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Are you in control of your technology, or is it controlling you?

In this episode of How to Train a Happy Mind, we sit down with Jay Vidyarthi, author of Reclaim Your Mind, a powerful new book released today that offers a radical yet deeply practical approach to reshaping our relationship with technology.

Jay’s insights go beyond the usual advice to put your phone away. He helps us uncover the emotional needs beneath our compulsive tech habits and shows us how to reclaim our focus, relationships, and well-being. He also leads a meditation unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, guiding us through a transformative practice to reset our digital instincts.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the constant pull of screens, notifications, and social media, this conversation is for you. Tune in as Jay and I explore how to take back control of our attention, our time, and ultimately, our happiness.

Scott Snibbe: Jay, it’s a pleasure having you on How to Train a Happy Mind to talk about your book, Reclaim Your Mind, which shares some of the ways you’ve overcome the negative effects of technology on your life and your family. When people first hear this episode, happens to be the very day the book is released. Congratulations on releasing the book today.

[00:02:30] Jay Vidyarthi: Thank you, past Jay would like to offer congratulations to future Jay.

Why did you dedicate your career to healthy ways of using technology?

[00:02:37] Scott Snibbe: If we could start out just by you’re telling me a little bit about the moment in your life where you switched from regular work as a technology designer to someone who’s now dedicated your career only to healthy ways of using technology. What was that moment?

[00:02:55] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, it was a gradual transition. But you can picture me, I’m working my first professional job in downtown Montreal as a designer and design researcher at a boutique consultancy, basically for whoever would pay, we have all kinds of different clients. I’m kind of over the honeymoon period of finally having enough money to not sleep on a mattress on the floor and starting to think a little bit more critically about what I’m working on and I’m having a schism because I love the design process. I love the job, but some of these projects just aren’t lighting me up. They’re really draining my energy. It’s in fact, most of them. There’s a rare project or two that feels like it’s lighting me up.

There was one project in particular where I was sent to go work out of the office of a new startup for a couple of weeks, showed up on the first day, introduced myself to the team, the founder of the company had a very nice collared shirt on kind of a gray haired, older, successful gentlemen. Brought the team of like young tactical employees together in the boardroom, and he opened the kickoff with this statement that the goal of the project was to make him rich. Everyone laughed, but I felt like in my heart, some part of me knew that that wasn’t a joke.

He opened the kickoff with this statement that the goal of the project was to make him rich. Everyone laughed, but I felt like in my heart, some part of me knew that that wasn’t a joke.

That was kind of the emblematic moment where I was starting to lose faith in some of these projects that were going to help me sustain my life financially, but felt completely, at best, pointless, at worst, almost negative in their potential impact. The next 10-15 years from that moment, I gradually found myself in a place where I work as a technology designer that focuses exclusively on mindfulness, compassion, and well-being.

I’m an entrepreneur. I have a team, and we’re designers and researchers, and we go into startups and institutions and nonprofits and they’re trying to create something for the masses or for a specific target audience that’s going to benefit well-being, and we help design those products so that they’re, first of all, compassionate, but also so that they’re effective and they actually can connect with people and benefit in the way they help others.

[00:05:12] Scott Snibbe: It wasn’t only work, though, that you saw some unhealthy relationships to technology, but also with your own relationship to devices. What are some of those unhealthy ways you saw yourself and your family using technology, and how did you find the antidotes to them?

[00:05:28] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, my parents are immigrants from India, so I was not foreign to the ideas of yoga and meditation, though I did roll my eyes when they did it, like it wasn’t until I was in my 20s until I really found some value in those practices. But I think both as a technology designer who was questioning technology and as someone who was starting the path of mindfulness and going on retreats, it was difficult for me to ignore compulsive use being a dominant theme.

That’s only 10 years ago, and it was still tech’s honeymoon period. Everyone was very positive about technology. Everyone was just like, no problems there, technology is great, human progress. I think I was a bit early to start to see, wait a minute, this is disrupting our mental health. It’s disrupting our well-being.

I wasn’t fully clear on the implications of polarization, but I was starting to see glimmers of the echo chambers and the disinformation. Honestly, it made me kind of angry, both as a tech lover, but also as a human being, as a member of my family. From video games to pornography, to social media, to hyperactive news, it just started to kind of pop out in my senses, when I was noticing people walking down the street looking at their technology or people spending hours and hours or myself spending way longer than I wanted to on a screen, I started to question whether that was okay.

When I was noticing people walking down the street looking at their technology or people spending hours and hours or myself spending way longer than I wanted to on a screen, I started to question whether that was okay.

Can we resist these super-engineered attention-grabbing products?

[00:06:55] Scott Snibbe: You talk in your book about how tech companies have precisely engineered their products to suck up our attention, regardless of how healthy and unhealthy. Can you talk about how companies do this and why they do it? Do each of us as ordinary humans even have the strength to resist these super engineered attention grabbing products?

