Weekly Theme Round Up - Mental Well-being
And good reads on Tech & Society
Hello!
This week I shared 6 products that can aid your mental well-being and 6 articles on building technology that's ethical, inclusive, and does long-term good to our society
Products that aid your mental well-being
- Wysa - AI safe space where instead of talking to another human being, you are anonymously guided by an “AI penguin” which listens to you empathetically and allows you to depersonalise your stress.
- Being - Pioneers the concept of mini-therapy. It's a unique self-therapy app (read: buddy) that cares. It's your mental health friend and self-care guide.
- 7Cups - Connects you to caring listeners for free emotional support. You can be a listener too and help the people looking for emotional support.
- HabitStrong - Offers live online bootcamps to build life-changing habits. Even if you don't enrol in their bootcamp, I'd recommend following content created by its founder - Rajan Singh.
- FutureMe - Allows you to write a letter to your future self and be your cheerleader
- Padlet - A collaboration tool that can be used for expressing gratitude for your friends and family.
In addition to the products I mentioned above, one application I've seen evolve from 0-1 is Now & Me. It's helps you share feelings anonymously with a group of supportive people. While 7Cups help you have 1-1 conversation with a listener, Now & Me helps you share something really personal and get help from peers on the platform.
Interesting reads on Tech & Society
In my daily emails, I elaborate on key takeaways from the article. In weekly roundup articles, such as this, I try to mention a one line summary/quote. To read the full-article, click on the link under the quote.
Do not work on something if you yourself do not want to live in the world where you are massively successful.
Value Beyond Instrumentalization
The Internet is not an autonomous being. Its growing energy use is the consequence of actual decisions made by software developers, web designers, marketing departments, publishers and internet users. With a lightweight, off-the-grid solar-powered website, we want to show that other decisions can be made.
There are also several examples of how AI can be intentionally used in an unethical way. This is even scarier than the unintentional flaws as this is a conscious choice people make to misuse AI and algorithms to harm others.
This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized world lures us to be who strangers wish us to be. And with personal development so arduous and lonely, there is ease and comfort in crowdsourcing your identity. But amid such temptations, it's worth remembering that when you become who your audience expects at the expense of who you are, the affection you receive is not intended for you but for the character you're playing, a character you'll eventually tire of. So the next time you find yourself in the limelight of other people’s gazes, remember that being someone often means being fake, and if you chase the approval of others, you may, in the end, lose the approval of yourself.
The Perils of Audience Capture
Over the past few decades, we have helped build a corporate culture that systematically prioritizes short-term gains over longer-term product health.
Tech product managers don’t have a regulatory body to de-certify bad actors, as there are for doctors or lawyers. And we’re deeply involved in new product ideation/validation, with strong financial incentives to work on “winning” products with scalable business models for investors who fund growth at any (social) cost… which invites money-driven self-justification. But now seems like a good time to push for broader accountability within product management and within the C-suite. To stand up for our users and broadly defined stakeholders as well as our investors.
Thank you for reading! Watch out for tomorrow's email where I reveal the theme of products and articles for next week.
