MINDFUL TECHNOLOGY // We’ve all been witness to both the delight and the disappointment that can happen when we let technology into the most personal parts of our lives. It can sometimes even seem that we serve the machines more than they serve us. (Are you listening, Alexa?!) There’s no doubt that ever-present technology has improved our lives, given us superpowers, and made us more efficient. But at what cost?
With our addictive apps, sticky widgets, and blindly engaging interactions, we’ve created an era of distraction. Novelty and disruption trump human connection—and these days, even factual truth. We can do better.
As the bits and bytes settle into the most intimate spaces of our lives, our homes, and even our bodies, designers have new responsibilities and obligations. Author and strategist Liza Kindred’s 20-year career in fashion and technology has explored both the challenges and benefits of (literally) weaving tech into our lives. Here she offers a host of practical examples that illustrate an eye-opening framework of design principles to guide us in how we make and use new technology. Learn how to create real insight, joy, and utility while still getting the job done.
Instead of designing for page views, it’s time to design for purpose, for calm, and for compassion. Instead of designing for engagement with interfaces, let’s design for actual engagement with the people and places we love. Instead of simply building better tech, in other words, let’s build for better human connection.
2. Mindfulness:
the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental
state of heightened or complete awareness
of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences
on a moment-to-moment basis
42. Design for human connection.
Awaken the senses.
Create utility or joy.
Let the tech disappear.
Design for disconnect.
Build extensibly.
Simplify. Then simplify again.
Narrow the digital divide.
Make something the world needs.
9 mindful tech values:
85. “Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can.
— Arthur Ashe
Notas del editor
I am not a Luddite, and this is not a talk about dystopianism.
My background: fashion > tech > fashion tech > future of commerce book > launching a new company, called Mindful Technology, in 2017.
I am also a meditator of 6 years, and a student of the Shambhala Buddhist tradition.
Mindful TECH: using, and building, technology, to help us be more mindful.
Who meditates? 8% of US adults (and 1.6% children!)
Celebrities, many many CEOs, and not nearly enough politicians.
Lodro Rinzler compares our thoughts about mindfulness to the attitudes about physical exercise in the 1950’s.
As science unequivocally proves out the benefits of mindfulness, most huge companies are already on board. Reduce stress, reduce anxiety, better sleep, more productive; actually rewire the grey matter in the brain ~8 weeks.
My fave meditator: Russell Simmons – mega successful entrepreneur, founder of Def Jam, says: “I don’t do shit ’til I meditate.”
(Anyone know him? I want to interview him for my upcoming podcast.)
Despite some initial skepticism, mindfulness and meditation are starting to become very big business.
What has technology turned us into?
Humanity is changing for the worse because of our addition to technology. We kind of know that in our hearts, but let’s look at how that’s playing out.
To start with, we’re outnumbered.
Also, our toilets are outnumbered.
Globally, 7 billion people and 6 billion mobile phones.
(There are also more mobile phones than TVs…. and toothbrushes.)
We’re obsessed!
Undistracted (non-screen) time spent with family is 34 minutes. Gah!
1/3 of American children live in a house where the TV us on all or most of the time.
Phantom phone syndrome. WNYC: 90% of people suffer from it.
What designer looks at this behavior and says “we should should give people more disruption in their lives? let’s be disruptive!” No! Leave me alone.
(Phone vibration sound from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn8ORi6UUJE)
Reminds me of those dumb Tamagotchis – our devices ask for so much care and feeding!
(Tamagotchi noise from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi_mxSoSUnc)
This is a REAL photo from wildlife photographer Eric J. Smith.
How many of us have been this guy?
What designer looks at this and says, “we should make our apps more engaging?”
(Tinder VR gif from https://media.giphy.com/media/l2QZWlcmOMAweW27S/giphy.gif)
Here’s another problem, a real 21st century problem: tech neck. It has 38m google results. But don’t worry, you can do exercises, buy creams, or have plastic surgery to fix it!
Excerpt from music video of “I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler” by Yacht.
(Worth a watch!–– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8cavxA10Gc)
This is from the mobile marketing association – they are bragging! And excited!
17% coffee
14% toothbrush
10% significant other
90% of ages 18-29
3% of us regularly sleep with our phones in our HANDS
(Bank of America - banks are excited about this! Do you want to make your bank excited?)
“The Calm Company” upcoming book from CEO + CTO of Basecamp.
“On-demand is for movies, TV shows, and podcasts, not for you. Your time isn’t an episode recalled when someone wants it at 10pm on a Saturday night, or every few minutes in the collection of conveyor belt chat room conversations you’re supposed to be following all day long.”
New French law: “the right to disconnect.” Employees don’t have to check emails outside of work hours.
