As the parent of two teenage boys, a big part of my Buddhist practice is dealing with how I react to their screen use: as I watch them pick up their devices for what seems like the thousandth time that day, my jaw and shoulders clench and I am despaired by my parental inadequacies. Will I yet again speak sharply, or can I treat them with the kindness and love that is true to my heart and theirs? Meantime, my hourly perusing of news websites tightens my forehead and raises my blood pressure, that is when I am not checking up on my favorite sports teams…
Let’s face it, many of us automatically go to our screens (smart phones, computers, ipads etc) to fill our days and distract ourselves from dukkha. We can persist for hours on our favorite app even while knowing that our time is best spent otherwise and as our bodies tighten and anxieties rise. Smartphones have only been around for a few years yet they are taking up more and more of our time and identities. We are only just beginning to understand and grapple with the consequences of this new technology.
So, the overarching questions for our practice is: What is skillful screen use? Can we turn to the dharma to help us use our screens to connect rather than distance, even if the ancestors never clicked an app or played Fortnite? This article offers two ways to develop more skillful screen practice.
A few facts
First, a few facts on how screens are quickly changing our brains, bodies and society. American adults spend almost six hours a day on connected devices and around twelve (overlapping) hours on all electronic media and screen-time continues to trend upward. Perhaps not surprisingly, adults report that they pick up their screens much less often than they actually do! Younger adults, especially millennials (18-22 years old) say that they are lonelier and in worse health than older generations. Surveys show that adolescent self-esteem, life satisfaction and happiness plunged after 2012, the year smartphone ownership reached 50 percent. Further, depression and suicide rose sharply among U.S. adolescents since 2010 while their screen time increased and time spent on non-screen activities decreased. Fully 72 percent of teens often or sometimes check for messages as soon as they wake up, and half are worried they spend too much time on their cellphones. We can only guess about the consequences of screen use over a lifetime, especially for the toddlers starting today.
We do know that our screens are expressly designed to reshape our brains for the profit of a few large corporations. We buy our devices and apps from a handful of technology companies that gained their market dominance by selling addictive products. Screen use, like other addictions, releases the dopamine neurotransmitter in our brain and puts in pleasure seeking mode as we “ride the wave”. The continuous release of dopamine diminishes the number of dopamine receptors, so that more and more screen time is required for the same amount of pleasure. But technology companies have no reason to factor in the harm their products do to our bodies, minds or society. Moreover, government regulation of the harm caused by technology firms is undermined by the speed of technological change and the lobbying and campaign contributions of the companies themselves. In short, it is up to each of us to understand and deal with the impact of screens.
Of course, we must recognize that skillful screen use can deepen our practice and enrich our lives. Our devices can link us with old friends, help us spend more time with loved ones, provide more safety for women, expand the horizon of the disabled and elderly and even expedite social and political change. New apps support meditation, especially for novices, and we can participate in retreats on-line no matter where we are.
Embodying the screen experience
The most direct way to screen practice is to simply pause and pay careful attention—which most of us we rarely do—to our screen experience. The All Beings Zen Sangha in Washington DC, recently undertook a series of workshops aimed at clarifying the body and mind experience of our screen use.
At one workshop, participants use their screens for fifteen minutes—most turn to social media such as Facebook Messenger—and then sit ten minutes in zazen. Afterwards, many attendees say the absence of a quick response to their initial message compels them to send out another message, and then another, in a spiral of craving and unmet desire. Others come to appreciate the places in their body tightened and negative thoughts triggered by immersion in social media. Some express their concern about signs of addiction with their screens. A few say “it just doesn’t feel right” to be using screens in the sacred zendo space.
Another workshop contrasts on-line communication with face-to face conversation. Attendees pair up, separate into opposite ends of the zendo, communicate on line with their counterpartfor ten minutes, then sit zazen for ten minutes. Next, the pairs talk face-to-face for ten minutes, again followed by a short sit. Participants say that communicating on-line limits the scope for personal connection by precluding the cognizance of body language, facial gestures, eye-contact and the rhythmic give and take of conversational flow. More subtly, we can’t take in the other person’s vibe and energy when we are on devices so that we can’t realize the catharsis fostered by proximal contact. In short, face-to-face communication allows for the building of trust and safety to a level that is much harder to attain screen-to-screen.
These workshops exemplify how each of us can develop our practice by periodically bringing careful attention to our personal screen experience. During one or two of your screen pickups per day, can you try taking a moment to reflect on just why you are turning to your device… Are you engaging in professional or personal affairs, or perhaps distressed (my teenage son says the more he is unhappy the more he gets on his screen) or just bored? What are your emotions as you open your favorite app and are they pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? What are the ongoing thoughts, especially about yourself? Importantly, how is your body reacting? Finally, do you find yourself lingering on the screen doing actions unrelated to the original utility of picking up the screen? Bringing an open and gracious curiosity to your entire screen experience can help clarify whether your devices bring you closer to or farther from your original self.