[00:07:17] Jay Vidyarthi: It’s easy to fall into a narrative of these big evil villains that are out there trying to command us, but that really hasn’t been my experience. It’s really that we’re all operating on structures that we’ve built as a human race that are incentivized by things like dollars and in the attention economy, which is what experts call it, attention translates directly to dollars and cents.

Of course, an organization, whether it’s a big tech company, or a political party, news agency, video game company, or social media, whatever, is going to chase those dollars because they’re incentivized to, and therefore chase our attention. Now the challenge is, technology is very powerful, and it can be used for good purposes, and it can be used for challenging purposes. In this case, we’ve just kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater a little bit.

The thing that I think is missing from the conversation that I’m really passionate about is that we are not powerless in our relationship with this stuff. We are not just sheep being led to the slaughter proverbially. In fact, those of us who’ve practiced mindfulness, who’ve actually played with our attention in the moment know that we always have a choice in how we relate to what we experience.

Now sometimes what we experience is more challenging. Sometimes it’s less challenging. Certainly these devices make it more challenging and we do need to do better when it comes to ethical design, when it comes to regulation, when it comes to the science of understanding the effects, but all of that does not mean that you have to sit there and wait for someone to save you because I’m not holding my breath.

There are things you can do in your daily life to manage your relationship with technology. If you really hold in your heart, it’s not just about you, your healthy relationship with technology, your mindful relationship with technology. If you think about the positive effects that’s going to have on your relationship with your loved ones, on the people that depend on you, on the people you work with, on your children, You can really bolster a lot of motivation to find a new relationship with technology that isn’t boiled in hate and anger and guilt and shame and all these things that make it almost impossible to do anything about it.

[00:09:29] Scott Snibbe: This is what’s really special about your book, because there are numerous best-selling books about the evils of technology, which are dead on, they’re absolutely true, what they say, but they don’t really get much into what you can do about it. I like your message, because you specifically say in your book, don’t wait for legislation, don’t throw your phone away, but take control of your mind and your household, particularly your household.

You specifically say in your book, don’t wait for legislation, don’t throw your phone away, but take control of your mind and your household, particularly your household.

This is a message that’s very deeply aligned with the Buddhist tradition, where one of the first things you do is you accept that there’s very little you can control outside of yourself, almost anything. But we have a capacity for unlimited control over our minds. You said it yourself, in your book: we’re not powerless. You’re not a victim.

But then how do we do that?

How can we regain control of our minds?

[00:10:17] Jay Vidyarthi: I think there’s two questions there. How do you do this? This is a podcast that’s very familiar with the Buddhist path and meditation. I don’t think it’s lost on you or your audience to say that awareness is the key to a lot of this. Ultimately the recipe is going to come from awareness of how technology is affecting you in the moment.

To me, if I had to say, like, I only have time to offer one tip before I go, it wouldn’t be like, take your phone out of the bedroom or set a screen time limit. Those are things you could experiment with. But the one tip is to, before you take a lot of actions, see if you can find an intention to bring awareness to your interactions with technology and as many moments as possible: both. Those moments where you’re craving technology, those moments where you’re using technology and then how that affects you afterwards. And simply that awareness will lead to natural changes that are more skillful.

For one person, taking your phone out of the bedroom might be an absolute necessity. You might find your sleep improves. You just might slow the pace of your whole day. For another person, it might not matter at all. It might not be a compulsive use of the late night or the early morning. It might not actually be the fix that you need. That’s why just like the “do this, do that” is not going to really help you as much as paying close awareness to your experience.

Let’s walk through a very quick day. I wake up, I don’t have my phone anywhere nearby. I sort of gradually come down. I have music that plays out of a speaker as opposed to an alarm. One of my favorite albums plays. Right now it’s Tame Impala’s Inner Speaker. I put that on instead of turning the alarm off. It’s actually a great way to start the day. I take that pace.

I take a cue from the chill vibe of inner speaker, kind of go through my morning routine with my son. We go down, we’re playing around, he’s doing things. I haven’t looked at my phone at all. At some point, I got my tea ready and I’m just kind of sitting there. This would be a moment where you might want to look at your phone, but my phone is actually charging in my office, and I haven’t come to the workday yet, so I don’t actually approach my phone, but I have paper magazines which I start to read because they’re not personalized. They’re not today’s hot button news story. They’re like reasoned analysis over the past few months of news, they don’t have that sense of urgency.

I might go throughout the day sending voice notes or video notes as opposed to text messages to build deeper connection with people. I might be very judicious about the way I use my email, but not only in this kind of harsh, strict, like careful email sticky. What I tend to do is I have a 30 minute email session at the beginning of the day, and I kind of treat it like a meditation where I actually want these emails to connect with people.

