please join me in welcoming Alex Oliver
to the TEDx Sonoma County stage thank
you all for being here today
I want to take you back with me to a
foggy morning on highway 1 in California
a few years ago a windy dangerous road
that morning I almost died and almost
killed four innocent people
I was texting while driving so this was
an important conversation a deal
announcement I was an important vice
president an executive at a tech company
I knew what I was doing was wrong and
stupid
I actually remember thinking this isn’t
too smart but I couldn’t stop I was
texting back and forth with colleagues
really only doing this on the
straightaways and looking up on the
curves crazy stupid dangerous right
before I was about to hit Send a primal
alarm bell went off in my brain I looked
up and saw four cyclists three men and a
woman the road was high above the
Pacific Ocean rocky cliffs far below I
was about to take them I slammed on the
brakes and screeched to a halt just in
time if I had hit them they would have
died and my life would have been forever
pulled off to the side of the road heart
I thought about my family and my
children and then I thought how
unbelievably selfish what if those
cyclists had family and children and
friends and what was so important about
my conversation that it was worth
killing someone over why was I an
otherwise highly functioning capable
person unable to stop doing something so
obviously stupid and dangerous so the
truth is I’m not alone roughly 80% of
all drivers pick up and touch their
smartphones according to one of the most
comprehensive studies to date and by
some estimates one-third of all drivers
text or send messages while driving this
is really the tip of the iceberg so
today’s talk is about what I call
distracted living and how to fix it and
how that morning on highway 1 led me to
a deep self-evaluation of how technology
was hacking away at our happiness from
texting while driving to Facebook
YouTube Instagram tinder and fortnight
how many of you have children who play
fortnight or kids so you probably know
what I’m talking about technology is
eroding our control and their happiness
so how many of you have also had a
wonderful face-to-face conversation
interrupted by a text or a call or
someone just looking down at their phone
and then you knew that that person was
no longer there with you how many of you
have planned to go to the gym or go for
a hike and you look down and realized oh
I don’t have any more time I can’t go
because you spent the last 30 minutes
mindlessly scrolling Facebook or
Instagram
or responding to random slacks or emails
from work how did this make you feel or
found yourself awake at 3:00 in the
morning reading news articles maybe
about politics that you won’t even
remember the next day how did this make
you feel
did you ask yourself that question or
have you been on a playground and seen a
child screaming mommy daddy look at my
tricks and the parents are buried in
their screens how did this make you feel
I’ve seen this and it made me feel very
sad at work it’s play at home with our
families and with our friends how does
technology make us feel I believe we can
strike a healthier happier balance a
life where we use technology on our own
terms where technology makes us happier
not sadder and more distracted so how
we’ll use technology not only impacts
the way we feel but it also directly
impacts our minds in our bodies and ways
we may not even understand or think
about so I don’t know about all of you
but I used to be able to read books and
type right for 3-4 hours at a stretch I
can’t anymore
why because my brain has actually
changed my focus muscles have atrophied
and with that atrophy I have lost one of
the most important capabilities that
humans have the capacity for deep
focused thought which by the way is
absolutely critical for creative
fulfilling work how many of you have
spent an entire day flipping from one
task to the next back and forth and
found at the end of the day you felt
how did you feel annoyed probably and of
course you did because humans are
designed to feel happier when we
complete things not when we flip back
and forth like checking things off on a
list yet modern technology is making it
harder and harder and harder for us to
focus on the one task technology not
only impacts the way our minds work but
it’s directly impacting our bodies in
ways we may not think about so how many
of you here have kids or are kids
so plenty of you I’m sure how many of
you struggle with them spending too much
time playing video games using their
evidence is becoming clearer and clearer
that today’s children are moving less
and less and this is increasing with
each subsequent generation today’s kids
are less likely to go to a playground to
ride a bike or to run and it shows one
large research study found that 30 year
old it’s one grow large research study
found that 10 year olds today take 90
seconds longer to run a mile than to 10
year olds 30 years ago ponder that for a
second these are children there is no
reason that this should be happening and
