technology in ways that increase your well-being, and find tips and tricks for overcoming the obstacles that technology creates. You’ll also learn to: Reconnect with your values, including kindness and gratitude Find your purpose in life—and then live it Use technology to do good things in the world Be fully present in each moment using mindfulness Our technology crazed, social media-obsessed world does nothing if not make us more self-focused. This book will help you harness the power of that focus and magnify your happiness, for yourself and the greater good. You don’t even have to throw out your phone!




Sri Lanka


Book Description

The Eighth and Final Review under the Stand-By Arrangement discusses policies and reforms undertaken by the Sri Lankan authorities. 2012 has shown robust growth in GDP supported by increased agricultural and construction activity. However, a weakening global demand has been an impediment to real GDP growth. The authorities looked forward to continued engagement with the IMF and intended to discuss the possibility of continuing financial support for their economic development agenda under the Extended Fund Arrangement.




Integrating Technology in Positive Psychology Practice


Book Description

Most research on the psychological impact of computers and the Internet has focused on the negative side of technology – i.e. how the use (abuse) of interactive systems and videogames can negatively affect mental health and behavior. On the other hand, less attention has been devoted to understanding how emerging technologies can promote optimal functioning at individual, group, and community levels. Integrating Technology in Positive Psychology Practice explores the various roles that technology can play in the development of psychological interventions aimed at helping people thrive. Exploring the ways in which ICT can be utilized to foster positive emotions, promote engagement in empowering activities, and support connectedness between individuals, groups, and communities, this timely publication is designed for use by psychologists, IT developers, researchers, and graduate students.




The Cyber Effect


Book Description

"From one of the world's leading experts in cyberpsychology--a discipline that combines psychology, forensics, and technology--comes a groundbreaking exploration of the impact of technology on human behavior. In the first book of its kind, Mary Aiken applies her expertise in cyber-behavioral analysis to a range of subjects, including criminal activity on the Deep Web and Darknet; deviant behavior; Internet addictions; the impact of technology on the developing child; teenagers and the Web; cyber-romance and cyber-friendships; cyberchondria; the future of artificial intelligence; and the positive effects on our digital selves, such as online altruism"--




Time Smart


Book Description

There's an 80 percent chance you're poor. Time poor, that is. Four out of five adults report feeling that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. These time-poor people experience less joy each day. They laugh less. They are less healthy, less productive, and more likely to divorce. In one study, time stress produced a stronger negative effect on happiness than unemployment. How can we escape the time traps that make us feel this way and keep us from living our best lives? Time Smart is your playbook for taking back the time you lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. Author and Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans will give you proven strategies for improving your "time affluence." The techniques Whillans provides will free up seconds, minutes, and hours that, over the long term, become weeks and months that you can reinvest in positive, healthy activities. Time Smart doesn't stop at telling you what to do. It also shows you how to do it, helping you achieve the mindset shift that will make these activities part of your everyday regimen through assessments, checklists, and activities you can use right away. The strategies Whillans presents will help you make the shift to time-smart living and, in the process, build a happier, more fulfilling life.




The Future of Happiness


Book Description

Technology, at least in theory, is improving our productivity, efficiency, and communication. The one thing it's not doing is making us happier. We are experiencing historically high levels of depression and dissatisfaction. But we can change that. Knowing that technology is here to stay and will continue to evolve in form and function, we need to know how to navigate the future to achieve a better balance between technology, productivity, and well-being. Technology can drive—not diminish—human happiness. In The Future of Happiness, author Amy Blankson, cofounder of the global positive psychology consulting firm GoodThink, unveils five strategies successful individuals can use, not just to survive—but actually thrive—in the Digital Age: • Stay Grounded to focus your energy and increase productivity • Know Thyself through app-driven data to strive toward your potential • Train Your Brain to develop and sustain an optimistic mindset • Create a Habitat for Happiness to maximize the spaces where you live, work, and learn • Be a Conscious Innovator to help make the world a better place By rethinking when, where, why, and how you use technology, you will not only influence your own well-being but also help shape the future of your community. Discover how technologies can transform the idea of "I'll be happy when . . ." to being happy now.




The Origins of Happiness


Book Description

A new perspective on life satisfaction and well-being over the life course What makes people happy? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy changes that are based on what really matters to people. Drawing on a range of evidence using large-scale data from various countries, the authors consider the key factors that affect human well-being, including income, education, employment, family conflict, health, childcare, and crime. The Origins of Happiness offers a groundbreaking new vision for how we might become more healthy, happy, and whole.