What If Reclaiming Your Mind Means Reclaiming Your Tech

Speaker 1 · 0:00Welcome everyone. Jay Vijarthy is a mindfulness teacher, designer, and technologist and author who brings a really unique and much needed perspective to this space. He's taught at NYU, contributed to widely used mindfulness technologies like Muse and the Healthy Minds program, and spent years exploring how we can live with more presence and intention in a world that's constantly competing for our attention. So for those of us who care about mindfulness, not just in our own lives, but in how we share it with others, I think his perspective is incredibly valuable. So, Jay Vijarthi, I'm really glad that you're here. Thank you for being with us. And I'm really looking forward to learning from you today.

Speaker 2 · 0:53Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 · 0:55I'm wondering, just off the cuff here, if you have any wording around algorithms. I'm hearing that word more and more in terms of the context of the bubble that I live in these days is formed by these algorithms, and there's more awareness to how certain tech companies shape our feeds and what we see on the screen. So I'm wondering if you have a take on how you relate to algorithms just by chance.

Speaker 2 · 1:28Yeah, so there are some very good terms for what you're describing. About 15 years ago, this thinker named Eli Persier spoke about the filter bubble, which was this idea that the bubble we're living in is because of all these algorithms that filter out the content that we probably don't want to click on. I like to use the term of an echo chamber as well, that like our social media becomes like an echo chamber. But for me, coming at it from the mindfulness angle, I think attention is still primary. And as we'll see when I get to the strategies, I also have coined this idea of false urgency, which to me is actually on the level of the mind one of the biggest patterns. You talk about the algorithms, but we can also talk about the way people write headlines on posts, the way people craft their images on social media, even the way our work messaging and work emails and open rates and subject lines and all this stuff. There's all these individual terms for it in terms of art in the tech world. From the perspective of us as mindfulness practitioners in the mind, attention activism is the movement. And that particular effect, what it creates is false urgency. It's like, you need to sign up for this deal, it's going to expire in three hours. And you just chose that randomly and made me stressed out. So I would buy your thing. One day I hope to see our tech ethics, the science behind this, the regulation of it come together. But frankly, guys, I'm not holding my breath. I think it's on the individual level for us to be able to identify these patterns and teach others to identify these patterns. People often will feel powerless when I speak of this. There's so many examples of humanity being able to come together and make big changes. I mentioned cigarettes and drunk driving. Look at the COVID lockdowns. When I grew up, there wasn't a single electric car on the road. We'd need to do a lot more, a lot quicker for climate change. But it would be false to say that things aren't changing. We are able to change things. And it's really just about the human tendency to sometimes need a real fire burning to make the change happen. And so gradual problems like climate change and the attention economy are hard to see. With AI, the fire is going to burn a little bit more. I think more and more people are feeling it in their daily lives, which is more and more people are being attracted to contemplative practices and practices of space and disconnection and finding

Speaker 2 · 3:46balance.

Speaker 1 · 3:46Thank you, Joe. Do we have time for questions from other folks here?

Speaker 3 · 3:51Yes, it was not more of a question, but more of an acknowledgement because I have been struggling with the technology and the mindfulness, the push and pull of it, going on retreats without a phone for 30 days and having an aversion to the phone, but knowing I need the phone because I need it for my business, etc. And just trying to find that balance. And that's something that I have been trying to come to a kind of balance how can it support me in my work, but not allowing it to distract me at the same time. So I'm really interested to see how I can create that frame that you spoke of that can allow me to help technology to actually help me in my mindfulness journey as opposed to go against it.

Speaker 2 · 4:38Thank you, Stephanie. I really appreciate you sharing that. Not only is everything that you said true and authentic, but also as someone presenting through technology, we're all in various places and like probably some of you are driving. So it really helps to get that feedback and that engagement. And I think what you model there is something we're gonna get into, which is like it's easy to be like, oh, a Zoom call is not real, but like I can see you, I can see your face, I see you nodding. We are connecting right now through this technology. And I have definitely been in situations where I'm speaking to 20 cam off squares, and I'm speaking, and it's like I feel so alienated. And not to say I'm not trying to judge anyone who has their camera off. Like I said,

Speaker 2 · 5:18people are allowed to do what they want to do and they're in their own thing, but getting that feedback really helps a lot. So thank you, Stephanie, for sharing that. And Abha, did you have something you wanted to add?