this is bad because to move is to be
human it makes us happy not surprisingly
as well obesity is becoming one of the
most critical health issues for children
sleep is directly a lack of sleep is
directly connected to depression and
suicide and doctors are starting to
think that lack of sleep may be related
to the rapid rise and metabolic
disorders like diabetes you could not
create a better device to destroy our
sleep
from the smartphone it emits an intense
light that tells our brains time to wake
up we carry it with us everywhere we go
we sleep with it it’s the primary
mechanism now we use to consume video
the internet emails play games and
increasingly it looks like it is
impacting our sleep in one major study
American adults roughly thirty percent
of American adults get six hours of
sleep or less which is not a lot of
sleep so how can we gain better control
of this how can we start to hack back
our happiness I believe we can strike a
better balance regain control and hack
back our happiness and it starts with
getting back in touch with our feelings
sounds kind of corny and woowoo I know
but asking a simple question how do I
feel is a great interrupter of bad tech
behavior you see too often our
subconscious minds actually dictate our
actions this is particularly true when
we were in the grips of technology
barrage by beats by beeps chimes and
alerts and really this is by design
those products were built to grab and
hold as much of our attention as
possible the smartest product designers
in Silicon Valley have long used
sophisticated technological tricks and
neurological tricks to push our buttons
so really this is all about control who
controls our minds the technology and
the companies that make it or us I
believe we can win this battle by asking
that simple question how does it make us
feel
and raising the subconscious to the
conscious
simple exercise you all can do to help
illuminate how much you’re using
technology and what you’re doing I did
it take a notebook in a pen and for a
whole day or maybe a half day write down
everything you do with technology on
your smartphone or your laptop
it sounds exhausting but also all
sobering and eye-opening most likely you
will discover you’re spending
significantly more time with your
technology and you’re flipping back and
forth far more than you realized now
with this information you can start to
design a better life
you can decide I want to curtail this I
want to eliminate that this makes me
happy
and with clear information from actual
observations you can design a better
life with technology now this is not
arbitrary okay some people for example
love Facebook they and it’s good for
them it makes them happy that’s okay I
have a very good friend who uses
Facebook as a support group for gluten
free diets she talks to her friends they
swap recipes this is great but for most
people excessive consumption of social
media or any technology is bad and this
is particularly true for Facebook and
Instagram because it drives comparisons
comparisons of looks vacations families
comparisons don’t make us happy
and this is why passive consumption of
social media is consistently tied to
diminishment of happiness so how do we
reduce our use of these types of
technologies how do we reduce our use of
Facebook for example it’s actually not
that hard get facebook out of your face
take it off your phone shut off the
notifications uninstall messenger inject
friction raise the decision from the
subconscious to the conscious and with
this kind of mindset you can inject or
create lots of design rules for your
life
that are simple and easy to follow here
are some of mine no smartphone in the
bedroom at night
no smartphone on the dinner table or at
a restaurant no Twitter sessions longer
than five minutes no laptops in meetings
and less I’m thinking notes and
definitely definitely note email or
social media first thing in the morning
keep that precious time for your most
important thoughts now we can’t totally
switch off that will be ridiculous try
telling your boss or your family or your
friends
I don’t do email anymore I’m sorry how
many of you want to go back to walking
into a travel agency or a bank to
conduct a transaction I don’t okay but
we can take better control of the
technology we have in front of us
structure a life where we are using it
on the terms that we dictate rather than
the terms that the companies are telling
us and all the alerts and the beeps and
the chimes are making us feel so
technology is evolving faster and faster
okay and this will continue three years
ago how many of you knew what Alexa was
now we can’t stop talking about her
literally virtual virtual reality is on
the horizon it’s coming very quickly and
that’s total tech immersion but one
we have to continue renegotiating our
relationship with technology but we can
continue to construct a life with
technology that’s productive and happy
and the best way to do that is to keep
asking ourselves the simple question how
do I feel how do I feel
thank you very much you
