Skip to 0 minutes and 10 seconds Once upon a time, there was a world before our own: a land where the internet didn’t exist; where digital technologies did not permeate our every waking hour. It was a magical place… of playing outdoors, looking up information in books, visiting the library! An age when you didn’t know everybody’s bad opinions on every single topic, and where meeting people actually involved going to a physical place! That fabled land is a fading memory. Now it’s hard to go a day without using online digital technologies.
Skip to 0 minutes and 46 seconds We face a new and confusing world, where we can barely tell fact from fairytale; where trolls no-longer simply hide under bridges; where mobs are ready to pounce on our every indiscretion, and where big bad wolves keep their big big eyes on us, recording our every action. Has something got lost in this digital forest? Is our Prince Charming ghosting us or micro-cheating? Have we traded the prospect of a happy ending for a handful of magic beans? The world we’re in is not all grim, but it reminds us anew of the need to look after our health, safety, relationships… even our environment – not only in the physical reality of old, but in the virtual spaces we now inhabit.
Skip to 1 minute and 36 seconds In this course we’ll be exploring some of the research, from York and elsewhere, that seeks to investigate the positive uses of digital technologies for our health, society and education. We’ll question how we might use such technologies in a way which fosters safe, accessible, and socially responsible online communities; …that makes this new world of our a better place for all of us. So join us on our quest, as we step between these physical and virtual spaces in pursuit of our personal and social wellbeing, reflecting on our own practices, and exploring the different ways by which we might all live with digital technology happily ever after…
