Wellness in the Digital Age: When can technology be good for us?

Surely too much tech is bad for us….

If you've stumbled across my articles on LinkedIn, tripped over my blogs, survived my corporate presentations, or heaven forbid, you’re my daughter... …. You are well and truly sick of me sprouting how too much technology is bad for humanity….

… then everyone laughs because I make my my crust by creating tech for others. Yep, that’s me, feeding the very beast I like to moan about…
But, plot twist!

Let’s chat about when and how technology can actually be a knight in shining armor  and make us all-around better humans. What a world without this wizardry would look like?

Democratising access to healthcare

In 2023 I was lucky enough to present at TEDx Pune in front of 600 people.  You can watch it here. Every speaker was amazing, but two in particular stood out

-     Where there is no Lawyer? | Sachin Malhan (click)

-     A college of life learning. | Aditya Jhunjhunwala (click)

I've had the privilege of working with them recently on podcasts about entrepreneurship, humanity, and the future of artificial intelligence, which can be accessed here.

Sachin, an authority on the human impacts of AI, has revolutionized access to the Indian legal system for a billion people through a spoken word interface integrated with WhatsApp. This system sifts through millions of pages of complex legal documents to provide clear rulings.

Previously, a billion people were unaware of their rights, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Sachin's work has not only clarified rights for many but has also significantly impacted mental health and overall well-being.

Digital tools and AI have significantly enhanced corporate wellness programs:

Ah, Tony Robbins. You either light up at his name or roll your eyes so hard you see your brain. But millions swear by him! It's all about where you shove your attention. Stick it on something good, like how many biscuits you've avoided today, and voila—life gets better.

Now onto the modern-day confession booth: data tracking.

I’ve heard many times the different aspects  of lifestyle they can impact sleep including:

-   alcohol

-   blue light exposure

-   the time that we eat

-   meditation

-   morning coffee (that’s right, not just caffeine through the day)

-   time and type of exercise

Love a good graph on how miserable your sleep was because you thought watching one more episode at 2 AM was a great idea? Yep, smartwatches are snitching on us with all those fancy biosensors.

You see, even a sip too many, or doom scrolling before bedtime—boom, your heart's racing like it's got a marathon at dawn. Every darn time. Believe it or not, when we actually start dodging these bedtime booby traps after seeing the cold hard data? Sleep gets better. Shocking, I know.

Bottom line—getting the digits on your Z's can be a game changer. Or at least stop you from wondering why you're tired after chugging espresso at midnight. Maybe cut down on the nightcaps, eh?

Google AIME and the ramifications for health and wellness coaching

Go to YouTube, search for this, give yourself 20 minutes to watch and absorb the ramifications. If you are like me, you’ll spend the next few days wondering if AI will actually make us into better humans.

Our good friends at Google created AIME, something like ChatGPT combined with a million doctors and a stack of steroids and tested under something like fair and reasonable conditions. The two main parameters were “accuracy of diagnosis and empathy”  and the three test groups were doctor only, doctor assisted by AI and AI.

You know where this is going. Actually, I was surprised that doctors assisted by AI were the worst performing group, beaten by doctors by themselves, but clearly beaten, in accuracy and empathy by the medical bot by itself.

If there was such thing as a virtual bedside, Google AIME had all of the moves that the real world doctor didn’t.

The masterful health and wellness coaches are the ones with tons of experience and an incredible knack of the human connection. There are some amazing assistant tools out there already but the question beckons:

Can AI be better at human then we are?

Relationships and social interactions can be helped with digital tools

As once again my daughter lines up to say “I told you it’s not all bad dad…”.

I’ve recently turned 50. I lived in that time span that covered analog becoming digital. Upon good advice, my daughter still does not have any social media accounts (she is currently 15 turning 25) and was probably the last person in her year level to get a mobile phone.

I had heard and seen first hand the shocking, negative impacts of social media on body image, self-confidence on other teenage girls.  The mental health risks, sleep and education disruption and potential cyber bullying and privacy concerns were enough to keep me away.

But my eyes were opened by a close friend who is a trusted senior paediatrician. She told me to do some research on the flipside. If I try and make light of the situation as an old man who probably doesn’t have the right to tell my daughter how to manage her social life anymore…

Digital gadgets are more than just fancy electronic friends—they're social lifelines. They let teens crap on endlessly, proving invaluable when hiding (from scary dads or things like a pandemic). It’s like a virtual cuppa with friends; there is some real social connection in there.

Social media is the place where teens splash their thoughts, showcase their latest art, or share epic fails. All this digital show-and-tell is great for strengthening their bond with their tribe .  Even if the tribe is digital, there is a sense of belonging .  We like our tribe.

One of the starkest warnings I had from a friend was “Mark, if you don’t talk to her about sex she will just find out about it online…”.  Teens can dive into everything from TikTok (not in this house, privacy risk is massive) catch up on the latest tear-jerking news, or spar in heated debates about why cats are better than dogs. Whether it’s my preferred format or not, they do learn to communicate there.

Where to from here?

For me, as a techo, its about the next 18 months.

Our humanity ends where the machines begin….the human edge is at the edge of AI.

Where do you end and the computer begin?