Conference choice 1: The World that Changed due to Social Media: Forever with Friends, or Let’s Be Alone Together?

Conference choice 1: The World that Changed due to Social Media: Forever with Friends, or Let’s Be Alone Together?

As the world gets smaller, thanks to the internet, there have been many positive changes in the world thanks to communication. Our worlds have become smaller, and even in our own class, in our conferences, we have been able to ‘visit’ other cultures without spending a dollar on travel or going through the hassles of travel as well.

The world has become connected through social media. This has made a positive differences to people living away from their loved ones, and serves a social purpose as well. One aspect of modern relationships, of any kind, has to do with online relationships, esp those through facebook and other such sites. This has caused quite a twitter(yes, sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) on the internet-nearly 2,800,000 views. On the other hand, despite having over a hundred facebook friends, can we still be missing something? Listen to this famous talk, think about how this applies to your own life, and share your thoughts with the class. Note that there are no correct or wrong answers when it comes to your own take on this-that is up to you. Also, do share a takeaway for yourself: the ways you think that you can stay socially connected with others, either via the internet or through other, more conventional methods that have been around for ages.

Sherry Turkle: Let’s all be alone together

Conference choice 2: Live to be an active centenarians: secrets of longevity from the world’s Blue Zones.

We have talked in this class about global views on health, looked at treatments that spam the centuries and come together from across the globe, connecting the east and the west, the mind and the body. We have looked at the various avenues available to us to maintain our wellness. In this conference, let’s conclude the series by looking at some examples of some very special people, centenarians! Is there a fountain of youth, a place on earth where people live to a healthy, active 100 years, and tend to thrive till the very end, mostly dying peacefully in their sleep? A few years ago, a project funded by the National Geographic scoured the world to find a few, magical little pockets of the world, where indeed this seemed to be the case-places that became known by the code word ‘Blue Zones.’

Below, you will find a TED talk and a couple of articles on the Blue Zones. Choosing any one, or more of these resources, share with the class what you learned-what makes these magical places blue zones? Drawn from the wisdom of these world cultures, is there anything that you think you might use for yourself, to create your own little mini blue zone? You can draw from the articles, or our previous conferences on stress and wellness as well, to draw up a personalized plan for yourself: create your own blue zone!!

Here’s to a long and healthy life for our classmembers!

Blue zones Ted talk

Another article, with pictures of the Blue Zone countries by National Geographic(they funded the venture)

http://www.bluezones.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Nat_Geo_LongevityF.pdf

Article on blue zones(takes one country as an example)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2822182/