Mind & Body Articles & More

Do you check your phone too often? Struggle to stop doom-scrolling? Fall into arguments with strangers over social media? Play too many video games? Feel overwhelmed by the news? If so, you’re not alone, and so we’ve gathered together some of our best articles on developing a healthier relationship with technology. These might even help you to shape New Year’s resolutions for 2024!

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Technology and your well-being
You and your phone
Managing social media
Technology at work
Parenting and technology
Technology at school
Understanding robots and artificial intelligence
Entertainment, news, apps, and other interventions

Technology and your well-being

• Four Ways Technology Can Make You Happier: We can use apps and social media to support our happiness, health, goals, and relationships.
• What Makes Technology Good or Bad for Us?: How technology affects our well-being partly depends on whether it strengthens our relationships.
• How Technology Can Be Part of a Happy Life: Researchers are exploring what wellness looks like in a digital world.
• How to Keep Technology From Disrupting Your Happiness: Technology can make our lives happier and more productive—but only if we use it intentionally, a new book argues.
• How to Be Less Self-Centered When Using Technology: We can turn inward and focus on ourselves when we’re online—or we can turn outward and connect with others.
• Why It’s Important to Look Beyond the Surface of Things: Sherry Turkle explains how her complicated life history led to her career researching the social impact of technology.
• Technology of the Future Should Care for Our Well-Being: As technology permeates our lives, it should be designed to boost our kindness, empathy, and happiness.

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You and your phone

• What is Your Phone Doing to Your Relationships?: New research is exploring how phubbing—ignoring someone in favor of our mobile phone—hurts our relationships, and what we can do about it.
• How to Stop Your Smartphone from Hurting Your Health: 
You can manage your technology use to protect your health and happiness.
• Six Tips for Reading Emotions in Text Messages: Text messaging can breed disastrous misunderstandings between people. Here’s how to stop that from happening.
• Can Sexting Increase Relationship Satisfaction?: The research to date says yes—but only in certain conditions.
• Ghosting Someone May Hurt You as Much as It Hurts Them: 
A new study finds that people who cut off communication with someone without an explanation may suffer depressive symptoms afterward.
• Should You Call or Text? Science Weighs In: A new study suggests that we undervalue the bonding and enjoyment we get from hearing someone’s voice.
• Instead of Pulling Out Your Phone, Let Your Mind Wander: When we’re waiting, we often have the urge to distract ourselves—but a new study finds we’d enjoy doing nothing but think.

Managing social media

• How to Use Social Media Wisely and Mindfully: It’s time to be clear about how social media affects our relationships and well-being—and what our intentions are each time we log on.
• How Social Media Can Add to Your Well-Being (Not Detract From It): Instead of bemoaning the ills of social media, we can try to use it in ways that support our relationships, identity, and success in life.
• 11 Tips for Protecting Yourself From Upsetting Images on Social Media: We’re confronted with images and videos of war, racist violence, and more online. Here’s how to stay informed while taking care of yourself.
• The Upside to Admitting You Were Wrong Online: A new study suggests that people who are willing to admit they’re wrong during Facebook arguments are liked and respected more.
• How to Avoid the Social Media Outrage Trap: Here are six ways to keep your head when the internet loses it.
• Are Social Media Driving Political Polarization?: Battles rage on Facebook and Twitter—but their influence on real-world politics is subtler than you might think.
• Five Ways to Build Caring Community on Social Media: It’s time to ask what behaviors might support other people’s well-being on social media.
• What Makes Positive Content Go Viral?: New research investigates why we share inspiring videos, articles, and social media posts.

Technology at work

• Four Reasons Why Zoom Can Be Exhausting: A new paper explains why videoconferencing exhausts the mind and body and how to protect yourself.
• The Mental Health Consequences of Staring at Yourself on Zoom All Day: Being in front of a camera makes you objectify yourself and focus on your appearance, which is bad for mental health—especially women’s.
• How Remote Work Affects Our Communication and Collaboration: A new study analyzed how coworkers interact when they work remotely.
• Can Technology Help Remote Workers to Be Happier?: Here’s how to minimize the disadvantages of working outside of an office.
• How—and Why—to Take Your Life Back from Email: Regain your time, attention, and energy from the email machine.
• Can a Digital Gratitude Journal Help Nurses Under Stress?: Research suggests that online gratitude journaling is good for our well-being, even in difficult circumstances.
• What If Work Software Were Designed to Make You Happy?: Research suggests that technology can be designed to make work more enjoyable (rather than frustrating).

