Fully Connected: Surviving and Thriving in an Age of Overload

In 1946, the World Health Organization defined health as: "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Until now, no one has defined this third dimension to health, or described strategies to deliver it. This ground-breaking book is the first to do so.

Twenty-five years after the arrival of the Internet, we are drowning in data and deadlines; we can never have imagined that our daily intake of information and achieving a healthy balance in our personal and professional lives could feel so complex and so unhealthy. In recent years, organizations have come a long way towards promoting health literacy (on obesity, smoking, diet, and exercise) and some way in acknowledging mental health issues. But acknowledging the challenges of the Internet and social media on employee and workplace health is the social element, and most have not yet begun to offer solutions around either better information and knowledge management, or developing better and more sustaining relationships.

The challenges, threats, and opportunities of a "perma-connected" global economy and society could not be greater-and they will only increase. This is the first book to define what social health means in both society and the modern workplace. Here, Julia Hobsbawm argues that developing social health will help employees become more efficiently engaged with each other and their work, and help employers to create workplaces that support social health and thus greater productivity.

By utilizing the latest thinking in health and behavioral economics, social psychology, neuroscience, management, and social network analysis, Fully Connected will provide a blueprint for how to use social health to foster well-being and productivity.