This report documents how the ongoing digital transformation is affecting people’s lives across the 11 key dimensions that make up the How’s Life? Well-being Framework (Income and wealth, Jobs and earnings, Housing, Health status, Education and skills, Work-life balance, Civic engagement and ...

Our world is, increasingly, a digital one. Over half of the planet’s adult population now spend more of their waking hours ‘plugged in’ than not, whether to the internet, mobile telephony, or other digital media. To email, text, tweet and blog our way through our careers, relationships and even our family lives is now the status quo. But what effect is this need for constant connection really having? For the first time, Tom Chatfield examines what our wired life is really doing to our minds and our culture - and offers practical advice on how we can hope to prosper in a digital century. One in the new series of books from The School of Life, launched May 2012: How to Stay Sane by Philippa Perry How to Find Fulfilling Work by Roman Krznaric How to Worry Less About Money by John Armstrong How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff How to Thrive in the Digital Age by Tom Chatfield How to Think More About Sex by Alain de Botton

Re-civilize Life Online! PROVEN Conflict Management and Prevention for Social Media and the Web Ever seem like the Web is just one big screaming match? Ever feel like you’re refereeing a worldwide tantrum on YOUR social media sites, blogs, and online forums? That’s not good for your goals—or your sanity. Stop. Now. Step back. Take a breath. And solve the problem. Thought you couldn’t? You can: there are proven best practices for getting people to be civil online. Even when they disagree. Even if they’re complaining. You can avoid misunderstandings that lead to flame wars, and promote constructive conversation amongst those with strongly held views. And, finally, you can handle the people that just can’t be civilized. Today, these skills are flat-out imperative. Everyone who leads, curates, manages, or participates in online communities needs them. Andrea Weckerle hasn’t just compiled them: she’s created a 30-Day Action Plan for restoring civility to your corner of the digital world. This plan works—and not one moment too soon. Master the foundational skills you need to resolve and prevent conflict online Understand the dynamics of each online conflict, from procedural disputes to online lynch mobs Stay cool and effectively manage conflict in even the highest-pressure online environments Differentiate between what people say and what they really want Create a positive online footprint—or start cleaning up a negative image Recognize online troublemakers and strategize ways to handle them Manage your own anger—and, when necessary, express it online safely and productively Strategically manage others’ online hostility and frustration Limit risks to your organization’s online reputation due to actions it can’t control Draft and implement corporate social media policies that actually work

The internet and the mobile phone have disrupted many of our conventional understandings of ourselves and our relationships, raising anxieties and hopes about their effects on our lives. In this second edition of her timely and vibrant book, Nancy Baym provides frameworks for thinking critically about the roles of digital media in personal relationships. Rather than providing exuberant accounts or cautionary tales, it offers a data-grounded primer on how to make sense of these important changes in relational life Fully updated to reflect new developments in technology and digital scholarship, the book identifies the core relational issues these media disturb and shows how our talk about them echoes historical discussions about earlier communication technologies. Chapters explore how we use mediated language and nonverbal behavior to develop and maintain communities, social networks, and new relationships, and to maintain existing relationships in our everyday lives. The book combines research findings with lively examples to address questions such as: Can mediated interaction be warm and personal? Are people honest about themselves online? Can relationships that start online work? Do digital media damage the other relationships in our lives? Throughout, the book argues that these questions must be answered with firm understandings of media qualities and the social and personal contexts in which they are developed and used. This new edition of Personal Connections in the Digital Age will be required reading for all students and scholars of media, communication studies, and sociology, as well as all those who want a richer understanding of digital media and everyday life.

Whether you’re designing consumer electronics, medical devices, enterprise Web apps, or new ways to check out at the supermarket, today’s digitally-enabled products and services provide both great opportunities to deliver compelling user experiences and great risks of driving your customers crazy with complicated, confusing technology. Designing successful products and services in the digital age requires a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in interaction design, visual design, industrial design, and other disciplines. It also takes the ability to come up with the big ideas that make a desirable product or service, as well as the skill and perseverance to execute on the thousand small ideas that get your design into the hands of users. It requires expertise in project management, user research, and consensus-building. This comprehensive, full-color volume addresses all of these and more with detailed how-to information, real-life examples, and exercises. Topics include assembling a design team, planning and conducting user research, analyzing your data and turning it into personas, using scenarios to drive requirements definition and design, collaborating in design meetings, evaluating and iterating your design, and documenting finished design in a way that works for engineers and stakeholders alike.

The practical handbook for understanding and winning in the post-COVID digital age and becoming a 21st century leader. For every enterprise and its leaders, the digital age is a roller-coaster ride with more than its fair share of thrills and spills. It presents them with great opportunities to leapfrog and grow. However, success is not easy in the Digital Age. It requires a complete overhaul of the business model and organizational design, and the mind-sets of professionals. Such a large and complex change is not easy to manage, and enterprises often lose their way in their digital transformation attempts. Nitin brings in this book his 25+ years of experience in leadership roles in world-class firms like Mckinsey and Fidelity and Digital natives like Flipkart and Incedo. He presents compelling insights and practical examples and answers key questions on how enterprises can win in the Digital Age: • Why do firms fail at digital transformation? • How are the rules of business changing in the digital age? What disruptive opportunities does digital present in various industries? • How to best leverage the potential of digital technologies like AI and the Cloud? • How do organizational capabilities and culture need to change? • What new skills do leaders and young professionals need to build? Nitin brings clarity to the transformation process, breaking it down into seven building blocks and presenting how best to master them. The book is a practitioner’s guide for people across all age groups - students, young professionals, experienced professionals, senior executives on how they can realize the amazing opportunities the digital age offers them and achieve their true potential at work and in personal life.

'This is the most important - and fascinating - book yet written about how the digital age will affect our world' Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs From two leading thinkers, the widely anticipated book that describes a new, hugely connected world of the future, full of challenges and benefits which are ours to meet and harness. The New Digital Age is the product of an unparalleled collaboration: full of the brilliant insights of one of Silicon Valley's great innovators - what Bill Gates was to Microsoft and Steve Jobs was to Apple, Schmidt (along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin) was to Google - and the Director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, formerly an advisor to both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Never before has the future been so vividly and transparently imagined. From technologies that will change lives (information systems that greatly increase productivity, safety and our quality of life, thought-controlled motion technology that can revolutionise medical procedures, and near-perfect translation technology that allows us to have more diversified interactions) to our most important future considerations (curating our online identity and fighting those who would do harm with it) to the widespread political change that will transform the globe (through transformations in conflict, increasingly active and global citizenries, a new wave of cyber-terrorism and states operating simultaneously in the physical and virtual realms) to the ever present threats to our privacy and security, Schmidt and Cohen outline in great detail and scope all the promise and peril awaiting us in the coming decades. A breakthrough book - pragmatic, inspirational and totally fascinating. Whether a government, a business or an individual, we must understand technology if we want to understand the future. 'A brilliant guidebook for the next century . . . Schmidt and Cohen offer a dazzling glimpse into how the new digital revolution is changing our lives' Richard Branson