Parenting and technology

• What Happens When You Use Your Phone Around Your Kids: The more often parents are on their smartphones in front of their kids, the lower the children’s emotional intelligence.
• Does Your Child Have an Unhealthy Relationship With Technology?: It’s quite possible that your fears about your child’s screen time are unfounded.
• How Children Think About Their Own Well-Being Online: Researchers asked kids around the world about their digital lives and what kinds of online experiences would make them happy.
• How Do Young People Really Feel about Technology?: Young people don’t love their devices as much as we think they do. In fact, they want our help disconnecting from them.
• How to Protect Teens From the Risks of Social Media: Advisories from the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Psychological Association highlight how social media affect youth mental health.
• Five Tips for Helping Teens Manage Technology: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to guiding teens’ technology use, but it helps to understand both the technology and normal brain development.
• How Your Teen Can Thrive Online: Two new books look at how the Internet is affecting teens—and what adults can do to help foster a healthy online life for kids.
• How to Raise a Kid with a Conscience in the Digital Age: Nudge kids to be their best selves by encouraging them to consume positive, inspiring media and online content.
• Three Tips for Parents to Put Away Their Phones: New research suggests your phone may undermine your parenting. Here’s how to limit your own screen time.

Technology at school

• How Technology Can Link Teachers, Students, and Parents: When parents and teachers communicate, they can partner to support children’s learning.
• How Technology Can Help All Students Become More Grateful: Schools can teach gratitude in a way that’s more equitable and inclusive.
• Teaching Gratitude Can Help Reduce Cyberbullying: A new study finds that students who learn about gratitude for a month are less likely to bully their peers.
• How Children Can Bridge Differences Through Virtual Exchange: The Empathy Across the USA program connects diverse classrooms to help students build understanding and take action on local issues.
• How You Can Help Kids Be Good People Online: Character education might be the key to a better internet and help kids flourish online, suggests a team of researchers in the U.K.

Understanding robots and artificial intelligence

• Can Artificial Intelligence Help Us Become Less Lonely?: AI is likely to exacerbate the loneliness epidemic—unless we design it to strengthen connection and community instead.
• What Does a Human-Robot Relationship Look Like?: When people encounter social robots, they tend to treat them as both machine and character, explains a new paper.
• Can You Teach a Robot to Love?: Researchers are using their knowledge of how human emotion develops to try to build robots that can feel.
• Seeing Human: Human beings have a deep-seated tendency to humanize everything around them. Is it delusion—or a natural and healthy response to loneliness?
• Can We See What’s Human in a Robot?: When people look at robots, chimpanzees, or beetles, they tend to see themselves—which might reveal something about how our brains work.

Entertainment, news, apps, and other interventions

• Why Some Mental Health Apps Aren’t Helpful: Do mental health apps work? Experts explain the risks, and how to choose one wisely.
• Do Mindfulness Apps Work?: Research on mindfulness apps is limited, but here’s what we know so far.
• In Pursuit of Happiness: What Works Best for You?: Our one-month, online Pathway to Happiness program made people happier, more connected and grateful, and more resilient to stress.
• Six Tips to Avoid Being Overwhelmed by the News: Here’s how to cope when all the negative news is triggering you.
• Why We Need Hopeful News: Reading news stories that offer solutions and hope can make us more engaged with the news.
• How to Avoid Picking Up Prejudice from the Media: News, entertainment, and social media shape how we behave toward different groups of people. How can we limit negative influences?
• How Positive Media Can Make Us Better People: Research sometimes suggests that movies and other media are a negative influence to rein in. But new studies highlight their potential to spread goodness on a wide scale.