Happy February! In honor of this new month, I wanted to share this very cool podcast series I discovered this week on National Public Radio. The show New Tech City is hosting a series called "Bored and Brilliant", and I think it's absolutely, well, brilliant. The series focuses on how much time we spend on our smartphones and screens and while this is ok in moderation, it has infinite known and unknown effects on our brains over the long run,
"There’s a close link between originality, novelty, and creativity... and these sort of spontaneous thoughts that we generate when our minds are idle", says Jonny Smallwood, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of York in the UK. When you consider that the average mobile phone user checks his/her phone 150 times a day (!), it's no wonder we can often feel bereft of creative ideas, not to mention the motivation to act on them. Check out the original article here for more shocking facts about electronic device use and its effects on our very impressionable brains.
To cultivate such a dependent relationship with our device is to banish any chance we have of zoning out, being bored, daydreaming, or just watching the world go by. Sign up for this free podcast series HERE to dive in and see firsthand how your screen-time affects your creativity. The podcast is specifically designed to encourage us to put down our phones in order to boost our own creativity, which is born out of downtime and daydreaming. Along with a daily challenge (such as go a day without taking photos on your phone), you will get access to a number of really fascinating interviews with folks around the country talking about boredom and creativity. And the coolest part? New Tech City will be gathering data from people all over the country about screen-time so that the statistics and numbers you'll read about are happening in real time. Yes, very cool.
So put down your phone and dare to be bored! For me it actually helps to think of being bored as people watching in a coffee shop, looking out the window on the bus, or even just snuggling with my cat when I walk in the door from work. Anything that doesn't involve busyness and compulsive email checking counts for me.
Are you in?
"There’s a close link between originality, novelty, and creativity... and these sort of spontaneous thoughts that we generate when our minds are idle", says Jonny Smallwood, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of York in the UK. When you consider that the average mobile phone user checks his/her phone 150 times a day (!), it's no wonder we can often feel bereft of creative ideas, not to mention the motivation to act on them. Check out the original article here for more shocking facts about electronic device use and its effects on our very impressionable brains.
To cultivate such a dependent relationship with our device is to banish any chance we have of zoning out, being bored, daydreaming, or just watching the world go by. Sign up for this free podcast series HERE to dive in and see firsthand how your screen-time affects your creativity. The podcast is specifically designed to encourage us to put down our phones in order to boost our own creativity, which is born out of downtime and daydreaming. Along with a daily challenge (such as go a day without taking photos on your phone), you will get access to a number of really fascinating interviews with folks around the country talking about boredom and creativity. And the coolest part? New Tech City will be gathering data from people all over the country about screen-time so that the statistics and numbers you'll read about are happening in real time. Yes, very cool.
So put down your phone and dare to be bored! For me it actually helps to think of being bored as people watching in a coffee shop, looking out the window on the bus, or even just snuggling with my cat when I walk in the door from work. Anything that doesn't involve busyness and compulsive email checking counts for me.
Are you in?