What I tend to do is I have a 30 minute email session at the beginning of the day, and I kind of treat it like a meditation where I actually want these emails to connect with people.

I try to avoid treating people like objects, which you can easily do when they’re far away and just words on a screen, like, how do I be warm and check on how people are and express my compassion and kindness to them in those emails, as opposed to rushing something off the corner of my phone while I’m about to get in the car, I can go on.

We can talk about the way I manage the apps on my phone. We can talk about video games. I love video games and I play them in a mindful way. We can talk about TV and streaming services and in ways that I actually, these are all a big part of my life and I interact with them in ways that I try really hard to be aware of and to not let destabilize my mind while actually getting a lot of joy from these interactions.

Is it possible to mindfully play a video game?

[00:13:41] Scott Snibbe: Another nice quote from your book is, “It’s okay to enjoy things,” which is, something we learned in Mahayana Buddhism. In other forms of Buddhism it’s actually not okay to enjoy things. Theravada forms of Buddhism, you really want to stay away from, not just your phone, but even a fancy meal, or attractive people, anything—even a nice place to live. In Mahayana Buddhism, it’s okay to enjoy things, but you learn a very skillful way of doing it. It’s one of these things very different about your message and your book.

I think a lot of people would say, is it really possible to mindfully play a video game? How does that work?

[00:14:21] Jay Vidyarthi: Well, it comes in a lot of ways. First of all, the choice of video game matters; if you’re not a gamer, you think of video games in a certain way. If you are a gamer, you recognize it’s an art form. There are some video games that are truly mindful. In fact, a big inspiration for me is Jenova Chen, who is a game designer and the founder of thatgamecompany. He’s created games with the explicit intent of mindfulness.

I actually was teaching a course at the University of Toronto where we talked a little bit about mindful video games. I remember this one woman who was really angry at me when I brought the topic up. As we discussed, it became clear that she had a teenager who was addicted to first person shooters. The idea that she was getting out of that environment coming to learn about mindfulness and technology and I was talking about video games that that were mindful, she just rejected it. The homework assignment for that week was for everyone in the class to choose one of the examples of a better technology that I presented.

Kudos to her courage because she chose a game I mentioned called Journey, which was by Jenova Chen and his team at thatgamecompany. It’s a beautiful game where you kind of calmly wander the desert. She came back a week later and in the sharing actually shed a few tears in the experience of like not just the game being an absolute work of art, beautiful music, but something shifted in her relationship with her son.

Instead of constantly judging and criticizing and telling him to turn it off, she went to him and said, Hey, can we download and play this game together? She kind of recounted his face of like utter disbelief that she would be at all interested in playing a game. If your kid is into video games, the best solution is almost certainly not going to be just to shame him for it constantly. I think there is something that we can all learn from that story.

If your kid is into video games, the best solution is almost certainly not going to be just to shame him for it constantly. I think there is something that we can all learn from that story.

When I play a video game, for example, I’m very judicious about the video game. But also, I set a very clear intention of how I’m going to play. I’m going to put those distractions away. These days, actually, we have a weekly video game party with my son. That’s honestly a highlight of the week. You can picture me and my wife and our five-year-old son laughing and smiling and enjoying games. He’s building levels in Mario Maker. I just downloaded a new aesthetic indie game called Animal Well, and it’s like beautiful and retro inspired.

But let’s be fair, you never see me doing a seven hour compulsive, video game session. The last game that had me like that was a game called Rocket League. I had to skillfully notice that reaction in myself and delete it. It’s walking that line between recognizing when something’s compulsive, but not throwing the entire platform of video games out because Rocket League is a little bit too sticky for me. I really want to underline: I’m sure there are many people who can play Rocket League without a problematic response. There’s nothing wrong with Rocket League, as much as I and Rocket League had a negative interaction that I made a clear, intentional choice around.

[00:17:20] Scott Snibbe: In the lineage of Buddhism I’m a part of, they say, stay away from objects of strong attachment. Pornography is a good example of that, like it tends to be very, very strong stimulus and best to avoid for most people.

Attachment is the real problem

[00:17:36] Jay Vidyarthi: I wanted to add that what you said about the different interpretations of joy in different sects of Buddhism. I remember being on a retreat where there was an instruction, don’t look at the beautiful sky during the sunset. I was just like, this is not why I’m here. This is not why I meditate. This is not the way.

I do think there are some good intentions behind that teaching, but it comes from a place of a little bit of judgment that there are sticky objects of attachment we do have to manage. But if we start to throw the joy out too, I think we’ve gone too far.

