This document discusses the effects of technology on mental health and well-being. It addresses how technology is impacting lifestyle choices and health, and how this will impact the future of mental health services and research. Specific issues discussed include the relationship between automation and human work, the impact of technology on mental health, fears about job loss to technology, and how a new set of technology-related behaviors and disorders are emerging. The presentation aims to provide insights into developing digital resilience and regulating digital distraction.

1. DIGITAL MENTAL HEALTH & WELL-BEING
4 LIVING LIFE 2.0
The effects of Technology on Society, Mind,
Behaviour, and Well-Being.
(From a psychological, philosophical and
technological perspective)
Salema Veliu
2ND
INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE ON
CLINICAL
PSYCHOLOGY
PARIS 24.1.19

2. Effects of
Technology on
Mental Health
and Well-Being
• The relationship between automation and
human work as well as the impact of
Technology on Mental Health and Well-Being
has and is a longstanding area of concern.
• Raising complex questions around public
policy that have technical, social and ethical
implications.
• This presentation will touch of some of these
thought provoking areas, in particular how
technology is impacting lifestyle choices and
health and how this will impact the future
deliveries of mental health services and
research.

3. DATA, AI and
Well-Being
• We are standing on the brink of unfamiliar territory
in our evolution.
• The way we communicate and interact in every
domain of our lives is changing due to the
constantly evolving technology.
• What we once saw in movies and on TV that
seemed so far-fetched is now becoming our new
reality with AI transforming our world forever.
• Is technology already effecting our social
intelligence and skills in how we interact human to
human already?
• Will the rise of technology gradually change our
values and in the process change our own feelings
of self-worth. For example: changes in Work
environments will impact the types of jobs we do.

4. Understanding
the difference
between Well-
being and
Mental Health?
• Wellbeing refers to our sense of self and our
ability to live our lives as closely as possible to
the way we want to.
• Encapsulating the abilities to have positive
relationships, promote healthy living and feel life
satisfaction.
• Our sense of wellbeing is affected by how we
might feel about something we do or the
relationships we have – if something triggers
positive emotions such as happiness or
enjoyment.
• Frameworks in Positive Psychology reflect the
various elements of wellbeing.
• University of York (S. Halfpenny)

5. DEFINING MENTAL WELL-BEING AND
MENTAL HEALTH the differences
(Non-Digital)
• Are related but should be considered as 2 different concepts.
• Mental Well-being: The ability to be adaptable in order to live the life
we want.
• Mental Health: Persistent and specific markers for certain symptoms,
such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, eating disorders.
• That cause mental and emotional distress and anxiety that stop us
from living the life we want.
• Possible Coping mechanisms that we are speaking about in this
presentation; Yoga, Mindfulness, Meditation, ACT in Therapy and
Coaching.

6. A new set of technological related behaviours that have emerged
• 37 percent of participants fit the definition of a
"technophobe" -- someone who is either afraid
or very afraid of such automation as robots in
the workforce, decision-making robots,
technology they don't understand, artificial
intelligence and people who trust artificial
intelligence to do work.
• More than a third of those in the study fit its
definition of "technophobe" and are more
fearful of automation that could lead to job
displacement than they are of potentially
threatening or dangerous circumstances such
as romantic rejection, public speaking and
police brutality, according to the study.

7. Addressing changing needs: AI, Mental
Health and the new set of challenges
• In a recent interesting study by Baylor University
(Social Science Computer Review, 22nd March 2017)
revealed the following:
• "Technophobes" - people who fear robots, artificial
intelligence and new technology that they don't
understand - are much more likely to be afraid of
losing their jobs to technology and to suffer anxiety-
related mental health issues.
• In it, 1,541 respondents were asked about their fears
and worries about politics, crime, natural and man-
made disasters, technology, mental health and
unemployment.
• Revealing Technophobes have 95 percent greater odds
of not being able to stop or control worrying when
compared to others, and 76 percent greater odds of
feeling as if something awful might happen.

8. A new set of technology related
behaviors
• McClure's study also found that:
• Those in historically marginalized groups --
women, non-whites and the less educated --
report being most fearful of technology.
• Technophobes are three times more likely to be
fearful of unemployment when compared to
others, and nearly three times more likely to
fear not having enough money in the future.
• Technophobes have 95 percent greater odds of
not being able to stop or control worrying when
compared to others, and 76 percent greater
odds of feeling as if something awful might
happen.

9. Other
FINDINGS
• People in certain occupations may legitimately fear
losing their jobs to robots and software that can
work for cheaper and for longer hours than any
human.
• While a transformation would most likely be gradual,
it could trigger a major social unrest among those
who are displaced from their jobs, McClure said.
• * Could this lead to more antisocial behaviour?
• Anticipating the individual and social outcomes is a
matter worth pursuing," he said. "If these fears are
misplaced, more research needs to be done to dispel
technophobia as a legitimate social concern.
• Regardless of whether technology might lead to
certain people's jobs becoming obsolete, the fear
itself is real.

