Mindfulness? There's an app for that! (Revisited)
Three years ago, I published the following article:
It appears mindfulness is...well...on a lot of people's minds lately. I've seen this wave come and go twice before. This go around, however, will be propelled and amplified by the Internet. Will it come and go faster? Will there be a lasting and deeper revelation around mindfulness? I predict the former.
Mindfulness is simple and it's hard. As the saying goes, mindfulness is not what you think. It was difficult when I first began practicing Rinzai Zen meditation and Aikido many years ago. It's even more difficult in today's instant information, instant gratification, and short attention span culture. The uninitiated are ill equipped for the journey.
With this latest mindfulness resurgence expect an amplified parasite wave of meditation teachers and mindfulness coaches. A Japanese Zen Master (Roshi, or "teacher") I studied with years ago called them "popcorn roshis" - they pop up everywhere and have little substance. No surprise that this wave includes a plethora of mindfulness "popcorn apps."
Spoiler alert: There are no apps for mindfulness. Attempting to develop mindfulness by using an app on a device that is arguably the single greatest disruptor of mindfulness is much like taking a pill to counteract the side effects of another pill in your quest for health. At a certain point, the pills are the problem. They've become the barrier to health.
The "mindfulness" apps that can be found look to be no different than thousands of other non-mindfulness apps offering timers, journaling, topical text, and progress tracking. What they all have in common is that they place your mindfulness practice in the same space as all the other mindfulness killing apps competing for your attention - email, phone, texts, social media, meeting reminders, battery low alarms, and all the other widgets that beep, ring, and buzz.
The way to practicing mindfulness is by the deliberate subtraction of distractions, not the addition of another collection of e-pills. The "killer app" for mindfulness is to kill the app. The act of powering off your smart phone for 30 minutes a day is in itself a powerful practice toward mindfulness. No timer needed. No reminder required. Let it be a random act. Be free! At least for 30 minutes or so.
Mental states like mindfulness, focus, and awareness are choices and don't arise out of some serendipitous environmental convergence of whatever. They are uniquely human states. Relying on a device or machine to develop mindfulness is decidedly antithetical to the very state of mindfulness. Choosing to develop such mental states requires high quality mentors (I've had many) and deliberate practice - a practice that involves subtracting the things from your daily life that work against them.
"For if a person shifts their caution to their own reasoned choices and the acts of those choices, they will at the same time gain the will to avoid, but if they shift their caution away from their own reasoned choices to things not under their control, seeking to avoid what is controlled by others, they will then be agitated, fearful, and unstable." - Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.12
Looking at the past three Internet years I'd have to say the prospects for the latest mindfulness wave amounting to anything substantial are bleak. There probably aren't enough words to describe how far off the rails this fad has gone. But there is a number! 2020.
Bonus: There's a study! "Minding your own business? Mindfulness decreases prosocial behavior for those with independent self-construals.1" (Preprint) There was a concept in this study that was new to me: "self-construal." According to the APA dictionary:
self-construal
n. any specific belief about the self. The term is used particularly in connection with the distinction between independent self-construals and interdependent self-construals.
Well, that definition sorta has itself as the definition. So...
independent self-construal
a view of the self (self-construal) that emphasizes one’s separateness and unique traits and accomplishments and that downplays one’s embeddedness in a network of social relationships. Compare interdependent self-construal.
And
interdependent self-construal
a view of the self (self-construal) that emphasizes one’s embeddedness in a network of social relationships and that downplays one’s separateness and unique traits or accomplishments. Compare independent self-construal.
Clear on terms, on to the abstract:
Mindfulness appears to promote individual well-being, but its interpersonal effects are less clear. Two studies in adult populations tested whether the effects of mindfulness on prosocial behavior differ by self-construals. In Study 1 (N = 366), a brief mindfulness induction, compared to a meditation control, led to decreased prosocial behavior among people with relatively independent self-construals, but had the opposite effect among those with relatively interdependent self-construals. In Study 2 (N = 325), a mindfulness induction led to decreased prosocial behavior among those primed with independence, but had the opposite effect among those primed with interdependence. The effects of mindfulness on prosocial behavior appear to depend on individuals' broader social goals. This may have implications for the increasing popularity of mindfulness training around the world.
TL;DR: Mindfulness "training" makes selfish people more selfish and narcissistic people more narcissistic. On the other hand, it makes altruistic people more altruistic and compassionate people more compassionate. So there’s that.
I think it's fair to say the last several years in particular have revealed an awe inspiring explosion in selfishness and narcissism. Evidenced by the extreme polarization manifest in identity politics and all it's dubious offspring. The thought of all these people pulling on a mindfulness mask like some fashion accessory is less than comforting.
Three years on, it looks to be certain that "mindfulness" has been co-opted and applied as a temporary bandage in a world lacking resilience, flexibility, and genuine tolerance. Another mindfulness wave that has failed to crash onto the shores of civilization with a cleansing thunder, instead has mindlessly trickled up to the edge and done little more than rearrange the garbage floating at the shoreline.
I really wanted it to succeed. Maybe next time.
Poulin, M., Ministero, L., Gabriel, S., Morrison, C., & Naidu, E. (2021, April 9). Minding your own business? Mindfulness decreases prosocial behavior for those with independent self-construals. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/xhyua