[00:18:07] Scott Snibbe: What we learned, again, at least in Mahayana Buddhism, is no objects are the problem. It’s not your phone. It’s not Netflix, not even pornography. It’s your attachment. Which is craving, thinking you have to have this thing or you won’t be happy. Anger, exaggerating the negative aspects of something like, unless this thing goes away, I can never be happy. And ignorance, which I like to just call selfishness, which is just self centeredness, not really thinking about the connection to others, interdependence. Those are only real enemies in Buddhism and your book really gracefully glides around realizing that.

[00:18:47] Jay Vidyarthi: I think more compassion from the perspective of the systems of society is needed, the process within which these objects of attachment are created that we as a field of technologists need to think deeply about. That being said, again, we can’t just play the blame game and expect that to be the solution.

Is it a systemic or personal problem? Or both?

[00:19:07] Scott Snibbe: Well, let’s slightly play the blame game for a second. The CEO of Netflix once said, our main competition is sleep. I think we know, health-wise, there’s almost nothing more important to your physical and mental health than getting a good night’s sleep. Unpack that a little bit.

How do we end up with a company saying that one of the healthiest things for people is the thing that they’re fighting against?

[00:19:35] Jay Vidyarthi: What it’s pointing to is a larger systemic problem that we talked a little bit about in terms of the early issues with technology and simple incentives. The reality is our system is designed around very simple incentives like, do you click on that link? How many eyeballs do we get on this picture? How many exposures do we get to this ad, all the way up to how much adoption engagement and retention does our product have? How much revenue are we earning? How do we trick people into subscriptions that they forget about? You know, it’s It’s turtles all the way down in terms of negative incentive structures.

I really do think in the large majority of cases. The people who are in these companies are just like you and me and they’re trying to climb the ladder and trying to make those incentives work so that they can get that promotion and they can grow the company. It’s all coming from that.

You mentioned the word ignorance and selfishness. It’s coming from that view. I really do think that we need to find a way to address this on a systemic level. I don’t claim to have all the answers there. The couple of things I can say is like, as a designer, we do need to really embrace the principles of design as an act of service. I think designers have a unique seat at the table where we kind of are trying to balance the systemic incentives with actually serving people.

I think designers have a unique seat at the table where we kind of are trying to balance the systemic incentives with actually serving people.

I also do think that organizations of different types need to be working together. Like scientists have a role to play to clarify the issues. Technologists have a role to play around ethical design and business organization incentives. I think politicians have a role to play and in skillful regulation without going overboard. I also think everything I’ve set up until now, there’s a lot of people who just nod their head and say yes, yes, yes, but I think the missing pillar of that table is I think individuals have a huge role to play. I think you and I and everyone out there, our relationship with technology governs our own lives, the lives of people around us, and also ultimately will drive the market incentives around these things.

It can seem very distant and impossible, and I don’t have all the answers, but it certainly is a challenge of our time that affects all other challenges, because it’s fundamentally at the root of mind that this is happening.

Scott Snibbe: Yeah, absolutely. And within the companies, most of the people, they were very lovely, but it was the incentives because of course, the top line is revenue. Like that’s the way I saw that I was a CEO for different times of different creative companies and startups and each one of them, I faced a moment where I felt like I had to make a decision that was against my values but was aligned with my fiduciary responsibility, which is the responsibility to maximize profit.

When I was at Facebook, any change you made, you did an A B test and you get all these different variables that it affects. One of them is revenue, unfortunately, a lot of the changes that were beneficial for people’s minds made a big hit into revenue; so they weren’t implemented.

You could accuse me of idealism, but there is something that wakes me up in the morning in terms of purpose that’s somehow related to a long term view. Number one is the idea that I think the fruits of this growing movement of more awareness of our minds and mental health and mindfulness is essential, and the fruits of that may be borne Beyond my lifespan. It’s still important to work on. It’s still important to plant those seeds. That’s one ideology that I think that keeps me waking up in the morning and doing this work and not just taking the double salary. If I go work for the bank or whatever .

[00:23:13] Jay Vidyarthi: The other piece of it that really comes to mind around all of these incentives trying to line up is those incentives are driven by a free market right now, and I’ve seen little glimmers of areas, both in technology, but also in other verticals.

Everyday people’s choices drive different market behavior, like, for example, in my lifetime, there has been much more movement towards healthier food and towards cleaner energy. Now, those are both still huge problems, but there are certainly more electric cars on the road than I could have imagined 20-30 years ago. There’s certainly like, a huge market premium on healthy food, which is shocking. If you go get the organic, healthier food, it costs more.

[00:23:57] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, very few people drinking sodas anymore. I remember 90s, early 2000s, people would drink like three cokes a day.

[00:24:04] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, you would like chug a mountain dew.

[00:24:06] Scott Snibbe: Now it’s these zero calorie drinks that just have the essence of some flavor in them.

