I am always on the lookout for media technologies that are used in positive ways. Here are two examples coming from completely different angles. Information Radically Improves Economic Viability The Manobi foundation uses technology to provide rural farmers in Africa with current market prices. I have written about them before because what they are doing is so remarkably powerful. This video describes the Manobi foundation program that exponentially increased the earning power and transformed the lives of Senegalese farmers and their families. Learning from Video Games The following example comes from the 2010 TED conference, with game designer Jane McGonigal talking about the prosocial potential for video and online games. While the prosocial game, Evoke, is a great application, more important are the positive cognitive shifts in perception that come from game playing. All of the impacts are right out of the positive psychology handbook: increased … [Read more...]
Using Media for Post-Holiday Stress Reduction
The holidays can be stressful. For me personally, I consume more candy, cookies, wine, and rich food over the two weeks surrounding Christmas than I do the entire rest of the year combined. I also exercise less, since I am frantically trying to keep up with real life while I also plan, shop, decorate, wrap presents, cook, and deal with the sensory overload of too many people in not enough space. Even if they are all people I love, which is not always the case, it gets emotionally tiring to be cheerful when you would prefer to sneak out of the house. This rush of demands and activity is complicated by constant images of what holidays, families, and life are supposed to be like that fill every media channel. It’s a very human habit to hold up our own life against other, often unreasonable, standards that we see every day. From Father Knows Best and “Happy Days” to It's a Wonderful Life, we see families helping and supporting each other in ways that we all would like. We … [Read more...]
