I’ve always been miffed when I hear the casual confession, “I have such an addictive personality.” In my understanding—and in my own experience—it seems there’s no way to be human without getting addicted to certain behaviors or habits of mind. When I go to my psychiatrist each week complaining about my latest compulsive behavior, she reassures me that addictions—of all…
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and eaten precisely four spoonfuls of yogurt? I have. In fact, I used to do so every night in a misguided, but desperate, attempt to deal with my insomnia. Eventually, my psychiatrist told me this obsessive-compulsive ritual was not helping me, and so I made it my goal to…
In a recent conversation I had with Rohan Gunatillake at the Rubin Museum’s Brainwave series, we spoke about the tension between our digital lives and our pursuit of mindfulness and wellness—he from the perspective of a technologist and social entrepreneur and I from the perspective of an emotion scientist and digital health researcher. This is a dilemma with few easy…
Back in 1965 Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel and the then head of research and development, made an observation that is now known as “Moore’s Law.” He stated that advances in hardware technology and engineering are such that the number of components that can be crammed onto a silicon chip would double every eighteen months, and therefore the processing…
Many of us find it difficult to manage our technology habits given the omnipresent temptation for distraction in the digital age. Sure, each of us can try our best to be mindful in the moment and try to control the impulse to scroll, swipe, or click our way to satisfaction, but what about the technology companies that deliberately design their…
On a Monday a few weeks ago, a friend of mine texted me to cancel our dinner plans scheduled for later in the week. I was instantly relieved—not because I had been actively dreading our plan, but because I, like so many of us, consistently feel too busy, overtaxed, and chronically stressed. Who doesn’t want an unexpected free night at…