10. DATA AND
WELL-BEING
Algorithms have
powerful
implications for
how we live.
• Algorithms are decision-making bits of
code, and because we live in an
environment that’s dominated algorithms
are a really important presence in our
lives. They make decisions about us, and
for us, all the time.

11. Debating the effects of behaviours, societal bias and acceptance on
and offline
• Possible Effects:
• Co-dependency from what we’ve seen already in FOMO
• Social exclusion via COMPASSION DISORDER not fitting in?
• Present Nicola kramer’s research in more detail

12. Data + Behaviour
• Is our fear of missing out changing our
behaviour in other ways?
• Has the culture of instant access
undermined our capacity for patience and
our ability to concentrate?
• Whilst multitasking can be a desirable
skill, the switching between activities, and
the potential interruption of repeated
checking of devices, may be eroding our
ability to focus on a single activity.
• This is where the act of noticing practices
ACT along with educational neuroscience
can help provide deeper insights into the
areas of the brain responsible for
motivation, performance, reward,
concentration and wellbeing.

13. How data drives our behaviour
• FOMO (fear of missing out) a ‘technoference
syndrome’ both feeds, and is fed by, a speeding up
of life that is being driven by digital technology
(Digital distraction).
• Waiting and fearing not seeing an email or news
story (or not seeing it promptly enough), and missing
out (even briefly) on some bit of latest information,
compels an increased tendency of checking of
digital devices in the process triggering low self-
esteem, addiction, obsession, anxiety, obsessive
comparison disorder.
• This culture of instant access has both positive and
negative attributes.
• Whilst being able to check work emails remotely can
ease working from home, it can also push towards
workaholic attitudes and disrupt a healthy work-life
balance.
• The need to keep checking for updates can be seen
across both our social and our working lives.
• The capability of digital technologies to connect us
together can paradoxically lead to disconnection in
the physical world: the urge to keep checking in on
online interactions and relationships can mean we’re
distracted from real world interactions.

14. A new set of technology related disorders/behaviors that we
are facing in the Millennials’ Generation :
• Video Game addiction + Depression
• https://www.psychguides.com/guides/video-game-addiction-symptoms-causes-
and-effects/
• Millennials’ Biggest Problem: Obsessive Comparison Disorder
• https://relevantmagazine.com/life/millennials-biggest-problem-obsessive-
comparison-disorder
• Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/

15. How
digitally
distracted
are WE?
• What can we do to find a suitable
balance between technology and
humanity?

16. What is Digital
Resilience and
how can we
cultivate
professionally
and personally
• Digital technology has become a vital
infrastructure underpinning the functioning
of every aspect of human society,
increasingly interwoven with decision making
and business processes.
• We are approaching near total reliance.
When a human, however capable, is unable
to substitute for a digital process, it can be
said to be fully digitally dependent and its
business resilience is now an issue of digital
resilience.

17. Digital Resilience,
Distraction & Regulation
• Digital resilience is part of your personality that
develops from spending time online and facing the
challenges out there. It means you recognize when
you're at risk online and what to do.
• Digital distraction & regulation is how you monitor
and manage your time effectively online.

18. The dangers of digital on Mental
Wellbeing & Health
Our connection with social
media throws up some very
important questions:
Why do we feel the need to
increase our frequency of
looking at social media?
Is this reflecting a lack of
connection we’re feeling in
real life? By constantly adding
images for example of
instagram? (Unless it’s
educational in some way)
Are we searching for meaning
to lead a more fulfilling life?
Are we getting lost in the
virtual reality which makes
our human connections more
difficult?
Are we losing who we are in
the process?

19. Digital
Wellbeing
• In order to successfully develop the necessary skills and
tools we need to consider how digital technologies have an
impact on our emotions, relationships, and sense of self.
• This can’t simply be seen as a tick box set of skills; it needs
instead to be underpinned by a knowledge of digital society
and the measurable elements of well-being.
• By engaging with debates on the topic of technology and
health, online social networks and information security to
develop our understanding of this topic.
• Enabling us to make informed and critical decisions about
the use of different technologies to promote both our own
well-being and that of others.
• University of York (S. Halfpenny)

20. Digital
Wellbeing
• Is often defined in terms of the capabilities and skills that
an individual requires to successfully make use of digital
technologies.
• Some of the elements mentioned in the Jisc Elements of
Digital Literacy digital well-being are:
• “The capacity to look after personal health, safety,
relationships and work-life balance in digital settings”.
• This framework goes on to identify the following
capabilities in this area:
• To use digital tools to pursue personal goals for health
and fitness
• To use digital tools to participate in social and community
activities
• To act safely and responsibly in digital environments
• To manage digital workload, overload and distraction
• Act with concern for the human and natural environment
when using digital tools. Awareness to your digital
footprint.