to the TEDx Sonoma County stage thank
you all for being here today
I want to take you back with me to a
foggy morning on highway 1 in California
a few years ago a windy dangerous road
that morning I almost died and almost
killed four innocent people
I was texting while driving so this was
an important conversation a deal
announcement I was an important vice
president an executive at a tech company
I knew what I was doing was wrong and
stupid
I actually remember thinking this isn’t
too smart but I couldn’t stop I was
texting back and forth with colleagues
really only doing this on the
straightaways and looking up on the
curves crazy stupid dangerous right
before I was about to hit Send a primal
alarm bell went off in my brain I looked
up and saw four cyclists three men and a
woman the road was high above the
Pacific Ocean rocky cliffs far below I
was about to take them I slammed on the
brakes and screeched to a halt just in
time if I had hit them they would have
died and my life would have been forever
pulled off to the side of the road heart
I thought about my family and my
children and then I thought how
unbelievably selfish what if those
cyclists had family and children and
friends and what was so important about
my conversation that it was worth
killing someone over why was I an
otherwise highly functioning capable
person unable to stop doing something so
obviously stupid and dangerous so the
truth is I’m not alone roughly 80% of
all drivers pick up and touch their
smartphones according to one of the most
comprehensive studies to date and by
some estimates one-third of all drivers
text or send messages while driving this
is really the tip of the iceberg so
today’s talk is about what I call
distracted living and how to fix it and
how that morning on highway 1 led me to
a deep self-evaluation of how technology
was hacking away at our happiness from
texting while driving to Facebook
YouTube Instagram tinder and fortnight
how many of you have children who play
fortnight or kids so you probably know
what I’m talking about technology is
eroding our control and their happiness
so how many of you have also had a
wonderful face-to-face conversation
interrupted by a text or a call or
someone just looking down at their phone
and then you knew that that person was
no longer there with you how many of you
have planned to go to the gym or go for
a hike and you look down and realized oh
I don’t have any more time I can’t go
because you spent the last 30 minutes
mindlessly scrolling Facebook or
or responding to random slacks or emails
from work how did this make you feel or
found yourself awake at 3:00 in the
morning reading news articles maybe
about politics that you won’t even
remember the next day how did this make
you feel
did you ask yourself that question or
have you been on a playground and seen a
child screaming mommy daddy look at my
tricks and the parents are buried in
their screens how did this make you feel
I’ve seen this and it made me feel very
sad at work it’s play at home with our
families and with our friends how does
technology make us feel I believe we can
strike a healthier happier balance a
life where we use technology on our own
terms where technology makes us happier
not sadder and more distracted so how
we’ll use technology not only impacts
the way we feel but it also directly
impacts our minds in our bodies and ways
we may not even understand or think
about so I don’t know about all of you
but I used to be able to read books and
type right for 3-4 hours at a stretch I
can’t anymore
why because my brain has actually
changed my focus muscles have atrophied
and with that atrophy I have lost one of
the most important capabilities that
humans have the capacity for deep
focused thought which by the way is
absolutely critical for creative
fulfilling work how many of you have
spent an entire day flipping from one
task to the next back and forth and
found at the end of the day you felt
how did you feel annoyed probably and of
course you did because humans are
designed to feel happier when we
complete things not when we flip back
and forth like checking things off on a
list yet modern technology is making it
harder and harder and harder for us to
focus on the one task technology not
only impacts the way our minds work but
it’s directly impacting our bodies in
ways we may not think about so how many
of you here have kids or are kids
so plenty of you I’m sure how many of
you struggle with them spending too much
time playing video games using their
evidence is becoming clearer and clearer
that today’s children are moving less
and less and this is increasing with
each subsequent generation today’s kids
are less likely to go to a playground to
ride a bike or to run and it shows one
large research study found that 30 year
old it’s one grow large research study
found that 10 year olds today take 90
seconds longer to run a mile than to 10
year olds 30 years ago ponder that for a
second these are children there is no
reason that this should be happening and
this is bad because to move is to be
