UX Writer specializing in mobile and web customer-facing experiences
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Musings on UX content design, tech, privacy, and life

I curate collections of UX, content, interaction, design, and research articlesā€”and other writing that strikes my fancyā€”then write delightful copy about them.

November 2015 | Smartphone addict

About a month ago, this article stole my heart and changed my life. For real. Iā€™m going to share five seemingly disconnected things, then tell you why this particular article stole my heart and changed my life. Here are the things: 

1.      It drives me just the tiniest bit (okay, a lot) crazy when I see people ā€œhaving a conversationā€ that includes one person nodding distractedly while gazing glass-eyed at a device in hand, flicking through screens.

2.      I have a toddler.

3.      I try with all my might to give said toddler a screen-free, play-full, engaged-with-humans daily experience so that one day she may grow up to look people in the eye when she talks to them.

4.      My phone sings its siren song to me day and night, calling to me with news, photos, comics, music, audiobooks, home renovation slideshows, ā€¦ Iā€™m getting off track here. The point is, I feel the pull. You all know what Iā€™m talking about.

5.      I am in a constant battle with my baser nature to be graceful. Despite the fact that I frequently run into doorframes and could use a leg up in the physical grace department, I mean emotionally graceful, conversationally graceful -- thoughtful, kinder, focused, gentler; essentially, I strive myself for the same things I wish for my child.

The article, which I classify as a medium-length Internet read, is worth your time. It is about human interaction and empathy. See numbers 1-5 up there? Those are also about human interaction and empathy. And what ā€œStop Googling. Letā€™s Talk.ā€ tells me is that we are losing our ability to judge human emotion, we are losing our ability to have a deep conversation, we are losing our ability to be alone with ourselves and our thoughts, and we are losing more than all that when we aggregate those losses. In short, when we lose human interaction, we lose our empathy. (And I donā€™t think any of us want to be sociopaths.)

So now, when I get home from work, I leave my beautiful, fascinating, ready-to-please phone far away, and I slow down, and I hang out with my beautiful, fascinating, less-ready-to-please family, and I laugh with them, and I talk with them, and I listen to them, and I read their emotions in their faces and their body language, and I try to understand their feelings, and so far, my phone is losing and human interaction is winning. But it remains an uphill battle (the siren song is strong). Check back with me in a year, and Iā€™ll let you know if my family has lost out to my phone.

1

ON BECOMING A PERSON AMIDST THE ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BUFFET YOUR DEVICES OFFER


2

SPEAKING OF THE SIREN SONG OF THE SMARTPHONEā€¦

If youā€™ve been worried about staying up too late at night basking in the glow of your smartphone, only to wake to the blare of your alarm in the form of your smartphone crowing at you, let this recent study of cultures without electricity soothe your battered, sleep-deprived soul.

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3

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BASELINE HAPPINESS

Did any of you watch the AT&T T University Executive Speakers Series talk by Shawn Achor [not available from this website]? Or perhaps youā€™ve seen the condensed version in his 12-minute TED talk? While the TU talk is two hours, not 12 minutes, I wholly endorse you blocking off two hours of your day to watch it. Start six minutes in to skip the intros and get straight to the talk.

I came away from watching this feeling smarter and ready to engage with the world in a different way. It's full of brainology, science, humor, and fascinating observations on joy vs. pleasure, the ways we hamper or help ourselves, and, well, I could go on; itā€™s all interesting.

Yeah. I know. Two hours. Itā€™s a commitment. And this video is not something you can play in the background if you want to get anything out of it. Shawn talks fast and is full of detailed information. Heā€™ll make you laugh out loud, which will make your cube neighbors look at you funny. I took notes. I checked his book out from the library. I came home from work after watching this video all fired up about increasing my personal happiness baseline and making the choice for happiness. Itā€™s not just about being a better employee; this enables me to be a better person.


 

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WORKPLACE 2020

Can we get these treehouses for our Workplace 2020 workspaces? 

Iā€™m an introvert. These look like heaven.

Meghan Bush