Online: Can digital communities be a training ground for real-life interactions?


Details
Our first online event! The access code is: 064736
Download Zoom here if you haven't already: https://zoom.us/download
Each month we host a guest to lead a conversation that reflects the Team Human values.
This month we'll speak with Amy Giddon, CEO and cofounder of mobile app, Daily Haloha. With Amy, we'll explore if online digital communities can be a training ground for real-life interactions. Can the seeds of empathy be planted in an anonymous and ephemeral exchange with others?
Amy is passionate about the twin (and correlating?) problems of increased loneliness and reduced empathy. We don’t have to look far to see signs of mounting isolation and tribalism, and to feel its effects. Research points to three underpinnings: a decline in trust and empathy, increasing depression and anxiety, and heightened loneliness and social isolation around the world. What’s more, our penchant for empathizing is not only declining, but we’re applying it more selectively, to our “own team”.
While social media’s role in echo chambers, polarization, and amplifying outrage has been the subject of much scrutiny, research is just emerging on the impact of social media on our mental health. Linkages between social media use and social isolation and anxiety are now documented, confirming what we’ve felt all along: that measuring our self-worth by external validation on platforms built on judgment and status diminishes our humanity. Yet, we are wired to connect and inherently altruistic.
Amy's app, Daily Haloha, is a digital experiment aiming to reverse the trends in loneliness and empathy – while providing an antidote to a social media that is an accelerant to social division and individual isolation. The app is a simple daily ritual of self-reflection and anonymous sharing intended to connect people more deeply to themselves and others.
Together we'll explore the role of anonymity in digital connection and community. How it helps, what its limitations are, and if people can feel "connected" without sharing identities. We'll also ask if digital communities can be a practice ground for real-life interactions.
We'll put our minds together to find how each of us can contribute towards this purpose.
We'll start the event meeting and catching-up. Our guests will share some of their work and then have a discussion on the topic/issue they're presenting.
Our goals for these events are to hear and share new ideas, challenge ourselves and others, and be able to leave the event with opportunities for ground-level action.

Online: Can digital communities be a training ground for real-life interactions?