[00:24:11] Jay Vidyarthi: I’m not gonna go out on a limb and say that this is how you solve the problem. But certainly I can imagine that the transformation that’s happening in technology is that the more people are making intentional choices around their awareness and attention in their daily lives, and the more the market starts to choose technologies that respect our minds and respect our attention, respect our privacy, the more these companies are going to follow those incentives.

The illusions of technology

[00:24:34] Scott Snibbe: One of the core principles of a healthy relationship technology you talk about is “see through conceptual illusions.” I’m sure you’re aware to the Buddhist concept of emptiness. A lot of people don’t realize, a file isn’t really a file. Like you put this little picture of a file, but not really a file. It’s not in a folder, it’s a metaphor, but it’s all like that.

Can you talk a little bit about the illusions that technology products impose upon us and when they become unhealthy?

[00:25:04] Jay Vidyarthi: I think in the 80s and 90s, designers figured out the value of an interface metaphor, like the file and the folder and the desktop and all these things. There’s nothing wrong with those metaphors. They make things more usable, easier to understand. Now, what’s happened though, is that that principle has extended into some pretty intimate areas of life, right? Because a desktop and a file and a folder is a kind of innocuous metaphor, but a friend, that’s what the social media tells you: you have 3000 friends. that is a challenging metaphor, right?

A connection, right? When you’re in a dating app, like a match, right? You get all the way to the news feed. It’s actually an algorithmically determined series of content designed to make you click. It’s designed to be sticky. It generates social comparison and polarization, but we just call it a news feed like, Oh, just check the latest news, but that’s not what it is.

The idea is when you can see through these conceptual illusions in your technology-use, you get this sense of clarity naturally, again, with awareness transforms the way you’re interacting with your technologies in a daily basis. One of the things that’s really important about this is that the grounding point is the knowledge. The second layer is the awareness in the moment of the metaphor working its magic on you. Then from those two foundational points, then you can start to take skillful actions.

I think a lot of people just skip to the skillful actions and wondering why they’re not seeing their habits change. Without that awareness of you described emptiness of some of these illusions, without those elements of actually noticing in the moment: Oh, I keep looking at this phone because I’m looking for that unread message from a friend, but really, every time I read a message from this group chat, I ruminate for an hour about whether I was understood properly.

There’s all these miscommunications happening because we’re calling it a chat with a friend. But really a chat with a friend is a much higher bandwidth and more engaging experience where there’s a lot less room for misinterpretation. When you see those illusions. That’s where you like, Oh, I’m going to record a voice note for this friend, or I’m going to give him a call because I can see very clearly that this metaphor is leading us to misinterpret each other.

I think when you take that exact example and apply it to AI, where we’re having a quote unquote conversation, which is a metaphor with a large language model AI, that sets up certain social norms that the AI is going to violate almost immediately.

Dealing with technology as a parent

[00:27:40] Scott Snibbe: What would you say to a parent of a child who seems addicted to Instagram? You know Instagram and messaging are pretty typically the ones that are the most addictive. Is it too late at this point? What do you say to that hard problem: teenagers and their parents?

[00:27:58] Jay Vidyarthi: I don’t have a teenager, so I’m not going to claim to know the answers. my son is five. I’m going to cross that bridge in ten years and maybe have to write another book. Maybe one contradicting the first one. Who knows? But here’s what I’ve learned and what I’ll say with my experience in this. The first thing is, I would challenge the word addiction. There are definitely a small subgroup of people who would fit the criteria for an actual addiction to technology. But that’s not the case for the vast majority of us.

Don’t get me wrong. There are elements of an addictive relationship that we see, like compulsive problematic use, withdrawal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an addiction. The way I like to think about our connection with technology is as a relationship. I would reframe the question to be like, Okay, so your teen has a problematic relationship with instant messaging. Now imagine your teen has a problematic relationship with someone in their class, like they’ve got a boyfriend or girlfriend, right? How do you handle that? It’s a very different way, right?

First of all, you don’t just immediately walk in and shame and guilt them for the amount of time they’re spending with this person or the negative influence. You recognize that they’re actually doing something fundamentally human. They’re trying to relate with someone. They’re trying to connect with someone and you have to think a little bit more skillfully and compassionately about how you approach that. That would be my first step.

[00:29:13] Scott Snibbe: What you say reminds me of nonviolent communication, is something that I’ve just been so invested in learning, which is that there’s this fundamental principle Marshall Rosenberg talks about, which you just mentioned, which is that everyone has fundamental healthy needs, like the need for connection, need for good relationships, the need for safety, security, food and so on.

Then we go awry in our strategies for getting those met like a strategy of talking a walk with your friend in nature is generally a very healthy strategy for getting a need for friendship met. Whereas, a strategy of accumulating likes from strangers on social media is probably an unhealthy strategy, for getting those needs met .

