Hello and I hope your Friday is wonderful.
Today’s post is on the heels of my last post. I cannot really do justice to the podcast TJ Power and Mo Gawdet shared last year. SO I will not try to butcher their message. TJ Power is the neuroscientist and author, reaching a whole new demographic of young people through his informative social media posts.
There is present research that shows some youth are spending as much as 20 hours on social media a day, the correlation of mental and physical health breakdown from this trend is now staring us directly in the face.
Are there ways we can teach our younger generation to get dopamine hits that energize them the “old fashioned way”? A hobby they can explore (anything unique that inspires their interest to develop further). Listening to music or perhaps creating music? Spending time in nature? Being with friends?
The reason this is such an important lifestyle habit I talk about, is because I learned through the school of hard knocks, technology can be very harmful and unsafe. Like most of us learned how to ride a bike, we also need to learn the safe ways to use technology that can benefit us all.
Here is what I learned after being victimized by cyber stalking and having to deal with the harmful emotions that come with it:
1- Think of Wizard of Oz- the Wicked Witch of the West had an army of monkeys that spied and gathered information to report back to her. This was part of the way she exercised her power, the more intelligence she obtained the more she could devise strategies that were harmful to Dorothy and her friends. If you or your children are sharing all your life online - predators will use this information against you.
2- I would receive taunting phone calls, hang ups, fake impersonations from government officials on a daily basis for awhile. Protect all your home personal details. On Facebook alone at least 12 times, people showed up on my doorstep thinking they bought a car, only for us to tell them they had been fooled by someone on marketplace. The danger is we had to tell these people there is no vehicle for sale and sorry you lost your money.
3- There were occasions when I would leave for my workouts early in the morning, and the same strange vehicles would be parked outside my home address. Thank god this stopped.
4- Nobody watches you closer than your competitor or someone who does not like you for some reason. Excessive social media posting gives them ammunition.
5- Using the the Wicked Witch and the flying monkeys analogy. What can happen to a person if bit by bit ( the monkeys) or Faceless abusers on social media launch silent hate campaigns against you or worst yet your child? That child who has not been taught the skills to use technology in a safe way, risks their emotional health, because they cannot take back what was put out there in the digital universe.
6- My safety was compromised and if I could stop that from happening to anyone else, that is one of the modern day lifestyle tips I would recommend to anyone. Learn to balance technology use and find ways to live parts of your life outside of technology.
7- Be mindful of the groups and meeting platforms you join, not all group chats and meeting spaces are safe. The information you share can be used against you. Especially platforms of very large audiences that change all the time. Many people record meetings- recording never go away. Be safe in your business and private life❤️
I hope you enjoy,
Danielle Pointon
Live Blue Consulting
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