Book Description

Restart prepares readers to do the hard work of reentering an in-person post-pandemic world by examining the relationships we have formed with ourselves, our devices, and others in quarantine. Social anxiety and a tendency to avoid any awkwardness in embodied spaces were on the rise before the pandemic. Matters are far worse now that we have spent more than a year overly reliant upon our technology, incapable of safely spending time socially and relationally with others. All the while, research indicates that the kind of resilience and grit that in-person interactions involve are crucial for life satisfaction and success. This means that the social isolation from which we are emerging will have profound and lasting effects on us unless we actively work to re-integrate communal living healthily. In Restart: Designing a Healthy Post-Pandemic Life, Doreen Dodgen-Magee discusses how to harness the energy of the global re-opening of day-to-day in-person life and how to use that energy to create healthier relationships with technology, our social connections, and ourselves. Special emphasis on social anxiety, the re-opening of businesses, and how to help children through this transition is offered. Readers will learn how to break habits that hurt us/them, keep us/them isolated, and damage our/their mental health. Also offered are tips, tools, and recommendations for how to set norms that will help readers manage their anxiety, hesitance, and over-excitement about reentering an interactive world.