(Video excerpt from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB7N-invN8k)
When Dylan Roof, the serial killer who entered a church during bible study and murdered 9 African Americans while they were praying, typed what should have been a factual phrase into google, he was met with page after page of graphic results from hate groups. He later said he had, “I have never been the same since that day.” He did not grow up in a racist home, he was radicalized almost solely by what he found on the internet.
This is someone who was sick and needed to be met with help, not hate.
SPLC says “the truth was submerged” –– check out their video at http://bit.ly/2ldr5Tj
Note: I searched the same term, and it’s not much better now. This has to change.
Bruce Schneier, Cryptographer, in New York Magazine:
“You can think of the sensors as the eyes and ears of the internet. You can think of the actuators as the hands and feet of the internet. And you can think of the stuff in the middle as the brain. We are building an internet that senses, thinks, and acts. This is the classic definition of a robot. We’re building a world-size robot, and we don’t even realize it.”
This fancy pants Austrian hotel recently had to pay hackers $1500 ransom after customers were trapped in their rooms by their “smart” doorknobs. (They are still advertising how connected they are on their website.)
There is that world-sized robot I just mentioned!
The last part.
We’re OBSESSED.
Leandra Medine, the Man Repeller, writes “… there’s too much choice, I think, which is the real crux of the problem for me. Too many things to do, too many things to read, too many ways to communicate and interpret a point. It can get so overwhelming that even though the reflexive response should be to shut it down, instead you go to the app you’re most comfortable with and waste time as you fall deeper into the spiral of your own generational doubt. Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? I hate being on my phone all the time! …”
I can relate with this. Can you?
From the series “Removed” by artist Eric Pickersgill. Shows people in real, everyday life situations with their devices removed.
http://www.removed.social/
“I can make you put your phone down!”
(Song excerpt from mix tape song from Erykah Badu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbIJM9Y3FAA)
Make this song your new theme! I love it so much.
Remember, mindfulness is awareness of thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
How can we alter this, so we can live in the world we want to live in?
Mindful Tech values, created by Liza Kindred of Mindful Technology.
Most important of anything else here: HELP HUMANS BE MORE HUMAN! We don’t want more engagement with machines.
Fun small example: sending a heartbeat through the Apple watch.
(Similar gif here: http://www.sagmart.com/other_images/Apple-Watch.gif)
Meet my niece Quinn!
I was so happy to send her parents the Owlet smart sock when Quinn was sent home from the hospital. Measures heart rate, oxygen levels. Helps her parents stay connected to her.
So, again: design for human connection.
Embrace the body; emBODY the technology.
EnChroma color blindness correcting glasses
http://enchroma.com/
Shoe has GPS tracker, geo-fencing. Also good for caregivers.
Good for vision-impaired people, but super stylish for anyone.
I frequently say: the market for people who want to look like androids is really small!
Help users stay in their moment.
Use judgement: when should the tech NOT interrupt the user?
A great example of the notifications wearables. Gives a small vibration w/ different color of light for a different event. The user decides what’s important enough to interrupt.
GPS connected insoles. Put the phone away and enjoy the walk!
Together, we create 20-50 million metric tons of e-waste each year. (UN)
Joule fitness tracker. Works on any post earring.
A “fashionable fitbit.”
Daniel Yang shows us these crazy police forms at IXDA.
(Pic courtesy of Christina Yung.)
He was an ordained Zen Buddhist monk.
From Motorola // ECG Sensor, Temperature Sensor, Strain Gauges, LEDs, Wireless Power Coil, Wireless Communication osillator, Photo detectors, EEG sensors, Wireless Antennae. This is an example of an incredibly simple form factor.
Simple use: my fave Twitter account, @TinyCareBot
https://twitter.com/tinycarebot
Don’t make our already easy lives easier–they are easy enough. Make this that help people on the other side of the digital divide.
Charges your phone while it’s in your pocket. It helps us, sure. But it really helps people without access to reliable electricity. We can do both!
GlassOuse assistive device, works with a huge variety of disabilities (uses eyes and “bite click.”)
(Video excerpt from: https://vimeo.com/197383905)
Like, really needs.
Does the world need this? No.
The world needs this.
Malaria kills a child every minute of every day. Kite patch blocks mosquito’s ability to track humans.
Ger mood sweater from Sensoree reads electrodermal activity on hands and outputs the estimated emotion as a color.
Does the world need this? Probably not.
The world needs this. (It uses the same technology as the last one.)
Help for kids with autism.
Uses heart rate, temperature and electrodermal activity (aka “emotional sweat”), through a pair of electrodes embedded in the band. It notifies parents and caretakers of impending “behavior meltdowns” (From Awake Labs.)
Please, I don’t want to live in this future.
(gif similar to: https://media.giphy.com/media/4oY18KcpgdSI8/giphy.gif)
The same way we can stop and take a deep breath before we go for our phones, we can stop and take a moment at each step of our work to think about whether we’re designing for the world we want to live in.
I’ll leave you with the wise words of the late tennis great, Arthur Ashe.