Can Mindfulness and Technology Coexist?

Surrounded by the Cloud

I, like many others, sometimes start my day by checking my notifications and emails, then spend hours in front of a computer at work, then watch a show or two before bed, all while compulsively checking the phone in my pocket. My whole day depends on technology.

As if having the entirety of human knowledge an arm’s reach away wasn’t enough, we now have at our fingertips the ability to interact with billions of people across the globe, and some robots across the solar system:

The internet is just too good to stay away, and has profoundly transformed our world. It’s tough to think of an aspect of life that hasn’t been irrevocably changed by it (though I encourage you to try using #UnwreckedByTech).

Missing the Present

The all too familiar story in the first paragraph sometimes leaves me with the feeling that I’m living my life through the lens of technology and not fully experiencing it.

Mindfulness is an approach that emphasizes full awareness and acceptance of your moment-to-moment experience, including your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. It has exploded in popularity recently¹, perhaps not coincidentally since technology (especially the smartphone) has given us so many places to be other than the present.

On the surface, mindfulness and technology appear to be enemies. Awareness of the present moment seems like the exact opposite of sitting, oblivious to everything around you, and staring into your phone.

Being Mindful in a Tech Infested World 

It’s fair to say that fighting technology is a losing battle. Its not going anywhere. However, it doesn’t have to detract from our ability to live in the present moment. In fact, used correctly, technology can actually help us be more, rather than less, mindful.

The key is to integrate technology into your life until it doesn’t feel intrusive, using it in a way that keeps you in the present rather than jerking you out of it.

Future posts will provide practical pointers for using technology mindfully.

Footnotes:

1. I inserted that graph into the post almost entirely to show the Google Ngram Finder, which is definitely in the top 2 of Google’s best search engines. It analyzes the frequency of various words used in books over time, allowing you to trace the rise and fall of specific words and concepts.²

2. Every description of the Ngram finder I can find online (except^) uses the word “corpus,” which means “a collection of written texts.”