COURSE

Develop Healthy Digital Habits

The exercises provided throughout this course will teach you how to be aware of your interactions with technology and offer simple, concrete, and practical tips for managing distraction and reducing stress. You will learn new skills for staying focused as well as being more productive and intentional when using technology. These teachings explain how to reconfigure devices and apps to be less distracting and how to apply mindfulness to reduce the desire to use technology out of boredom, anxiety, and loneliness. You will leave this course with the ability to pause before using technology so that you can be guided more by your true intentions, and less by your instinctive reactions, in your relationship to technology.

Performance Stress Stress & Anxiety Anxiety Mindfulness Focus Science Science Mindfulness Meditation Secular Mindfulness Secular Addiction Recovery & Healing Health & Happiness

Meet your Teacher

Robert Plotkin

MA, USA

Robert is the Founder of Technology for Mindfulness, a leading blog and Top 40 iTunes podcast on science, technology, and mindfulness. In his Tap Into Mindfulness program, he teaches people how to be less distracted by their smartphones and how to retake control over their time to be more focused, productive, and creative. Robert's unique approach to technology and mindfulness stems from his combination of expertise in technology (as an MIT-educated computer scientist), decades of experience with Japanese martial arts, and training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). He has written seven books on the social impact of computer technology, is a co-founder of the Hack Your Mind program at MIT, and the host of the Technology for Mindfulness podcast.

10 Days

3.0k students

4.2 stars

12 min / day

Performance

English

Lesson 1

Introduction On How To Use Technology Mindfully

In today's lesson we will explore how mindfulness can be used as a tool to use technology mindfully and without reactivity. You will be offered different techniques including: how to manage interruptions by devices, how to use devices to soothe both your mind and body and the importance of taking breaks and decluttering your devices. We will also explore how these techniques can help you to increase productivity and focus and ultiamtely reduce the stress and guilt that come with digital distraction.

Lesson 2

Taking Control Over Interruptions From Your Devices

In today's lesson we will learn how to manage interruptions, specifically for increasing focus and reducing mindless device usage. You will learn specific tools such as how to control notifications on your devices so that you can block and delay notifications. These are valuable tools to use when feeling stressed or overwhelmed by technology.

Lesson 3

Change Your Environment: Using Sights & Sounds To Facilitate Mindfulness

Today, we will explore how your devices can facilitate mindfulness using images and sounds. No matter how much we may practice and cultivate mindfulness internally, our external environment can have a significant impact on how mindful, calm, and focused we are. In this lesson, I’ll give many concrete and practical examples of simple ways for using technology to help you to be calm, focused, and present.

Lesson 4

Breaking Free Of The Pull Of Your Smartphone With Applied Mindfulness (Part I)

In today's lesson, we will learn how to apply mindfulessness to guide our actions, particularly in relation to pulling away from your smartphone. One common definition of mindfulness, which is usually attributed to Jon Kabat-Zinn, is: “paying attention to our experience on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” In light of this definition, mindfulness meditation can be seen as a way of practicing being mindful, in order to build up what you could think of as our “mindfulness muscles”.

Lesson 5

Meditation Apps

Today we will discuss the history and benefits of meditation and how it is being transformed by technology. For thousands of years, meditation was taught in person and transmitted from teacher to student, often at meditation centers holding group retreats. These retreat centers helped spread mindfulness meditation to a larger audience in the west which has since seen the birth of meditation in the online realm.

Lesson 6

Reminders To Be Mindful & Take Breaks

Today, we will discuss the importance of taking breaks and point you to tools to help prompt you to be mindful and give yourself a break! The workaholics among us often feel that taking a break is a sign of weakness, or at least that it will reduce our productivity. In reality, and perhaps counter intuitively, taking breaks can help you to rejuvenate and regain your focus, and thereby increase your overall effectiveness and productivity, whether the work you are doing is physical, mental, or a combination of both.

Lesson 7

Reducing Technological Clutter

Today, we will provide tips to declutter your devices to reduce stress and anxiety. Most people regularly (or at least semi-regularly) go through their stuff and declutter. We donate old clothes, we throw away broken items around the house, we host yard sales to sell off those things that we no longer want or need. It can leave us feeling cleansed and refreshed! So why should we treat our digital clutter any differently?

