AHS19

Today’s screen-based devices present unprecedented challenges to our psychological health and personal fulfilment. For as we are coming to understand, our ancestral brains can all too easily be seduced by false promises of virtual environments that drain our attention and energy away from what really matters to us. Why do these new technologies exert such a persuasive influence over our choices? How can this influence unwittingly contribute to mental health problems that lead people to seek psychological therapy? And what can we do as individuals to rein in the power of our own devices while using them to enhance our lives? To address these questions, in this poster presentation I will outline key insights we can take away from psychological research and clinical experience. For us biological inheritors of pre-Screen-Era brains, mastering this new double-edged tool is a crucial competency of daily living – to this end we surely have much to learn from each other’s experiences.