21. Establishing active digital resilience programmes within Organisations
• Research from the Institute for Strategy Resilience & Security &
University College on ‘London Digital Resilience – Understanding the
challenges of resilience in digital environments’ (July 2018).
• Highlighted an assessment framework of key questions for leaders to
identify and address digital resilience issues within their organizations
with some of the following questions:
• Do we have an active programme to build and embed digital
resilience thinking and practice throughout our organization?
• Are we actively building resilience for both business process, existing
digital infrastructure and new infrastructure?
• Are we putting in place processes to encourage adaptive behaviour,
continual evolution and learning environment?

22. Establishing an active digital resilience
programme within Organisations
• Some valuable key takeaways in regards to
safeguarding employees as well as the
Company itself within Digital Organizational
change from this report include:
• The importance of establishing an holistic
approach to digital resilience that
encompasses the complex graph of
interactions between employees,
customers and digital services.
• Employers putting in place processes to
encourage adaptive behaviour, continual
evolution and learning environment.
Promoting good mental health and
wellbeing to their employees.

23. Digital Distraction and
regulation
New Coping
Mechanisms for
Psychological Flexibility
& Emotional Agility
• Steven Hayes and Russ Harris describe psychological
flexibility as “The ability to contact the present moment
fully as a conscious human being, and based on what the
situation affords, changing or persisting in behaviour in the
service of chosen values.”
• ACT provides the structural model for balancing between
eastern and western paradigms.
• Noticing skills – to help with Digital Distraction and
regulation.
• Value based exercises – to re-evaluate and regulate thought
processes Fusion vs Defusion.
• Fusion= Seeing the world through your thoughts, rather
than seeing the thoughts as part of your world.
• When you see the thoughts as realities, which can create
frustration, stuckness.
• Defusion= Treating thoughts as thoughts and not realities
which creates more mobility in emotions and cognition
(thinking).

24. Consciousness &
Psychological flexibility
• The ability to move in a direction
that matters to you, even if the
presence of unwanted
experiences (thoughts, feelings,
physical sensations), and in
changing circumstances.
• Psychological flexibility is the
ability to contact the present
moment more fully as a conscious
human being and to either
change behavior or persist, if
doing so serves valued end’
(Wilson & Murrell, 2005).
• Knowing what is important and
taking steps to connect with this.
• Making changes to our reaction/s
allows us to achieve the outcome
that we want to see.

25. What is Digital
Resilience and
how can we
cultivate
professionally
and personally
• Digital technology has become a vital
infrastructure underpinning the functioning
of every aspect of human society,
increasingly interwoven with decision making
and business processes.
• We are approaching near total reliance.
When a human, however capable, is unable
to substitute for a digital process, it can be
said to be fully digitally dependent and its
business resilience is now an issue of digital
resilience.

26. The Pro’s and Con’s of Digital media
(Instagram & Facebook)
• Some Pros:
• Can inspire us to make changes towards the life
we want to life.
• It can be used to inform and educate.
• Some Cons:
• Can damage our self-esteem by constant
comparing to others.
• It can sometimes give us a false sense of reality.

27. Digital Wellbeing &
Regulation?
Some Possible solutions
• One possible solution is already
available On apple smart phones
where you can monitor your
online screen time.
• Cultivate and re-learn time
management strategies using
effective time management tables
which can also been seen as a
behavioral analysis (ACT).
• YOGA,MINDFULLNESS,
MEDITATION
Dahl, J (2008) The Art and Science of Valuing in Psychotherapy: Helping Clients Discover, Explore, and Commit to Valued Action Using Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy
Why do I do what I do?
Day / Time Activity
Function
Avoidance of
something negative
Short-term fix with
something positive
Pliance (Self-Governing
rule of judgement)
Genuine Positive
Reinforcement
(Values-based)
E.g. Wed 8pm
Look at Facebook
Feeling restless and
irritable from the day
Feel excited about
seeing what others are
up to
If I sit down to relax, I’ll
only feel worse. Better
to do something
Provides a way to
connect with my friends

28. The role of
Consciousness
in mental and
physical
health?
• Can Consciousness create breakthroughs in
transformation, innovation, and well-being?
• Mindfulness is an attribute of consciousness long
believed to promote well-being.
• Many philosophical, spiritual, and psychological
traditions emphasize the importance of the quality of
consciousness for the maintenance and enhancement
of well-being (Wilber, 2000).
• Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003) study on The
benefits of being present: mindfulness and its role in
psychological well-being showed:
• That in an experience-sampling study that both
dispositional and state mindfulness predict self-
regulated behavior and positive emotional states.
• And how a clinical intervention study with cancer
patients demonstrates that increases in mindfulness
over time relate to declines in mood disturbance and
stress.

