Speech

How can the Apple Watch be a true Piece of Positive Technology?

The internet is going mad about the soon-to-come launch of the Apple Watch. After checking out what it actually can do. some people think it´s a useless marketing fad, other feel it´s the best thing since sliced bread. Via Twitter, Wall Street Journal writer Geoffrey Fowler asked:

For me, the true challenge would be turning it into a piece of positive technology. Here are my three ideas:

  1. As far as I know, the Apple Watch can check my pulse. Then a fine-tuned app could very well detect irregular patterns or longer breaks to a pretty high degree of certainty. As such, it could possibly detect symptoms of an impending cardiac arrest – and then send a emergency SMS using GPS data.
  2. As far as I know, the Apple Watch can record my speech (the iPhone can). As such, it could be used to prevent depression. There is some evidence that usage of certain words, but also certain speech characteristics (e.g., prosody) are predictive of depressive symptoms. If a person is prone to this kind of disorder, a speech recorder could automatically capture sound bites at random intervals over the day. If the elements of “depressive speech” increase over several days based on appropriate algorithms, the Apple Watch could notify the owner – or his/her doctor.
  3. As far as I know, the Apple Watch can mow my lawn. Oh wait, it can´t? Well…

What are your ideas?

Study: Some Languages are Happier than others. Hint: German didn´t make No. 1

A couple of weeks ago, I was musing about the notion that the German language may just not be the perfect vehicle for Positive Psychology – as I feel my mother tongue may lack specific positive words, or at least displays a certain lack of breadth and differentiation at the positive end of the “language scale”. While this “lost in translation” effect was based on my intuition and personal experience, recent research supports my notion at least to some extent. As part of a large-scale study, researchers collected the most frequently used words in all of the major languages of the world – and then had them rated for positivity/negativity by natives speakers.

Finding No. 1: Positivity

Each and every language is positively skewed. Means: across languages, positive words are used more often than negative words.

No. 2: Distribution

Some languages are heavily inclined to the positive side (e.g, Spanish), while others are more balanced (e.g., Chinese). German is located in the lower middle part, so we use positive words less often than a lot of other languages (including English).

I think this study is able to shed some light on why someone might feel the aforementioned “lost in translation” effect when trying to bring Positive Psychology to a culture other than the “typical” Anglo-Saxon context. It just might be a (slight) case of an emotional mismatch.
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