Durable Human (2 book series)

People Power plus Tech Support Enhance a Community: The NoVi Trail Network Story

Filled bike racks at Wolftrap Elementary in Vienna, Virginia

Many are puzzling over how digital technology can be designed to work more for us than against us. But countless such tools already exist to do thatit’s just a matter of how we use them. This is a personal example of how individuals orchestrated our public-serving governmental entities and digital creations to improve a community’s quality of life.

On a beautiful day in 1999, a few years after we moved to our newly-built suburban neighborhood near Washington, D.C., I got the urge to walk with my six-year-old son to a nearby park.

This was no ordinary destination, but the serene and meticulously cared-for Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, the only such facility in all of northern Virginia.

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens

Though barely a mile long, the walk itself was tough. We fought through tall grass along winding Beulah Road—surely trespassing on other people’s yards. As we trudged ahead, we noticed a trampled area, replete with the fresh detritus of a car accident.

Continue reading

New Tools Help People Set Tech Boundaries

Screen Time Screen Shot

Hooray for the big tech companies who’ve enhanced their products to offer better customer control.

Apple was surprisingly quick to roll out Screen Time, a feature that iPhone and iPad users automatically receive for free with the iOS12 update. The improvements come only a year after iPod creator Tony Fadell bemoaned “We have zero data on our habits with these devices”. Now you have your data, right down to how often you pick up your phone. You can also track exactly what you do on the device so you can better manage how you spend your time.

A Boon for Parents

Screen Time is especially life-changing for parents who now can oversee Continue reading

Insights Behind the TEDx Talk Durable Humans are Smarter Than Their Phones

Kids with arms around huge durable Sequoia tree.

Top TED talker Brene Brown nailed it at the Mom2Summit when she declared: “I’ve never done anything that was worth much unless I was scared shitless and nauseous.”

That’s exactly how I felt stepping onto the red circle at TEDx Tysons in Tysons, Virginia. But as I delivered “Durable Humans are Smarter Than Their Phones,” I was uplifted by the inspiration of a host of brilliant people I want to thank here.

Copious credit goes to Hilarie Cash, co-founder of ReStart, the nation’s first Internet addiction treatment center. Hilarie invited me in to meet people like “Jeff,” the young tech addict whose heartbreaking yet hopeful story you can read about here.

ReStart’s track record proves that simple things like cooking dinner and mopping the floor can help young people break the stranglehold of addiction and return to success in real life. By creating and sustaining Attachment, Hilarie told me in this interview, parents can help kids Continue reading

Inside America’s First Internet Addiction Treatment Center

Outside Seattle, Washington

Can simple tasks like cooking dinner and washing the dog help break a crippling compulsion to overuse screen-based media? To find out, I traveled to America’s first Internet addiction treatment center, in the outskirts of Seattle. I was told beforehand to “please keep your phone on silent and out of sight.” Here’s what happened: Continue reading

JOIN US

Sign up to receive Durable Human News

FREE DURABLE TIPS CARD

Receive a printable list of 7 durability-building habits for adults and kids

    © 2021 Austral Arc LLC Design by MonkeyPAWcreative.com.
    Some books and other products recommended on this site may be linked to the Amazon Affiliates Program. See Amazon Privacy notice.