[00:29:59] Jay Vidyarthi: That’s exactly it. That dovetails perfectly with the other thought, which is like, Now that we’ve reframed this hypothetical child as having a problematic relationship, it’s also very clear that we can inquire into why. What is the emotional need that they are trying to get resolved as a result of this behavior?

Is it? Is it boredom? Is it a need for connection? Is it loneliness? Is it physical? Are they chatting with their girlfriend? Like, are they trying to get some cuddles? What is the emotional need here? Sometimes it’s reactive too,? Is the child mad at you and mad at their family and therefore they’re escaping? Is there an escapist need?

When you start to see that clear picture, you start to open up Pandora’s box around much more effective strategies. Let’s go into that hypothetical scenario now and you’ve got the kid and they’re just zoning out chatting with people texting on the couch right and then you’ve got mom or dad coming in being like, Oh, look at you with that with that damn phone again, put that phone away. What are you doing? You’re wasting your life. Versus who are you talking to? You’re their parent. You have a right to know who you’re talking to. And like, what are you guys talking about? Oh, do you like that person? What is going on with that person?

Then you might be able to open up. And it’s hard with a teen because sometimes they’re just like F off, I get it. But it’s like in one beautiful moment, you might get them to open up a little bit and you might just say like, Oh, have you been to their house? Where do they live? Just subtly offer something because you get a sense, they’re looking for emotional, social relationship. Maybe I can drive them both to the mall or whatever, is there some way I can help them meet that need?

Or maybe they’re bored, there’s something else, different for every kid. But being able to see those deeper needs and not approach with guilt and shame, but with clarity and awareness, can very much transform the approach.

[00:31:48] Scott Snibbe: A friend of mine who was on the podcast, Richard Prince is a high school counselor and really deep Buddhist practitioner. He said, look out for your agenda as a parent, start by asking questions. Asking open ended questions is just the most powerful way of connecting with anybody. Hey, what are you doing? What are you getting out of that? How do you feel right now?

I liked what you said about boredom. I have a 13-year-old daughter now and from time to time she says I’m bored and what I always say to her is that’s fantastic. That is when all the best things happen in the history of humanity. When you’re bored is when your mind is open to all kinds of new, interesting possibilities. I said, really savor that moment. Don’t fill it up so quickly.

[00:32:38] Jay Vidyarthi: Only though, if you’re not caught up in a reactive cycle around it, if you’re not mad that you’re bored or entitled, like someone should come entertain me. We have this with our five-year-old a little bit where he gets bored. I want to open him up and I’ve tried those strategies, but fundamentally what I’m seeing is that it’s not just that he’s bored. It’s that he’s angry that he’s bored and he’s expecting to be entertained.

We’re kind of changing our strategy to be like, how do we address that first? I think the point about the power of open ended questions, like I know this as a design researcher as well. I do a lot of qualitative research. There’s actually two steps to a really powerful open ended question.

There’s asking open ended questions. But then there’s like really listening to the answer. Can you turn that open ended question into a little mini meditation where you are going to be highly perceptive to what the response is and notice those subtle clues that might suggest those emotional needs?

We’ve been talking about a hypothetical child. But really, the best thing you can do is model behavior, and I really just want to point out that this is just as effective, if not more effective, on ourselves to identify, if you’re stuck on Netflix all the time, to look inward and to observe your own behavior and say, what is the emotional need that I am actually exploring?

I did this recently, specifically with TV. I was actually starting to get a bit of a guilt shame pattern around TV because it’s just a lot right now. I’ve got a young kid. I’ve got a lot going on. And at the end of the day, my wife and I were just kind of escaping into TV land. I like at some point was like no more TV or whatever. I was trying to trying to get rid of it. But at some point I realized when I looked into the emotional need there, I actually had some self compassion.

I was like, these days are wild, my kid is waking me up with a kick to the balls at 6 a. m. I’m going right into parenting. I am working all day, going right back into parenting and then like collapsing into this TV because the emotional need there was a rest. There are better ways to rest, but TV is quite entertaining and engaging. I set some ground rules around how to engage with TV in a more mindful way. But I didn’t throw the TV out because actually it was something I really needed at this phase of life.

I set some ground rules around how to engage with TV in a more mindful way. But I didn’t throw the TV out because actually it was something I really needed at this phase of life.

Those emotional needs, not only give you strategies to put the tech away, but to also guiltlessly enjoy the thing that you’re enjoying. I think that’s what a lot of people are missing.

How much TV is too much?

[00:34:57] Scott Snibbe: Your book got me thinking about television and movies across the course of my own life. You used to watch one movie a week or every two weeks because you’d have to go to a theater. Then video stores came and you’d still watch about one movie a week, maybe two. You’d rent one or two and it’s really become a very slippery slope. It’s sort of extraordinary how much people watch.

