At their spring developer conferences, both Google and Apple announced initiatives and tools to improve our digital wellness, to help ease the addictions to our phones that these companies have helped foment in the first place. Many critics point out the paradox of making us dependent on our phones to make us less dependent on our phones. Nevertheless, fighting fire with fire has long been a successful strategy, and times being what they are, it looks like it’s turning out to be a lucrative one.
- How do Apple’s Screen Time and Google Digital Wellbeing stack up? [The Verge] “Overall, one could probably say that Google is taking a bit more of a brute force approach with its Digital Wellbeing program, whereas Apple’s approach is a bit more tilted toward simply supplying information to the user so they can make better decisions themselves (if they choose).”
- Tech Addiction and the Paradox of Apple’s ‘Screen Time’ Tools [Wired] “Apple says it wants you to have a healthier relationship with your phone, and it’ll even give you the tools to do it. But for every feature it showed to wrangle notifications or curb app use, it added more to keep you staring at your screen.”
- 10% Happier, a ‘no BS’ meditation app for skeptics, raises $3.7M in new funding [TechCrunch] “With Siri Suggestions, the app learns your patterns about where and when you like to meditate. When patterns emerge – for example, you always meditate at bedtime – Siri will suggest playing a relevant 10% Happier meditation at the right time.”
- Digital Wellness [Hilliard City Schools] “In today’s world, getting students ready for a digital lifestyle is essential to success at work as well as in life. Students need to learn how to interact socially, personally, and educationally in both face-to-face and online environments.”
From the Ohio Web Library:
- Hasan, Helen and Henry Linger. “Enhancing the Wellbeing of the Elderly: Social Use of Digital Technologies in Aged Care.” Educational Gerontology, vol. 42, no. 11, Nov. 2016, pp. 749-757.
- Richard, Godwin. “The Pursuit of Appiness.” Evening Standard, 13 Nov. 2014, p. 37.
- Mayer, Kathryn. “What Makes a Successful Digital Wellness Tool?” Employee Benefit News, vol. 30, no. 6, July 2016, p. 17.