29. From the east to the West
Philosophies and practices
to help with Digital
Distraction, Regulation and
Resilience
• For me Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness
represents finding space with our own
automisation.
• “I have to see myself being a machine, to know
myself as a machine, and to be here whilst
functioning as a machine. At the same time, we
are bearers of higher possibilities. In better
moments we each feel ourselves as a particle of
something greater. We all carry in us this seed of
greatness. This is our value as Human beings.” ~
Jeanne De Salzmann
• Taken from The Fourth Way of Being of G.I.
Gurdjieff (1866-1949)

30. What else can we learn from combining
Eastern + Western philosophy?
• That our automatism is a prison and our
thoughts keep us imprisoned.
• The experiments that we perform to give us a
temporary reprieve from this automatism to shift
our identification away from the body/mind
container, are Meditation and simple noticing
techniques (ACT).
• To control mind and motivation, the practitioner
shifts their focus from the things they are aware
of, or the thoughts that they are having, to the
instrument of their awareness, which is
Consciousness.

31. Cultivating
Human
Connection &
Trust
in the workplace
• Additionally, six in 10 employees say they’d
feel more motivated and more likely to
recommend their company as a good place
to work if their employer took action to
support mental wellbeing, according to a
survey by mental health charity Mind.

32. Nurturing the
next
generation of
leaders from a
mental health
perspective
• Why is 2018 a time to see emotional
intelligence, mindfulness and mental health take
center stage in business?
• UK millennials have the some of the poorest
mental wellbeing in the world.
• According to a 2017 survey, commissioned by
the Varkey Foundation, of more than 20,000 15
to 21-year-olds in 20 countries.
• And, for business leaders, it’s in their interest to
create a nurturing working environment for
millennials, who will make up 75 per cent of the
workforce by 2025.
• https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/its-time-
talk-about-mental-health-work

33. How digital technologies and different
deliveries can be helpful
• In alignment with our changing societal,
economical and technological culture.
• Provides accessibility, affordability and
connection to match supply and demand.
• Provides services when needed, as it happens, in
conversations usually via video chats and mobile
applications.
• Can reduce waiting times: *On average in the UK
for example in Scotland and Surrey the average
waiting time is 18 weeks (just over 3 months).

34. AI the next frontier in Mental
Health
• A team of MIT researchers is claiming that
its latest AI can accurately predict
depression in a person by processing raw
text and speech data.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to
have a major impact on medical diagnosis
in the years and decades to come.
• One example is DeepMind’s latest system,
which can spot more than 50 eye diseases
by searching through scanned images of a
patient’s eyes.

35. AI the next frontier in Mental Health
• One area where there has been less
development is mental health diagnosis,
possibly because of the sheer complexity of
the human mind.
• In a recent paper however MIT researchers
revealed a neural network model that they
claim can take raw text and audio data
compiled from interviews of people to
discover speech patterns indicative of
depression.
• The team said that as a result, when
presented with a new subject, it can
accurately predict if that person is
depressed, without needing to be asked any
questions.

36. AI the next frontier and possible
push out deliveries to monitor
Mental Health
• The researchers hope that this system will allow
AI developers to create tools to detect signs of
depression in natural conversation.
• One suggestion the team made would be that in
the future, mobile apps could monitor a person’s
text and voice conversations for mental distress,
and send alerts.
• Tuka Alhanai, first author of the research, said
that it is through a person’s speech that we get
our first hint of someone’s emotional state.
• https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/predi
ct-depression-ai

37. Teaching Robotics/AI how
to connect to humans
The new face of therapy?
• A unique collaboration between Hanson
AI, SinguarlityNET and Lia, Inc. Is already
addressing how AI agents can communicate
unconditional love to humans through
conversations that adapt to the unique needs
of each user while supporting their integrative
personal and relational development.
• https://noetic.org/sites/default/files/innovatio
n-lab/IONS_Loving_AI_proposal.pdf

38. The Future of Mental Health, Well-Being
AI, Robots and Meditation the new face of therapeutic interventions?
• McCann Worldwide Japan has debuted what it claims to be the world’s first
mindfulness meditation robot that will help guide meditation.
• The robot will guide the mindfulness meditation demonstration for an experience
of looking inward and conversing with oneself.
• Research results have shown that meditation improves ability to learn and inspire
along with reducing anxiety and stress.
• The Innovation Lab at IONS is working with OpenCog and HansonRobotics to
create LOVing INtelligent General AIs or LOVING AIs — open-source artificial
general intelligences that behave as if they have unconditional love for themselves
and others.

39. What does this all mean?
• Some interesting questions to consider:
• Will AI help Life flourish as never before, meaning will we
all have more leisure time and be less stressed?
• Or will machines eventually outsmart at all tasks, and
even, perhaps, replace us altogether?