Above all, mindful tech should respect human attention—instead of commodifying and trading in it. As it’s a growing movement, there isn’t a playbook for creating mindful tech; but I’ve put together 7 mindful tech principles, or questions. To figure out whether a tech product is mindful, you can ask yourself:
- Does it value my attention? Or does it spam me with unnecessary distractions like pop-ups, push notifications and marketing emails?
- Does it prioritise quality over quantity? Or does it favour overwhelming and unnecessary content, like the coins, gems, points and level ups found in many online games?
- Does it discourage addictive behaviour? Or does it provide variable rewards that keep you checking the page like a slot machine?
- Does it provide me with options to disengage? Is autoplay turned on by default? Can you scroll or swipe through the feed endlessly? Is it made difficult to exit or delete the product, and does it beg you to return once you’ve gone?
- Does it make me feel good? Or does it quantify my social status in “likes” and “shares”? Does it encourage a sense of FOMO?
- Does the company treat their employees well? The company should practise what it preaches in all areas of its business: from its company culture to leadership, recruitment and investor relations.
- Does it try to trick me in any way, using dark patterns like: Sneaking items and/or hidden costs into the checkout basket (often by hiding an opt-out checkbox. Tricking you into sharing more information about yourself than intended; most commonly by hiding a clause in the terms and conditions allowing your data to be sold on to data brokers.
You can just look at your most used apps and reflecto on these questions and make choices about their use and/or take a look at this review of some well known Mindfulness apps applying these questions. An excellent resource to teach digital literacy and how even a ‘mindul tech’ app may not be that bothered when it comes to designing the kind of tech that respects your attention.
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