The wisdom of the ancestors
The dharma provides another and perhaps surprisingly rich way to practice with the latest technology. We can learn from the first Noble Truth that our devices are a most extraordinary tool of distraction from modern dukkha. Even with all the advances of modern life, Americans report higher levels of stress, as we work relatively long hours (increasingly at home) and in less secure jobs with lower benefits. Our screen use not only brings the workplace home, but also extends competition from the workplace into our social lives as we compare the number of the likes or hits on our posts with those of our peers. In this swirl of agitation, screens offer us an immediate respite from the dukkha of modern life that is only one click away, then another click, and another…
The second Noble Truth teaches that we use screens to help construct and cling to our identity. Some people create idealized identities on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and other image generating apps. Devices are integral to most jobs in the modern economy and our jobs certainly can take up a large part of our identity. Screens provide us with endless opportunities for clinging, whether by checking the number of likes of our latest message, tracking tweets affirming our political views, or following our favorite sports team. And anyone young or old who fancies themselves as staying current feels obliged to master the latest app, and know the tweet or meme du jour.
We can tap the fourth Noble Truth to move to a more compassionate relationship with our devices. Consideration of right effort leads us to face up to whether the words we are typing out are thoughtful and purposeful, as opposed to impulsive and gossipy. Right speech directs us to reflect whether our emails and texts are conveying truth and not slandering others. Are we reading our messages carefully instead of skimming through and sending off ill-considered responses? A mindful approach to screen use leads us to honestly and kindly appraise the time and energy we spend on-line and reflect on the consequences for ourselves, others and all beings.
A more open relationship with our screens leads us to appreciate that it is possible to loosen the grasp of our screens and identity—the third Noble truth. Our devices kindly provide us with countless opportunities to practice self-compassion which, over time, can help us realize our original face. Rather than mindlessly picking up our screen during the smallest breaks from our busy schedules, we can instead pause a little bit and reflect. Think of how it would feel on our daily bus commute to shift from rolling through tweets to, instead, feeling the sunlight through the bus window and smiling at the baby across the aisle?
The dharma also teaches that refuge of the sangha is the perfect antidote to the solitary act of unskillful screen use. I certainly feel more connected eating breakfast with my wife and sons and sitting with my fellow bodhisattvas in the All Beings zendo than scrolling through the political storms of the day on my iphone. Can we get in the habit of comparing how it feels to take in the trees, birds, and sky outside our windows with hunching our shoulders and clicking our Twitter feed? Here it seems important to approach screen awareness with an open and kind mind, otherwise the very unpleasantness and self-criticism of screen use may compel us to lose ourselves in our devices.
Kindly clarifying our intentions
Embracing our screen experience and tapping the dharma can bring us to more skillful screen practice and a simpler life: when we are on the screen we are on the screen, and when we are off the screen, we are off the screen. Practical steps for more skillful screen practice include: taking screens out of the bedroom, phone-free meals, and building into our schedules connecting activities like walks or get-togethers with loved ones and friends. Apps such as Moment and Circlecan show us just how much of our life (and that of our teenagers) are taken up by screen time.
Skillful moment-by-moment screen practice can be anchored by open and tender examination of the intentionunderlying each pickup of our device. Before I check the on-line news for the fourth time this morning, can I pause, feel my rising anger without judgment, take a slow breath and spend a few seconds kindly clarifying my intentions? And while watching my you-tubing teenage boys, can I notice my tensing jaw and hesitate however briefly before my thinking stops and I speak sharply to them? This pausing, screen in hand, observing with kindness our tensing body and agitated thought, can help us recognize our true intentions and so bring us toward the mystery of who we really are.
References:
Adult use of devices: https://www.emarketer.com/Article/eMarketer-Updates-US-Time-Spent-with-Media-Figures/1016587
Mobile phone time: https://hackernoon.com/how-much-time-do-people-spend-on-their-mobile-phones-in-2017-e5f90a0b10a6.
Total screen time: Nielsen Total Audience Report 2017:Q1
Adults think they turn to their screens much less often than they actually do: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139004
Teenage self-esteem, life satisfaction and happiness decline since 2012: “Decreases in Psychological Well-Being Among American Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During the Rise of Smartphone Technology,” Emotion, Jan 22, 2018
Teenager screen use: http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/how-teens-and-parents-navigate-screen-time-and-device-distractions/
Depression and suicide rose sharply among U.S. adolescents since 2010 while their screen time increased and time spent on non-screen activities decreased: http://www.newscastmedia.com/depression.pdf
Screens, addiction and dopamine: The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains, Robert H. Lustig, Penguin Random House LLC, 2017.
Americans relatively high level of stress: https://www.cmu.edu/homepage/health/2012/spring/whos-stressed.shtml
Stress and work:
Millenials and lonelier: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8294451-cigna-us-loneliness-survey/