We have all heard the overly advertised benefits of meditation and mindfulness. The truth is, in a constantly moving world. a still mind is a rare event. But it is not only about stillness, the constant feed of information spamming our receptors is causing us to slowly lose touch with critical thinking, ability to remember, or creating anything adjacent to original thought. We are on the fast track of stooping to Idiocracy-level intellect.

Try to remember the last time you were bored on a commute, waiting for a friend or an appointment and observed the world around you, instead of mindlessly scrolling. “But!” you interfere “I like keeping up to date with Scientific American.”

Regardless of the packaging, information is made of the same base substance. It is a new stimulus in need of being filtered. With constant input to process, how can any new output be created? Gradually our thoughts will have less and less of an original spin and eventually be comprised of undigested reiterated content.

Everything we do changes our brain chemistry – having a cup of tea, laughing, choosing a song to listen to. From a purely materialistic point of view, each of us is an accretion of sensory experience and feeling. But who is steering it?

Think back on the last time you spent more than an hour absorbed in a book. If you’ve never been one for reading, think of the last time you were engaged in a recreative activity that required intellectual stimulation and did not involve a screen. Even simpler, think of the last time you let your mind wander freely or contemplate ideas for more than a few consecutive minutes outside of trying to fall asleep.

Everything on our phones is fighting for our attention. It is why stories and videos autoplay. It is why algorithms and clickbait exist. We will be shown what will make us react, be it in a negative or positive way.

Our brains evolved in such a way that negative feelings often have a stronger impact. Determining what was dangerous and remembering it kept our ancestors alive. Our social animal programming also causes the desire to share information, now in the form of outrageous news or a comedic tidbit.

The complex mechanism of the brain operates in a manner which does not make all stored information always accessible. This means that your brain knows a lot more than what is available to your conscious awareness. Information which is repeated is a lot more likely to stay, planting seeds beneath the layer of the attentive mind.

Arming yourself with honesty and objectivity, look back on your recent social interactions. Were the majority of jokes told the fruit of original ideas, or echoes of online memes? Are your ideas stemming from an actual observable fact experienced on the outernet, or from shocking pieces of information served directly on a customized platter based on a vast buffet of harvested information of the freely-offered nature? Thoughtfully selected and pre-chewed, so you won’t have to strain.

United in ridicule or hate towards a group or single stereotype, are your opinions formed from personal encounters with the accused, or derived from a statement scribbled behind a magic window where reality is shaped and presented in the form which attracts most attention? The belief held about a radical liberal/conservative/feminist/meninist/vegan/paleolithic dieter, is it rooted in direct personal interaction or a conjecture sustained by digital threads?

The following excerpts are almost century old. They are part of a book detailing the very infamous struggle of a man who was acknowledged as an apt leader in his time. It offers both an intriguing political theory study, and an eerily relevant delineation for the current times.

“The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.
The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself, since its function, like the poster, consists in attracting the attention of the crowd, and not in educating those who are already educated or who are striving after education and knowledge, its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect.”

The chapter continues:
“The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses.”

If you haven’t already guessed, these excerpts come from the memoirs of someone who successfully managed to manipulate the perception of millions.

Everything read or created as a standalone item in the form a notification, post, or picture offers the illusion of productivity.

An invisible reward is delivered through a well-known chemical messenger and buzzword: dopamine. A direct connection to the brain’s pleasure center, this unseen influencer communicates a technically correct yet very misleading message You’ve finished doing something.

As the most adaptable and fast-changing part of our biology, our brains develop both tolerance and habit through repeated processes. A guaranteed feel-good source will instinctively be reached for whenever the need or occasion arises. A little pick-me-up here and there paves the way for the equally increasing factors of exposure and tolerance which diligently work together in creating a vicious cycle.

The hidden causes pertaining to psyche do not end here. The cyber-social of social media clouds the cognition into concluding that the requirements of belonging, friendship, and esteem are satisfied. Interestingly, though ranking midway in Maslow’s pyramid, research from 2011 proved this scheme to be improperly positioned with psychological needs considered important even when physiological needs were not fulfilled.

As cited in one of the articles linked above, ‘our technology evolved faster than our biology’.

Beneath the convolutions of our brains, a correlation is drawn between the apparent fulfillment of these needs, numbers, and colorful images. The classic like attracts like is proven true by the dozen reactions directly messaged, curated from a pre-made set of symbols designed by a team of engineers educated in ethical psychological manipulation, while the hundred story viewers must surely be watching by their own conscious awareness safe from any ethical brain chemistry guidance. And surely if we were to remove the digital factor, there would be nothing unusual or discomforting about a crowd of people watching in silence a fragment of our lives.

Everything has a price. Lacking one in currency, payment takes a different form.

By now we have come to terms with the concept of  ‘free’ services being the sugar-coating term of the fact that our lives are the real products. What many of us still fail to recognize is the true extent of what this implies.

If knowledge is power, then were all the information we are willingly offering to be centralized in one single point, the potential influence could turn Roko’s basilisk from a thought experiment to a prospect, or even scarier, a global social credit system. Coming to your pocket in the near future: conveniently monitor your Personal Digital Karma balance, only one tap to the left of the banking app. Or one Siri squeal away.

More importantly, regardless of what Black Mirror-esque consequences our online actions set in motion, our priorities should shift from focusing on the light of our screens to maintaining the light of our minds.
Same as a sedentary body continually fed will lose its health, coordination, or ability to move easily, so will a brain’s faculties diminish. When information is constantly received, there is no room for consciousness to grow. Matter subdues mind, and the light is smothered.

With no light it is easy to wander aimlessly in the dark, reacting instead of acting.
How is the light kindled? Fueled by patience. The race after immediate results has turned us into puppets. To break free from strings we must first become aware of them.
Next time you find yourself reaching for your phone or sharing something with the whole world, ask yourself what is the motivation behind it. Does it have a purpose, or is it Pavlovian conditioning?

To quote Marcus Aurelius “Concentrate on what you are doing and what you’re doing with it.”

Building a practice of mindfulness and training your brain to pay attention does not necessarily mean you have to sit cross-legged with your eyes closed, focusing on the space between your eyebrows for half an hour every day. It can just as easily and perhaps more practically be done by focusing on whatever is in front of you, and doing only that. 

Technology does have its good sides. One of my favourite to recommend, is the app offered by The Zen monks of Plum Village  filled with guided meditations and teachings. No ads, and free forever, for the thought-watchers delight.