This week on the podcast, we're thrilled to welcome Dr. Anastasia Dedyukhina, a pioneer in the space of digital wellbeing. Anastasia is not only a bestselling author and a two-time TEDx speaker but also the founder of Consciously Digital, an international network comprising over 130 digital wellbeing coaches. Her pioneering work and extensive experience make her a leading voice in shaping how we interact with technology.

In this episode, we delve into questions such as:

• How has the digital wellbeing landscape evolved over the last decade, and what can we expect in the future?
• What exactly constitutes digital wellbeing, and is there a universal definition that can encompass its broad scope?
• What are the most significant challenges in promoting wider adoption of digital wellbeing practices?
• In our hybrid working world, where should the responsibility for digital wellbeing begin?

Learn more about Anastasia's coaching programs!
 
Join the 5-day Challenge here:
www.consciously-digital.com/5dc

Join the certification program here:
www.consciously-digital.com/coaches 

This week, we invited Markus Rüther on the podcast, a professional philosopher,  working in the field of ethics. Currently, Markus is a Permanent Research Fellow at the Institute for Neurosciences and Medicine (INM-7), based at the Research Center in Juelich, Germany. In addition, he holds the position of Associate Professor at the University of Bonn in Germany.

Together, we answer questions like:

- What can philosophy teach us about the role of technology in our daily lives?

- What questions can we ask ourselves to enhance our wellbeing in a digital world? 

- What can the stoics teach us about the good life in an AI-dominated world? 

- (How) does AI threaten wellbeing?

Learn more about Markus and his work here:

https://www.markusruether.com/

In honour of International Women's Day, we are joined by  Dr. Julia Brailovskaia, who has spent over a decade researching at the intersection of mental health and phone use, with a special focus on social media. She is a private lecturer at the University of Bochum and also an initiator of the German Centre for Psychological Health. 

Together, we explore questions like:

- What type of of social media usage patterns will more likely lead to addiction and poor mental health? 
- What are the symptoms of social media addiction and what are the first steps you can take if you diagnose these symptoms in you? 
- What should parents do to support healthy social media usage with their children?

Read Julia's studies and about her work here:

Study: Finding the "Sweet-spot" of Smartphone use 
Article: Less Social Media makes you Happier and More Efficient at Work
Reference to Christian Montag's study on smartphone usage with children: C Montag: Smartphone Usage in Children and Teenagers 

In this guided audio exercise, we lay the foundation for a more mindful relationship with technology and together start reshaping your digital environment in a way that promotes wellbeing, calm and focus every day. 

Do you feel it too?

Constant digital notifications and interruptions, overcrowded email inboxes, or unused apps - our digital everyday life doesn't always make it easy to stay calm and focused. But it doesn't have to be this way! 

Discover a new relationship with your technology for more wellbeing, calm and focus by setting up your digital environment in a way that is right for you and promotes values and goals. Using scientific insights from behavioural and neuroscience, we will together create an environment for more well-being, productivity, and work-life balance in a connected world.

Ideal for anyone who wants to declutter their digital life and develop a more balanced relationship with technology.

Do you want to dive deeper into the topic of 'Digital Wellbeing'?

Then we hope you join our Digital Wellness Challenge! Sign up now and start your year 2024 with more mindful digital habits. 

English Episode coming 7th January 2024.

In dieser speziellen Neujahrs-Folge leiten wir dich durch eine geführte Audioübung, die den Grundstein für eine achtsamere Beziehung zu deinen digitalen Geräten legt. Perfekt, um das Jahr bewusst und mehr Raum und Zeit zum Sein zu beginnen.

Spürst du es auch?

Ständige digitale Benachrichtigungen und Unterbrechungen, überfüllte E-Mail-Postfächer oder ungenutzte Apps – unser digitaler Alltag macht es uns nicht immer leicht, Ruhe und Klarheit im Kopf zu bewahren. Doch es geht auch anders! Deine digitale Umgebung kann dich dabei unterstützen, online achtsamer zu sein. Diese Podcast-Episode ist ein wesentlicher Schritt dazu, bewusst zu entscheiden, wann und wie du deine digitalen Geräte nutzen möchtest. Technologie kann ein unglaubliches Werkzeug sein – wenn man sie richtig einsetzt.

Finde deinen Weg zu mehr Gelassenheit und Fokus im digitalen Zeitalter, indem du dein digitales Umfeld so einrichtest, das es für dich richtig ist und die Sachen fördert, die dir wichtig sind. Unter Verwendung von wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen aus Verhaltens- und Neurowissenschaften schaffen wir gemeinsam ein Umfeld für mehr Wohlbefinden, Produktivität und Ruhe im vernetzten Alltag. 

Ideal für jeden, der seinen digitalen Alltag entrümpeln und ein harmonischeres Verhältnis zur Technologie entwickeln möchte. 

Du möchtest noch tiefer in das Thema "Digitale Balance" eintauchen?

Dann nimm doch an unserer Digital Wellness Challenge teil! Melde dich jetzt an und starte deine Reise zu einem bewussteren digitalen Leben.

Doom scrolling, social media addiction and dopamine loops - mental wellbeing in a digital world can seem like a never ending struggle. Jasdeep Mago Jethani is a neurospychologist, a neuroleadership coach, and the founder of an organisation called Invisible Illness with the mission to normalise and destigmatise the conversation on mental health through the medium of art. 