It really dawned on me the other day because I went to the bank and the dentist then I always make it a point of asking people how they’re doing. It’s kind of one of my practices of just connecting with people is it, but you ask it in a way that’s not just hello. You actually sit and listen and it’s very surprising, people really start telling you.

I asked my dental hygienist, What did you do over the weekend? She’s like, Oh, I just stayed home and I rewatched a whole series on Netflix. And it was such a sunny, such a beautiful weekend. She spent all three days inside watching a show she’d already watched, 16 hours of television or something like that.

Then I went to the bank and it was the same thing. I had to deposit a check. I asked them, how are you doing? How was your weekend? And she said the same thing to me. Oh, it was good, I just chilled out. I was like, oh, how do you relax? Oh, I just stayed in and watched some shows. It made me sad. I don’t want to be judgmental about that. There’ve been times I sat down and watched several hours of, of TV. But it breaks my heart. It really breaks my heart.

It doesn’t seem that healthy to spend the beautiful sunny weekend all day indoors, binge watching a show that you might’ve watched before. How do you respond to that? Is that okay? Are there ways to manage that kind of behavior for ourselves. For someone listening who might have gone through that and doesn’t feel that good about themselves.

[00:36:48] Jay Vidyarthi: It’s about the context more than the content, right? I think that’s where we trip up. Probably in most cases, that was not a healthy behavior that those two individuals . But there are cases where it would be. Let’s say someone is grieving and they just needed that weekend in and it doesn’t matter that the sun was shining. They just needed some self care time.

That’s the first thing I would say, which is yeah, probably not the greatest way to spend a weekend, but let’s not immediately judge is my first kind of layer. The second layer is, those of us who’ve done deep meditation, we have this complicated journey that we’ve all gone through with our thoughts and all this technology is really an extension of our conceptual minds. We’ve created a whole world of manipulating the physical environment into extending our thoughts.

These shows and these technologies are all very conceptual. One thing we learn in meditation is that trying to force yourself not to think is not really the way to a clear mind. But giving in to just a frantic mind is also not the way to a clear mind. We practice this skillful dance of without self judgment, practicing loving awareness and noticing our thoughts and befriending our thoughts and finding ease and shaping our environments and the practices we do and the way we live our lives to slowly bring some peace of mind without judging, harshly pushing away our thoughts.

I would say, we can take the exact same way of thinking, which is really at the heart of why the book that I wrote is at this intersection of mindfulness and technology. We can take this same way of thinking. We don’t have to hate ourselves or hate TV or judge TV or judge the banker or any of these people to both recognize that there are some cases where we want to watch all this TV.

We don’t have to hate ourselves or hate TV.

There’s other cases where it’s not necessarily the greatest thing. And with awareness, we can pay attention to how we’re being affected, the emotional needs we’re trying to serve, what the fallout is of that kind of behavior, and skillfully, gradually move towards an authentic, mindful relationship with technology without any of that baggage.

I would even say, just like in meditation with intense self criticism, intense judgment of others, intense conceptualization of what a good weekend is versus what a bad weekend is, or what’s a natural way to spend a day versus what’s an unnatural way. We can drop all those concepts and it actually will help us on the journey to all have a healthier relationship.

To go back to your exact story, I don’t know the trips of those two people. I can’t cast judgment. Even if I did know the trips, it’s really up to them. I do know some of these frames that might help them hopefully. That’s why I’m here is that it might help some people think about it. But I would also say you in that scenario are approaching those two people with a certain level of concepts about your own relationship with technology and your own relationship with a sunny weekend. We have to just be aware of all of that to let the concepts fall away and find a more authentic way of being.

Analytical meditation for digital wellness

[00:39:53] Scott Snibbe: You were mentioning this exercise of directly addressing an emotional need, this one of the most powerful of your exercises, which are what we call analytical meditations in Tibetan Buddhism, the techniques that steer your mind towards happiness, meaning, connection.

Could you talk about how to do that? How to directly address an emotional need? What is that exercise?

[00:40:17] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, it’ a little bit of a hybrid of analytical meditation as well as internal family systems, because it acknowledges that there’s a certain part of you, which is sometimes called parts work, a part of you that is trying to achieve some need. We can talk it through, or actually kind of go through it as a meditation?

You can sort of sit with your eyes closed or eyes open is fine too. If that’s not something you’re familiar with, I find this also works as a journaling exercise, so grab a pen and a paper.

The first prompt I’ll have for you is to just think of the first technology that comes to mind that you feel like you might have a problematic relationship with. Something that feels compulsive. I’ll give you a few moments to do that. If a few of them come up, just choose whichever one feels alive right now to work with and maybe not the hardest one in the list.

And when you’re ready, we can transition to the heart of this practice, which is I’m going to give, a solid couple of minutes for you to explore identifying the feelings that you might be avoiding or when you use this technology and what underlying emotional needs might be drawing you to it.

