Positive Technology: The use of Technology for Improving and Sustaining Personal Change

This chapter describes and discusses the “Positive Technology” approach: the scientific and applied approach for the use of technology in improving the quality of our personal experience through its structuring, augmentation and/or replacement - as a way for improving and sustaining personal change. On one side, we suggest that our cognitive system is naturally shaped to identify and counter the experiential conflicts that are usually the main motives for change. Optimal experiences, also defined as “flow experiences”, instead allow the individual to consider long-term personal goals differently and start to experiment with changing them. In other words optimal experiences, when meaningful for the individual, widen the array of thoughts and actions, facilitating generativity and behavioral flexibility. On the other side we claim that it is possible to use technology to manipulate the quality of experience, with the goal of increasing wellness, and generating strengths and resilience in individuals, organizations and society.