The Secret to Happiness: Connection to Others

Following the last piece where we asked the question, “How is my tech health and how is technology use affecting my wellness?”, let’s look at a related question this week.

What can we invest in this year to become a happier person??

Spoiler alert – it isn’t found at the Apple store or on your favorite streaming service. And it’s not traded on the stock market.

NPR did a piece on this very question, using the Harvard Study of Adult Development that has tracked individuals over the last 85 years. The study’s director, Robert Waldinger has looked at the data and has a simple answer as to what we should invest in for happiness.

“They should invest in their relationships with other people. We found that the strongest predictors of who not just stayed happy but who was healthy as they went through life - the strongest predictors were the warmth and the quality of their relationships with other people.”

He goes on to talk about our relationships as protection against stress and all of the ways it manifests in our bodies, affecting mental, spiritual and physical health. This against the backdrop of society where loneliness is an epidemic, with 1 of every 2 Americans reporting that they do not have a single person in their life they feel they can confide in. It reflects that we, on a societal level, are not investing in relationships with those around us. (U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has made the loneliness epidemic a point of emphasis over the last years.)

And here is where considering our relationship to technology is important – in a given moment, we often have the option to talk to our screen or talk to a live human next to us. If we want to find ourselves happy throughout this year and our lifetime, investing our energy in the live human is the right answer.

In fact, as everyone hits the gym for the January fitness rush, we can work on something coined by Waldinger as “social fitness” as well. He defines this as “tending to our relationships just like we take care of our physical health, just like we take care of physical fitness.”

Let’s get fit y’all. Socially fit, that is.

A few questions to ask yourself:

1)    How would I describe my social fitness at this moment?

2)    What are the relationships I am doing really well at, investing time and energy toward them?

3)    What are the relationships that are in need of more investment.

4)    Finally, based on the above, think of a few action steps for this week. Maybe a high school friend who you will write a letter to, a former work colleague who you will call, a family member who you schedule a coffee date with, etc.

p.s Click here to listen to the NPR piece on happiness

A Tech Assessment for the New Year

My patient, a retired teacher, looked embarrassed as he said it.

“I don’t have a smart phone. I don’t have a computer.”

I had to check the readings – somehow, despite this lack of technology in his life, his heart rate was perfectly normal. His oxygen reading was also in the normal range. Skin color looked perfectly healthy. He even wore a smile on his face.

Quickly, trying to keep him from noticing, my brain went into full speed investigation mode.

"How is this medically possible? A human being who is meeting all criteria for being alive, yet he is not connected to technology? Worse yet, he doesn’t seem to carry guilt over this lack of technology, nor does he seem concerned about what he is missing. Should I consult psychiatry? Is this worthy of a case report for the medical literature?"

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One of the gifts we get with each new year is the chance to reassess what we want to invest our time and energy into doing.

This includes technology, and more specifically the screens that humans are more and more likely to be staring at in the check-out line, as they drive, and in any moment of pause in their day. (My mom shared how in her choir practice yesterday, it was odd to her that people didn’t connect with each other during the breaks but rather pulled out their 2x4 inch screens to “connect”.)

A list of questions that I encourage all of us to sit with. You might even write them down on paper using ink.

How much of my life energy do I want consumed by and lived through screens (phone, computer, tablet, TV, etc.) in 2023?

What is the healthy amount of consumption and living that I want to do through these devices this year? (Is there someone in my life that I feel models this healthy level of consumption? What is their strategy?)

What is being squeezed out of my life by these devices?

Am I missing things on a moment-to-moment and day-to-day basis because of these devices? If so, what am I missing?

If my phone was at 0% battery but I was at 100% at this moment, would I be content?

If I had horrible food but a phone in my hand, would I consider the meal a success?

Am I more connected or disconnected to myself and those around me because of technology?

For those with children, how is my house doing at dealing with the above questions, in theory and in practice?

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Assuming we identify places and ways we want to invest differently than the course we are currently on related to our screens and devices, it is a great chance to make some changes for your year ahead. 

Put a basket in your house entrance where phones are to be placed as you walk in. 

Take a day a week that is screen free for the entire family. 

Work actively to take control of your technology (starting with the phones we call "smart") as opposed to the other way around.

You might even channel my patient’s smile and contentment with his low-tech life. Again, if you can trust me on this as a medical professional, he seemed to be doing quite fine.