Technology is all around us and can be a source of distraction and stress.
However, I believe technology can be used as a means to support and
reward meditation practice.
Hi Miguel,
The best mindfulness app I’ve come across is Insight Timer. It’s a great app for building a daily meditation habit. It has access to an extensive free library of guided meditations, including MBSR with JKZ. It also has a flourishing community of users with every flavor of mindfulness & meditation groups.
yes Jerry, I agree with you, I love the sense of meditating with others at the same time with that app
: )
Miguel Quintana MSTwitter: Miguel_SoowaLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/miguelquintanamindfulnets/en
De: Jerry Keusch <info@cfmhome.org>
Para: miguelqscanarias@yahoo.es
Enviado: Miércoles 25 de febrero de 2015 16:31
Asunto: [cfmHOME] [Living Room] Mindfulness and Digital Technology
| | jerrykeusch
February 25 |
| Hi Miguel,The best mindfulness app I’ve come across is Insight Timer. It’s a great app for building a daily meditation habit. It has access to an extensive free library of guided meditations, including MBSR with JKZ. It also has a flourishing community of users with every flavor of mindfulness & meditation groups. |
To respond, reply to this email or visit Mindfulness and Digital Technology in your browser.
I absolutely agree, Miguel. This is a great topic, and one that is worthy of reviving.
There’s a great quote by Winifred Gallagher from her book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life that goes,
“it’s the fashion to blame computers, cell phones, and cable TV for this diffused, fragmented state of mind, but our seductive machines are not at fault. The real problem is that we don’t appreciate our own ability to use attention to select and create truly satisfying experience.”
That said, I have found two apps particularly useful in supporting both formal and informal practices that cultivate mindfulness and one’s capacity to select meaningful experiences.
- iSamadhi (http://www.isamadhi.com/) is a meditation timer for iOS that automatically keeps a log of the dates and durations of your meditation sessions and offers a space to journal about your session if you wish. It allows you to create your own presets for variable durations. Each session begins with a single bell and is brought to an end with three bells in succession. The beauty is in its simplicity.
- Chime (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chime/id414830146?mt=8) is an application for your phone that emits a short chime, like an old digital watch, on the hour, half hour, or quarter hour - whichever you prefer. I use it as a reminder to pause, take a deep breath, and tune into the moment with heightened awareness. You can also make the chime less conspicuous by setting it to vibrate. Again, it’s a very simple tool that goes a long way in helping me stay grounded and actively cultivating greater mindful awareness.
I’m very curious what other tools people use to support their mindful practices.
“Computer-supported mindfulness: evaluation of a mobile thought distancing application on naive meditators” by Chittaro L., Vianello, A.
Published in: International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 72(3), March 2014, pp. 337–348.
“Evaluation of a mobile mindfulness app distributed through on-line stores: A 4-week study” by Luca Chittaro, Andrea Vianello
Human–Computer Interaction Lab, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Udine, Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine, Italy
Available online 21 September 2015 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2015.09.004