human it makes us happy not surprisingly
as well obesity is becoming one of the
most critical health issues for children
sleep is directly a lack of sleep is
directly connected to depression and
suicide and doctors are starting to
think that lack of sleep may be related
to the rapid rise and metabolic
disorders like diabetes you could not
create a better device to destroy our
sleep
from the smartphone it emits an intense
light that tells our brains time to wake
up we carry it with us everywhere we go
we sleep with it it’s the primary
mechanism now we use to consume video
the internet emails play games and
increasingly it looks like it is
impacting our sleep in one major study
American adults roughly thirty percent
of American adults get six hours of
sleep or less which is not a lot of
sleep so how can we gain better control
of this how can we start to hack back
our happiness I believe we can strike a
better balance regain control and hack
back our happiness and it starts with
getting back in touch with our feelings
sounds kind of corny and woowoo I know
but asking a simple question how do I
feel is a great interrupter of bad tech
behavior you see too often our
subconscious minds actually dictate our
actions this is particularly true when
we were in the grips of technology
barrage by beats by beeps chimes and
alerts and really this is by design
those products were built to grab and
hold as much of our attention as
possible the smartest product designers
in Silicon Valley have long used
sophisticated technological tricks and
neurological tricks to push our buttons
so really this is all about control who
controls our minds the technology and
the companies that make it or us I
believe we can win this battle by asking
that simple question how does it make us
feel
and raising the subconscious to the
conscious
simple exercise you all can do to help
illuminate how much you’re using
technology and what you’re doing I did
it take a notebook in a pen and for a
whole day or maybe a half day write down
everything you do with technology on
your smartphone or your laptop
it sounds exhausting but also all
sobering and eye-opening most likely you
will discover you’re spending
significantly more time with your
technology and you’re flipping back and
forth far more than you realized now
with this information you can start to
design a better life
you can decide I want to curtail this I
want to eliminate that this makes me
happy
and with clear information from actual
observations you can design a better
life with technology now this is not
arbitrary okay some people for example
love Facebook they and it’s good for
them it makes them happy that’s okay I
have a very good friend who uses
Facebook as a support group for gluten
free diets she talks to her friends they
swap recipes this is great but for most
people excessive consumption of social
media or any technology is bad and this
is particularly true for Facebook and
Instagram because it drives comparisons
comparisons of looks vacations families
comparisons don’t make us happy
and this is why passive consumption of
social media is consistently tied to
diminishment of happiness so how do we
reduce our use of these types of
technologies how do we reduce our use of
Facebook for example it’s actually not
that hard get facebook out of your face
take it off your phone shut off the
notifications uninstall messenger inject
friction raise the decision from the
subconscious to the conscious and with
this kind of mindset you can inject or
create lots of design rules for your
life
that are simple and easy to follow here
are some of mine no smartphone in the
bedroom at night
no smartphone on the dinner table or at
a restaurant no Twitter sessions longer
than five minutes no laptops in meetings
and less I’m thinking notes and
definitely definitely note email or
social media first thing in the morning
keep that precious time for your most
important thoughts now we can’t totally
switch off that will be ridiculous try
telling your boss or your family or your
friends
I don’t do email anymore I’m sorry how
many of you want to go back to walking
into a travel agency or a bank to
conduct a transaction I don’t okay but
we can take better control of the
technology we have in front of us
structure a life where we are using it
on the terms that we dictate rather than
the terms that the companies are telling
us and all the alerts and the beeps and
the chimes are making us feel so
technology is evolving faster and faster
okay and this will continue three years
ago how many of you knew what Alexa was
now we can’t stop talking about her
literally virtual virtual reality is on
the horizon it’s coming very quickly and
that’s total tech immersion but one
we have to continue renegotiating our
relationship with technology but we can
continue to construct a life with
technology that’s productive and happy
and the best way to do that is to keep
asking ourselves the simple question how
do I feel how do I feel
thank you very much you
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