We invited Jasdeep to talk about:

 - The neuroscience of mental health and how to build a solid mental wellbeing foundation
- What dopamine really is and does (and if dopamine detoxes work). 
- How to manage social media use and discover the right recipe for you. 
- Why finding more things you love is the way forward.

Stay in touch with Jasdeep. 

When we speak of the digital future, it seems obvious that the voices of those who will be impacted by our decisions today should be part of the conversation. Yasmin Al-Douri and Alexander von Janowski are here to make sure that the next generation has a voice and a seat at the table. Together, they founded the Responsible Tech Hub, a youth and young professionals led non profit focusing on bringing the attention to making technology more responsible. Together we speak about:
 
- Who needs to come together for a better tech future
- Why we shouldn't underestimate the next generation in helping create a better tech future
- Why diversity is so important when it comes to shaping our digital future
- What challenges they are seeing in the roadmap  to responsibility

About RTH:

The Responsible Technology Hub (RTH) is committed to decisively shaping the emerging technologies of the present and near future. Our mission is to foster an intergenerational exchange that elevates the voices of young people and allows representatives from industry, academia, policy, and the general public to connect and co-create a responsible technological future.

About Yasmin & Alex: 

Yasmin Al-Douri is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Responsible Technology Hub. She is studying Politics & Technology at the Technical University of Munich and conducts research on the topics of "Regulation of New Technologies" and "AI Ethics". Yasmin has worked in various organizations and tech sectors, including as a research assistant at the Future AI4EO Lab, in the Techquartier Frankfurt, and until recently as a Business Program Manager at Microsoft, where she dealt with "Responsible AI". Yasmin collaborated with the American-German Institute of Johns Hopkins University, the Foreign Office, GIZ, and Welthungerhilfe, and was named the Young Global Changemaker 2022 by the Global Solutions Initiative.

Alexander von Janowski is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Responsible Technology Hub – the first technology Hub empowering young voices to shape a responsible technological future. Before founding RTH, he worked for the German Development Corporation, the GIZ, in Eschborn, Tunisia and Bonn on the topic of digital society and Public Sector Innovation and as a researcher in the Volkswagen Machine Learning Research Lab on methods for ethical and trustworthy machine intelligence. He holds a Master of Science degree in Politics & Technology from the Technical University of Munich, a BA in Political Science and Economics from the Goethe University of Frankfurt and was a Young Global Changermaker 2023 finalist.

We are back from the summer break with a special extended episode on AI with AI ethicist and researcher Marianna Ganapini. Since the launch of Chat GPT earlier this year, we have all had some questions, big and small: 

-  How will the future look for AI and humanity? 
-  How will AI impact our daily lives? 
- Can we ignore the elephant in the room? 
- How can we make sure the future is bright? 

Marianna Ganapini is an educator, philosopher and ethicist, Co-Founder of the instructional design consultancy Logica Now and Faculty Director at the Montreal AI Ethics Institute. She has contributed extensively to the research on responsible Ai, just recently published a course with the Alan Turing Institute for Fairness and Responsibility in Human-AI interaction in medical settings. Together we talk about fairness, why doing the right thing is a good thing and how we can make sure that together we create a better future. 

Julia Kounlavong is the founder of Unwind your Mind and one of Germany's most prominent voices when it comes to actively shaping the future of work. Her mission is clear: to transform the way we view stress, wellbeing and to bring more humanity into the working world. We invited Julia on the podcast to discuss her thoughts on wellbeing in a digital world and how we can bring our authentic selves to work. 

Together, we answer questions like: 

• Where companies and individuals can start to prioritise their wellbeing 
• What can yoga teach us about good leadership? 
• Why we might be facing another (health) pandemic if we don't act now 
• How much authenticity can we bring into a work context? 

Find out more about Julia and connect with her here.
Find out more about Unwind your Mind here. 

In this week's episode, we invited Tyler Shores, the ThinkLab Manager at the University of Cambridge and digital wellbeing researcher to speak to us about his  insights and learnings. His extensive research spans topics such as digital and print reading, attention, digital distractions, and the role of social media in our lives. We'll be discussing his insights into the realm of digital wellbeing, exploring his research, his teachings at the University of Cambridge, and his approach to achieving balance in an increasingly intertwined online and offline world.

In this episode, we cover questions like: 

- How Digital Distractions Impact Our Live
- Why Balance Between Online and Offline is Crucial
- When and How to Take "Information Breaks"
- How to Manage Time in a Limitless Digital World
- Why 'Attention Residue' Matters

About Tyler Shores:

Tyler Shores is the manager of the ThinkLab at the University of Cambridge, and is a Senior Research Associate at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College. His research focuses on digital habits, social media, and how digital environments shape how we
work, think, and learn.

Prior to Cambridge, Tyler worked in online education at Stanford, served as a director of digital textbooks at an international education non-profit organization, and worked at the Google world headquarters in Mountain View, California while running the Authors@Google program. His various work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, WIRED, and many others. And he was once on an episode of The Simpsons.

You can take Tyler's course on Edx for free here.
You can learn more about Tyler on his website.