October 21st in Tokyo: Your Health in A Virtual World

by

wfscTo cel­e­brate and help pre­pare for the 2020 Sum­mer Olympics in Tokyo, the Japan­ese Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion, Cul­ture, Sports, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy and the World Eco­nom­ic Forum are host­ing a World Forum on Sport and Cul­ture in Tokyo lat­er this week.

I’ve been asked to par­tic­i­pate in a fas­ci­nat­ing ses­sion on Fri­day, Octo­ber 21st, titled Your Health in a Vir­tu­al World, address­ing the ques­tion How is our soci­etal obses­sion with tech­nol­o­gy chang­ing our health and well-being?

Speak­ers are:

  • Mei Ling Doery, Co-Founder, Mix Tech­nolo­gies, Australia
  • Alvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer and Edi­tor-in- Chief, Sharp­Brains, USA
  • Shoukei Mat­sumo­to, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor and Bud­dhist Priest, Japan Fel­low­ship of Bud­dhists, Japan
  • Andrej Naber­goj, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Iddic­tion, USA
  • Mod­er­at­ed by Cheryl Mar­tin, Head of Cen­tre of Glob­al Indus­tries, Mem­ber of the Man­ag­ing Board, World Eco­nom­ic Forum

BrainFitnessJapanese_AmazonTo frame the con­ver­sa­tion, I’m think­ing about the fol­low­ing open­ing remarks, based on the key insights from our book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (which recent­ly became avail­able in Japan­ese):

1) We are smarter and health­i­er than ever, so it is not true that tech­nol­o­gy (or Google) is killing our brains.

2) But it’s true is that we are fac­ing grow­ing health and brain chal­lenges. Why? Because, even if we are smarter and health­i­er, our fit­ness is not keep­ing up with the demands on our brains and minds in our increas­ing­ly com­plex work and life envi­ron­ment. We live longer lives, and soci­ety changes faster than ever before.

3) What’s the solu­tion? For starters, to pay more atten­tion to Brain Fit­ness, both from indi­vid­ual and insti­tu­tion­al per­spec­tives (how to edu­cate our chil­dren, how to bet­ter equip employ­ees, how to empow­er old­er adults). We need to improve brain fit­ness lit­er­a­cy for peo­ple of all ages to under­stand our brains, to use them wise­ly, and also to max­i­mize their life­long health and performance.

Look­ing for­ward to a rich discussion!