Rewylding CIC

This piece from Melissa J Perry, published by the College of Public Health, George Mason University, analyses and highlights a deeper study presented by Harvard Business Review on AI and it’s affect on cognition (link to HBR here).

Both the study and article draw attention to the risks of overuse, or poorly delivered expectation to using this technology; leading to stress, burn out, more mistakes being made, lower productivity and increase in people having ‘active intent to leave’ their workplace. The original study also highlights how effective use of AI and effective integration of it, presents evidence that it can relieve stress in the workplace when it’s used to remove or simplify taxing tasks.

How Does This Inform Our Work at Rewylding?

We are seeing an increase of expectation to use AI in the work place alongside casual use of it in everyday life (We will be discussing the studies on these examples in other posts no doubt) On a personal experience level, I hear varied and contradictory feelings around this as we are told ‘AI is here to stay and you would be better of embracing it’ alongside those who boycott it entirely. We know AI use has a potentially negative affect on mental health and cognition, let alone the potential impacts it will have on our future economy and society and how that will impact humanity.

People are feeling stressed about using it, choosing not to use it, being required to use it, how it affects children’s brains, adult brains, relationships, using it as a therapist, how fast it is evolving, the levels to which it is used in relation to our systems and data. It’s an exhausting list of new things to stress about atop so many others and that is without getting into this particular studies findings, which I feel should more be used to inform how business and business leaders approach the use and delivery of their expectations.

I believe our work at Rewylding is to offer balance. Regardless of what role AI plays in your life, if an individual feels they ‘have’ to engage with it or not, spending time in community and in nature is known to reduce stress levels and build healthy connections. If AI integration and all the afore mentioned is a stress factor, and we now know how severe and persistent stress leads to injury and mental ill health, how can we ease that? By providing opportunities to release and remove some of the stressors.

Alright, AI is ‘here to stay’ but so is nature and human connection providing we prioritise and champion it. I believe and hold out hope for a ‘solar punk’ future where we use this technology in harmony with our place in nature. That begins with remembering we are part of it, not seperate from it

We have plans for more offerings designed specifically to target this stressor and spark conversations and thinking on how humanity as a whole can be supported as we move toward a more integrated, hopefully regenerative digital future. Most of us (if not all, barring the heads of tech companies) didn’t consent to the level of digital involvement we are living with. Now that it is here I feel like creating spaces to consciously switch off from it regularly will better enable us to think about how to utilise it for our own health and as a society.

We have many choices to make, ones that would be better informed from a place of good mental health and wellbeing than desperation, panic or fear. We know the little portal in our pockets isn’t designed to prioritise mental health, quite the opposite, but at Rewylding, we are. So come, sit around the fire, fill up your ‘cup’ and let yourself decide how you want to use this technology before picking it up again.

Kate Goth,

Founder and Director