Speaker 4 · 5:26The last point that you touched upon is something that really struck a chord for me because being in my own practice, having all this pressure of, oh, urgency, urgency is how you sell. And that is something that I am so uncomfortable with. I feel like if I don't like something and I don't want somebody else to do something like that to me, how can I impose that on others? So I'm curious about your thoughts around that. I have really been struggling with that, and part of that has kind of made me handicapped in a way that I'm not even promoting my work anymore. Plus, the whole social media world, it's like I don't know if I want to engage in this because it doesn't seem right. And yet it feels like there is no way out of it. That's the only way as an independent consultant to put myself out there. I'm curious about your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 · 6:22It's a beautiful and very relatable share. Like I mentioned, I run a tech company that works on technologies for mindfulness and compassion and well-being. I literally design technologies and also work on promoting those technologies. And so I know very well the tension you're talking about. And one thing that's funny is because all of our clients they work on mindfulness, we all are facing this weird tension. It's like we want to promote our work, but we're also like, I don't know, marketing just feels kind of icky, the idea of putting like a countdown on something. I'm sure Sean, you can relate to. It's like you have to do this work to get the message out. I'm gonna get into some specific strategies. We're gonna talk about urgency. It's one of the strategies for the next section of the talk. But one thing I want to say right here in this moment of sharing is I think what your question points to is the reason I said what I said earlier, which is that we need our wisest people to engage with technology. We need to learn how to have a healthy, secure relationship with what is, which includes not only what is the sun shining and the trees and the body, but it includes society and culture and where everyone else is paying attention and what's happening on the first layer, have a secure relationship with the technology in our own lives, your phone, your laptop, your work-life balance and all that stuff. How can we, as mindfulness teachers, teach that to others? But then as an entrepreneur, as you described yourself and an independent consultant, I believe, how can you learn to have a confident, secure relationship and a clear line as to like what you're gonna do to put yourself out there and what you're not gonna do? Because I want you to be able to go promote yourself on social media, but there is a feeling tone to use like the Buddhist concept in what you're sharing, which is that feeling of aversion and being trapped, which is totally understandable. And we're all feeling it. As we get into the strategies, I think what will become clearer to you is that in fact, if I can deal with that feeling and learn to have a healthy relationship with Instagram, dare I say it, it is possible for me to, I don't know, I'm just throwing stuff out there. It's like, hey, I'm only gonna look at Instagram on Mondays from 9 to 9:30, where I'm gonna make a post, I'm gonna respond to a few things. Before I send my post, I'm gonna meditate with it and say, is this of service to the world? Is this bringing more connection? And then I'm gonna post it and then I'm gonna delete Instagram off my phone. And at nine o'clock next Monday, I'm gonna reinstall it and do that again. Maybe that's what it looks like for you. But it's like you can't trust that Meta is gonna have your well-being at heart. So this is activism in the modern world. This is me saying, I am gonna engage with technology on my terms in a world where everyone's trying to do it on their terms. And I secretly believe that the more of us do this, the more the businesses will have to follow us. And this is why I am speaking in the lens of mindfulness, because as I said many times, those of us practicing mindfulness are in the best position because we know how to work with attention. We're in the best position to figure this out for ourselves, share it with others, and spread that movement so more and more people can engage with technology in a secure and healthy way and not in this frantic, dependent relationship, this toxic relationship that we all have with our devices. So there's more to come, but hopefully that's a helpful start. Thank you for your question.

Speaker 4 · 9:40Thank you.

Speaker 2 · 9:41Here is the definition I put in the book for what I believe attention activism is a call to reclaim your mind and your tech by staying aware of the forces pulling at your attention and making more intentional choices about where and how you direct it. And I want to call out, we've talked about a lot of this already, but notice how I added and your tech in there. Because your first thought when you heard the title of the book, Reclaim Your Mind, may have included all of this as a sense of pulling your mind back to some sense of intention amidst all these forces. But to me, as I mentioned at the beginning, I'm a tech lover. I grew up on video games. Part of the injustice here is our tech could be so much better. There was a promise that technology had for us about bringing a more egalitarian society and new ways of expression and deeper scientific research and all these amazing things that is becoming a little bit polluted by some of this attention economy stuff. So I'm just as passionate about how each of us reclaiming our mind is also going to allow us to reclaim our tech. And so when writing the book, I wanted to really make it practical.