Why a Newsletter, "StressTech Insights"?

I am inaugurating this periodic newsletter to offer a take on digital technology’s potential to help us stay healthy in the face of stress and distress. As a digital mental health strategist and researcher, this topic is a growing part of my consulting practice and thought leadership.

This newsletter will report on my ongoing research learnings related to my course, StressTech Literacy. My wife and I developed this course to teach citizens how to use their digital technologies, i.e., smartphones, smart watches, laptops, digital TVs, wearables, mixed reality lenses, etc., to stay healthy despite stresses and distresses we regularly face in life.

Through this newsletter, we will talk about aspects of the StressTech course and related use cases. Additionally, we are inviting readers to take the Course and become part of a global community of StressTech practitioners dedicated to leveraging the technologies they already own to stay healthy, individually and collectively. When we have done this for ourselves, it is also important we model this practice for our children, broader families, and communities.

This is an urgent matter as we see a steady stream of research that confirms how unskillful use of digital technology is negatively impacting our physical, mental, and social health. See a selection of relevant articles and studies on this topic here.

In this course, I like to invoke the analogy of the hammer. A hammer is a neutral tool that can be used to break a window or build a house. Which use occurs is a function of the user's intention and skill. Digital technologies are such tools. We are breaking more windows than building houses with our digital devices, content and channels. Our purpose is to develop the intention and skill that allows us to build more and break less with digital technology.

Thanks for subscribing and coming with us on this journey to greater health.