2 Sixth Street, Linden, Johannesburg
How to flourish in tomorrow’s digital world @home, @school/varsity and @work
Do you realise that the overuse of digital technologies and social media has damaging effects on all our children’s (and people’s) brains and bodies and therefore limiting our holistic and balanced development and wellness? Holistic development includes all areas and phases of our lives inter alia our cognitive (academic), emotional, social, physical as well as our spiritual development in an integrated manner.
It is important to realise that the electromagnetic waves and flat screens of e.g. smartphones and the Internet already influence babies’ brain and body development and growth from the day they are born right into adulthood.
Remember that a baby’s brain is the only organ that is not fully developed when babies are born. Ninety percent of brain development is taking place during the first five years of their lives. It is critically important to have a thorough understanding of the different neuroscientific and educational contexts where optimum development and learning take place to ensure that all of us are flourishing in today’s digital world and well into the future of tomorrow’s exciting technologies.
Have you seen the movies: Disconnect and Men, Women and Children? Both these movies highlight and confirm real-life complexities and challenges in all spheres of our lives that have become part of today’s couples and families, including teenagers and young children. Many of us have become dumb and numb to real-life adventures, and therefore dysfunctional because of our over dependency on gaming, gambling, pornography, sexting and cyberbullying that are taking place via our smartphones, computers and fingertips any place, anywhere and anytime.
These real-life realities and challenges have already been researched and described by many people in a wide variety of articles and books such as Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras and The Village Effect by Susan Pinker.
I have put all the puzzle pieces together to realise the big holistic picture of the impact on our human brains, bodies and spirits. It is now more than ever before, time to become better informed, proactive and vigilant to counteract the unintended consequences of today’s and tomorrow’s digital world on our humanity and human capacities.
Please come and join us for an exciting and challenging workshop on Saturday 4 November 2017 from 9:00 – 12:00. The focus of the workshop is on what is the neuroscientific and educational impact of too much screen time on the development of our human capacities. We will also highlight the right things to do to ensure that we as parents, children and our screens are living together in harmony and are flourishing in today’s and tomorrow’s digital world.
