Mindfulness for Learning in a Digital-Physical World
Think Tank : Mindfulness
Heather Van Fleet
Mindfulness for Learning in a Digital-Physical World
It ’ s been called the 79 th organ , and although this organ doesn ’ t exist inside the human body , the smartphone has become an essential part of existence for many of us . At times attached to our hand , or close by in our pocket or bag , it ’ s often the first thing we look at in the morning and the last thing at night .
It is , after all , our connection to the digital world . A world where bills are paid , meeting times are set , and news updates are found . Importantly , the virtual world is not , in itself , bad . Research , however , shows a darker side to our technology use - a mindless one .
The smartphone : our 79 th organ Scrolling and phubbing : our words reveal digital culture as mainstream culture
Many of us know this dark side well . If you ’ ve ever found yourself lost in a black hole of unintended scrolling on social media . Or if you ’ ve been with someone who paid more attention to their phone than you during a conversation , so common nowadays there ’ s a name for it : phubbing , or phone snubbing . Of if you ’ ve ever found yourself googling endlessly into the wee hours of the night in front of a brightly lit screen , the digital world disrupting your ability to sleep and consolidate memories .
On average , adults spend 3 – 5 hours a day on their smartphone or tablet devices and tweens and teens an average of 6 – 9 hours . So digital culture is not youth culture ; it is mainstream culture . We are all googling , messaging , swiping , scrolling , and phubbing often – and maybe more often than we should .
As it turns out , seeking and reading bite-sized bits of information for hours on end puts us in a state of constant distraction , weakening our voluntary attention system and our ability to process what we encounter at a deeper level ( Carr , 2010 ). In other words , the way we access information on the internet changes our brain . In the words of a college senior , ‘ I am unable to focus on anything in a
Pay attention while walking : evidence of how distracted we are by tech on a daily basis