Lesson 8

Limiting Device Time

Today we will examine how to limit our device time. Many of us feel frustrated with ourselves about the amount of time we spend on our devices. But the fact that modern technology has been designed to take hold of our attention extremely effectively doesn’t mean that we’re powerless against it. In fact, there are many steps that we can take to exercise control over how much time we spend using our devices and how we spend that time. In this lesson we will learn how to be intentional about our use of technology and take back control over our device usage.

Lesson 9

Setting—And Sticking To—Your Intention

Today, we will discuss setting, and sticking to, your intentions. Setting a clear intention is one of the most important parts of mindfulness practice. At the beginning of the day you might set an intention to act respectfully towards everyone you interact with, to be grateful for what you have, or to exhibit generosity. Regular mindfulness practice can help to bring your intention back to the forefront of your attention more frequently, so that you can re-set your intention between your formal meditation sessions.

Lesson 10

Breaking Free Of The Pull Of Your Smartphone With Applied Mindfulness (Part II)

Today, in the final class of this course, we will explore ways to break free of the feeling that you always be using your device. Many of us find that we can easily get sucked into messaging on our smartphones and other devices, whether that be on Facebook or other social media, or on email or text messaging. The habits that many of us have developed around messaging can have many harmful effects in addition to sucking up too much of our time. In this lesson we will do a final exercise that can play a role in alleviating all of these problems, and it doesn’t require anything more than yourself and your smartphone.

Ask your teacher

This course includes 18 community questions and 6 audio replies from Robert Plotkin. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

4.2 (82)

Recent Reviews

Ligia

September 10, 2023

Thank you, great course.

Stephen

April 28, 2021

This has actually helped!

Marina

February 2, 2021

Highly recomend! Very insightful yet simple and easy to listen course. :)

Hadrian

January 14, 2021

These are mostly things I have concluded in separation and at different moments of Dawnbreak while trying to transform my usage of technology on my own, but I've never had them in such an encompassing and succint form 💜 Thank you and may you always walk on warm sands! 🙏

April 7, 2020

Good overall class. I thought it had a lot of great topics but didn’t seem to go into much depth with those topics but rather skimmed the surface or did just a small sample of ideas or techniques. Overall a helpful class but left me asking for more on most days.

Narayanan

April 5, 2020

Useful strategies for digital wellbeing.

Olga

March 7, 2020

Great course with very useful tips for digital age people! Thank you!🙏

Steve

March 6, 2020

Very Useful. 🌟

February 23, 2020

Most of the suggestions are things I've already implemented. I was hoping for more applied mindfulness techniques to help keep me off games and social media. There are only two mindfulness exercises in the entire course, unlike most courses which provide a guided meditation daily.

Pamela

February 16, 2020

Practical info and tips; great teacher and I’ve already benefitted before finishing the course. Thank you!

Casey

January 2, 2020

This is a complex topic and the surface can only be scratched in 10 classes, but I did get some helpful takeaways, especially with editing and arranging my apps and turning off notifications. Yes, I knew these strategies already but this pushed me to really edit, and now I’ve cut my apps by half and my home screen has my fitness, reading and meditation apps, so I’m not tempted to scroll through other mindless things like FB. Thank you for the mindfulness tips, I really do pause now before I grab my phone!

Detto

December 31, 2019

Loaded with helpful ideas

Laurena

December 29, 2019

Excellent! 🙏🏿

Nada

December 2, 2019

Thank you Robert that was very helpful, I will be listening to this talks again. There so much useful information and I appreciate you putting the effort in doing this talks. Namaste Nada 🙏🏻😀

Anna

November 26, 2019

I got frustrated after just a few days of the course. I found I do a lot of what he's talking about anyway (silencing notifications, blocking apps at certain times, having phone free time etc). It seems like common sense to me. And the focus on Apple technology really was not useful as an Android user. I didn't finish the course - and skipped through most of it - as I felt it wasn't a good use of my time.

Jean

November 18, 2019

Useful suggestions!

jackie

November 13, 2019

Great tips.. especially find the feature applied to stop messages from coming through phone while driving to be most self appreciated.

Greg

November 11, 2019

Really nice

Becca

November 5, 2019

Great information I’m going to have to go back and take notes.

Ecoriolan

October 13, 2019

Thank you for this pleasant set of les sons ; i applied most of the advices you give with ease during 2 weeks ; i found a better way to use techno de vice than i did on m'y own

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