Celling Your Soul

Book excerpt: In one short decade, we have totally changed the way we interact with one another. The Millennials and iGenerations, the first to be socialized in a digital world, are now feeling the unintended consequences. More and more are saying enough is enough. Research now shows a population with an exponential increase in stress, anxiety, depression, attention deficit and obsessive-compulsive behavior who are the most technically advanced generation, yet most socially awkward. Celling Your Soul: No App For Life is written with compassion by media and social science professor Joni Siani. It evaluates the paradox of our love/hate relationship with our digital devices, explains why we feel emotionally disconnected, provides empowering strategies and simple changes for more fulfilling, balanced and authentic human connectivity within the digital landscape. This is an invaluable read for both parents and educators. It is critically important to understand how our digital media is shaping the social skills and mental health of the next generations. When it comes to fulfilling emotional “connections,” we are human. We come with all the apps we need.“The answer to a lot of your life's questions is often in someone else's face. Try putting your iPhones down every once in a while and look at peoples faces. People's faces will tell you amazing things.”Amy Poehler, Harvard Commencement Speech, May 25, 2011“We have to love our technology enough to describe it accurately and we have to love ourselves enough to confront technology's true effect on us.”Sherry Turkle, MIT Professor, Author Alone Together“We live in a society where we are more preoccupied with our phones than with each other.”Brady Quinn, about Kansas City Chief Jovan Belcher's suicide“It's an invention's intellectual ethic that has the most profound effect on us. The intellectual ethic is the message that a medium or other tool transmits into the minds and culture of its users.”Nicolas Carr, The Shallows