Worthy Wednesdays: Wellbeing

Issue #35 - Explore how our relationship with technology is rewiring our capacity for depth, solitude, and authentic decision-making and what it means to be human in an algorithmic age.

💡 Your relationship with technology is rewiring your relationship with yourself, often without your conscious consent.

Every notification is training your nervous system to expect interruption. Every algorithm is shaping what you think you want. Every recommendation is influencing what you believe is possible. Every metric is teaching you how to measure your worth.

We're living through the largest uncontrolled psychological experiment in human history, and we're both the subjects and the unwitting collaborators.

Are you using technology consciously, or is technology using you unconsciously?

Your technological wellbeing depends on your ability to remain the author of your own experience while engaging with systems designed to predict and influence that experience.

🔄 Your phone isn't a tool. It's a portal to someone else's agenda for your attention, energy, and choices.

We call them "personal devices," but there's nothing personal about the algorithms driving them. They're designed by teams of neuroscientists, behavioural economists, and data scientists whose job is to make your choices predictable and profitable.

Your feed isn't showing you what you need, it's showing you what will keep you scrolling. Your recommendations aren't expanding your horizons, they're narrowing them to patterns that can be monetised. Your notifications aren't serving your priorities, they're serving platform engagement metrics.

Technological wellbeing means recognising that every digital choice is either an act of sovereignty or an act of submission.​
​​​​​​​​​

🪞 Ask Yourself:

• Where has technology made your life more convenient but your mind less sharp?
  ​
• What decisions are you letting algorithms make for you that you used to make consciously?
  ​
• How has your relationship with technology changed your relationship with boredom, uncertainty, and your own internal compass?

​

🚶‍♀️Step Forward

🛠️ TOOL: The Technological Sovereignty Check
​​
Pick one domain to examine this week:

Cognitive: When did you last sit with a question for 10+ minutes without immediately searching for the answer?

Attentional: Can you focus on one task for 25+ minutes without digital distraction?

Decision-Making: What's one choice you made recently without consulting an app, algorithm, or online review?

Relational: Can you be fully present with others without documenting the experience?

Temporal: Do you control your relationship with time, or do notifications control it?

Notice: Am I the author of this experience, or am I being authored by technology?

​
🌱 Small Challenge

⚡ This week’s Wellbeing Move: Reclaim One Act of Technological Sovereignty

Choose one:

• Cognitive: Sit with a question for 20 minutes before searching for answers online
• Attentional: Turn off all notifications for 24 hours
• Decision-Making: Make one purchase without reading online reviews—trust your own assessment
• Relational: Have one meaningful conversation without documenting or sharing it
• Temporal: Plan a weekend activity based solely on your own preferences, not social media inspiration

Notice how it feels to reclaim agency in this small domain. What capacities do you rediscover when you're not being algorithmically assisted?

​
​WISDOM WHISPERER​
​

Why this whisper? Because as we become more dependent on artificial intelligence for thinking, we risk atrophying our own intelligence. The question isn't whether AI will become more human-like, it's whether humans will become more machine-like.

Your technological wellbeing depends on preserving and strengthening the irreplaceable aspects of human intelligence: intuition, creativity, wisdom, presence, and the ability to think thoughts that no algorithm could predict.

In a world of artificial intelligence, your most radical act might be staying authentically intelligent.