{"id":52381,"date":"2022-05-09T22:07:48","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T22:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techstyle.onehealth.com\/?p=52381"},"modified":"2022-10-11T12:18:33","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T12:18:33","slug":"how-mindfulness-can-help-teens-with-tech-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/?p=52381","title":{"rendered":"How Mindfulness Can Help Teens with Tech Addiction\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"How Mindfulness Can Help Teens with Tech Addiction\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/708801294?h=76b6ad5dc6&amp;dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Mindfulness teachers in schools are using self-compassion and awareness practices to help students use tech more intentionally.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BY SARAH ROBERTSON MARCH 23, 2022&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/how-mindfulness-can-help-teens-with-tech-addiction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/how-mindfulness-can-help-teens-with-tech-addiction\/<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many teens spend every minute of free time on their phones, playing video games, or lost in the screens of their laptops. In fact, according to\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonsensemedia.org\/press-releases\/landmark-report-us-teens-use-an-average-of-nine-hours-of-media-per-day-tweens-use-six-hours\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Common Sense Media<\/a>, teens now spend around nine hours a day in front of a screen\u2014and that doesn\u2019t include screen time they may log doing homework or at school.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIncreasingly, students just don\u2019t know how to deal with boredom, loneliness, and unpleasant feelings,\u201d says Doug Worthen, director of mindfulness programs at Middlesex School, an independent day and boarding school in Concord, Massachusetts. Many educators blame the long hours spent on screens for fractured attention levels, lack of impulse control, and heightened levels of depression and\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/mindfulness-meditation-anxiety\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">anxiety<\/a>. Teens are also losing their ability to navigate nuanced and complex interpersonal human interactions, says Adam Ortman, head of mindfulness at St. Andrews School in Texas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In response, mindfulness educators across the United States are creating specific curricula and practices around how to use technology with greater intention. Their approaches tend to focus on three fundamental\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/meditation\/mindfulness-getting-started\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mindfulness s<\/a>kills: watching thoughts, being present with others and the natural world, and self-compassion.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Impulses Are Impermanent&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Worthen explains that by paying attention to their thoughts, students can begin to understand the intentions behind their phone use. Are they going to connect with someone or are they going to distract from a feeling? \u201cWe also want the students to see that these impulses are impermanent. They come and go. You don\u2019t have to act on them,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Practice:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Worthen leads a tech mindfulness session, he begins by asking students to place their phones on the ground beside them and leads a body scan meditation. Then he asks students to pick up their phones and simply hold the device in their hands. He prompts them to keep their attention wide, notice their impulses to check notifications, and explore what sensations they find in their bodies. The students then turn on their phones and watch where their fingers get pulled. What apps have them hooked? What is their intention and what are they trying to get with each click?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Present Over Perfect&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Erica Marcus, the mindfulness director at Cape Elizabeth Middle School in Maine, classes focus on helping students understand why they feel pulled to their devices and the emotions that arise. Marcus recently wrote the book\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Attention-Hijacked-Using-Mindfulness-Reclaim\/dp\/1728417198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Attention Hijacked: Using Mindfulness to Reclaim Your Brain from Tech<\/em><\/a>. One of her goals is for students to understand the power of big tech and how they can protect themselves from the harmful aspects of social media.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe want students to see that they don\u2019t need external validation,\u201d she says. She helps her students approach technology grounded in their personal values, self-compassion, and empathy for others. \u201cWe recognize that social media is exacerbating judgmentalness, perfectionism, and a sense of not \u2018enoughness.\u2019 What can we do to protect ourselves against that, knowing that very smart people and computers are trying to create a particular experience for us so that we engage and buy? The compassion and forgiveness practices help plant seeds in the mind to buoy ourselves so that maybe we won\u2019t be as pulled by the lures of technology.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Practice:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marcus leads group discussions around social media in a larger societal context to help students talk about perfection, how technology firms profit from teens feeling badly about themselves, exploring how technology allows teens to live out their values, and how it doesn\u2019t. Next, she leads students through compassion practices where they will repeat phrases about self-forgiveness and feeling \u201cenough.\u201d She often uses\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindfulpath.com.au\/application\/files\/3415\/6582\/9680\/Forgiveness_prayers_by_Eric_Kolvig.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Eric Kolving\u2019s forgiveness meditation<\/a>\u202fwhich starts with \u201cI allow myself to be imperfect, I allow myself to make mistakes.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Getting Back to Nature&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ortman leads practices to nurture the layers of human intelligence that screen-based technology leaves out\u2014the more subtle, embodied, receptive, and relational aspects of being. He helps students see the joy, magic, and beauty of life in the real world by having students do mindfulness practices in pairs and\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/nature-based-mindfulness-practices-for-families\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">in nature<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As teens spend more of their day in a one-way exchange with technology, they are not practicing how to read non-verbal cues or how to be present physically with others. They are also not having the sensory experience of interacting with the natural world. \u201cIn Zoom-land or sitting next to someone and staring at a screen, you have a vague impression of what\u2019s happening with them, and this generation is learning to be satisfied with that,\u201d says Ortman.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Practice:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ortman asks students to do mirroring activities by pairing up and copying the movements and facial expressions of their partner. By doing this, students become aware of their own bodies and the body of their partner. Mirroring helps students learn through imitation, build rapport, understand the meaning or intention of other\u2019s actions, and anticipate what others might do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ortman also uses walks in nature as a way to show students all the sensory experience they are missing in the metaverse. \u201cI want the students to connect with nature in whatever way is possible\u2014even if only to feel the sun or wind, to observe a cloud or a single leaf,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many teens spend every minute of free time on their phones, playing video games, or lost in the screens of their laptops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mindfulness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52648,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52381\/revisions\/52648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eloquent-brown.192-250-224-79.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}