Meditation 2.0

Abstract

The purpose of this joint senior project, Meditation 2.0 is to inform the reader about the complexities that are often entangled with meditation-based applications. These complexities fall on the verge of morality and ethics. We discuss the duality of these issues, with the benefits, weighing both sides, and eventually getting into the sociological aspect, which delves into what it means to be an ideal human in the 21st century, beginnings of a client-based cult, and achieving a sense of secular salvation through these apps. Through autoethnography, which is essentially placing yourself in your own research, Christian Battaglia and I were able to use seven applications: Insight Timer, Calm, Headspace, Breethe, Ten Percent Happier, Buddhify, and Oak. We found benefit in these applications, while also remaining wary as to the appropriation of eastern philosophies as a result of the commodification and secularization that mindfulness encapsulates. With our research, we were able to answer the complexities and issues above, as well as record our own personal experiences and the benefits. We end with what direction we believe that the future of meditation based applications is heading, and what a future of mindfulness-based meditation apps can bring to the table.