MINDFUL TECH

David Levy (2016). Mindful Tech: 

                                How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives.

Levy is a professor that performed many digital tech experiments (described below) first with his students and then with others over many years...this book is a pragmatic summary of his learnings and an invitation to practice mindful tech experiments.

The basic format for the experiments are: engage intentionally for a certain period of time with a particular digital technology (e.g. email, facebook, youtube). Observe yourself periodically as you do this with a "mindful check in", how's your:

1.breathing--slow/fast, shallow/deep, 

2.body/posture--slumped/upright, tense/relaxed, 

3.emotions--dread, tired, guilt, angry, frustrated, joyful, satisfied, in the flow, and 

4.quality of attention--sharp/dull, clear/fuzzy, one-pointed/open).

Journal about your observations over a period of several days.

Step back and check/record patterns in the data.

Note if there's anything you want to change, and if, so change it, and repeat the experiment with your new behavior(s) and mindful check in...

Some of the many insights from those who have performed these experiments: 

1.easy to get side tracked with other media if one doesn't have a clear intention from the start

2.there are different kinds of attention, e.g. razor sharp focused attention when writing a paper (multitasking counterproductive) vs diffuse/open attention when following ideas down a rabbit hole for fun (multitasking ok)

3.answers to questions like, "is google making us dumber" are often not binary yes (e.g., Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows) or no (e.g., Clay Shirky's book Cognitive Surplus), but rather nondualistic, both/and, depending on the person, task, situation, culture...

the biggest takeaway for practice:

DO the practices...See what works for YOU!