Sometimes it helps to imagine the technology, picture it in your mind, or imagine any sounds that it makes. And ask yourself the question, what am I trying to get from this technology? What am I trying to avoid when I use this technology? It’s almost like you’re opening a conversation with that part of you that’s really stuck on this technology. A friendly conversation. What are you trying to get out of this? What’s going on here?

In dialogue with this part of yourself, the first step is acceptance. Recognize that this part of you is simply trying to take care of you in its own way.

Maybe the strategy might not be ideal or something like that, but we can just accept this part of ourselves and almost express gratitude. Thank you. Thank you for trying to take care of me in this way. Thank you for trying to take care of me, but there seems to be something a little off with the strategy here.

Now transition to a brainstorm in collaboration with this part of you. What are some other ways you could give this part of you what it’s looking for? Again, not necessarily looking for better or worse ways, just brainstorm a couple of different ways.

Maybe things you already do, maybe things you’re considering doing, that might get this part of you what it needs, that might make it whole.

So for example, if you’re stuck on a technology because you’re trying to avoid boredom, you might brainstorm other ways to handle boredom. If you’re stuck on maybe entertainment or video games, because fundamentally you’re looking for some humor, some fun, some play. What are some other ways you might get some, some laughs, some play?

And a third familiar example, maybe you’re compulsively checking work email or work messages because there’s some deeper emotional need that you want to feel productive or make sure everything is working and that you haven’t left any loose ends. What are some other ways you can give this part of you that feeling of being enough? Things are okay. We’ll get to it in time.

Alright, just as we’re about to transition out of this practice, take a moment to let go of all the effort andyou can take this moment to write down or to think about a clear intention of a skillful action you’d like to take. Uh, but that’s optional. If you, don’t want to do that, you can just relax and let the awareness lead to change in a natural way. Okay, let’s transition out to your own pace.

[00:46:54] Scott Snibbe: That’s a great exercise. I’ll be honest with you about what came up for me, which is, fortunate enough to have very privileged problems, addictions, is that obviously for people who’ve paid attention to me, like, how does this guy manage to spend all his time running a meditation podcast? This is not a money making venture. And it’s because I saved up some money over the years. My family can’t afford to take private planes everywhere. But if we’re careful, we can get a nice level of ordinary means met through investments.

The thing that came up for me is that I’m often checking that too much for me, where’s our stock portfolio and things like that so, I thought, okay, where is that coming from? Well, the healthy need underlying it is, of course, the need to provide for my family and feel safe and secure, and that we’re not spending too much, we’re not spending too little, and we keep things invested so that it will provide for the long term, but that we have some money for what we need for the next year, and so on.

Again, very, very privileged problem. but it is kind of an addiction and it, what it brought to mind was that in the last part, it brought to mind what you say in your book, which is becoming comfortable with the discomfort that discomfort is a very healthy thing. Like a lot of what we do with technology, like me compulsively checking my investments, is trying to fulfill this need for security.

But really, what I’ve found through that exercise is like, actually I need to be a little with the uncertainty; that of course nothing’s certain. We’re in a relatively good situation, but things could change and, it’s not particularly healthy to check so much these things.

Maybe just becoming more comfortable with that uncertainty and checking in a little less frequently. That’s what came to mind for me.

Practicing self-compassion

[00:48:52] Jay Vidyarthi: Thank you for sharing, so vulnerably, I think it’s a beautiful example for a number of reasons. First of all, just like you’ve got a teenager who’s staring at their phone because they want social connection and they don’t want to be bored, you’re in a different phase of life when you’re checking your finances as a provider and you can see the parallel between you and that teenager in that moment that like, frankly, a lot of parents don’t see what their kids around technology. You have a need to be a provider and you want your family to be secure. It is the most fundamental emotional need for someone in your situation.

Immediately you can see, I can even hear in the way you’re talking the complete dropping of shame and guilt about this behavior. You’ve kind of opened it up to say, Oh, actually, this is something I want to look at and then you’re opening up into really authentic insights about uncertainty.

And you’re kind of forgiving that part of you that wants to check. The other reason I really love that example is that you’re sort of showcasing and exhibiting the power of looking at your own behavior. Through the lens of the larger picture of your own life, that the behavior is just looking at a phone and we’re all somehow in this world now where we’re all shaming each other because we look at our phones, but really like Scott out there looking at his phone every five minutes is his intention to express love and compassion and care for the people he cares about most and make sure they’re safe and secure.

Yeah, we can slow down on the checking and we can find ways to do it, but all of a sudden it’s coming from a place of self compassion. In my experience, not only is that warm and fuzzy, but it’s also much more effective to change your habits. You don’t change your habits from a place of hating yourself. That’s just not how it happens.

You don’t change your habits from a place of hating yourself. That’s just not how it happens.

Healthy strategies for mobile communication

[00:50:41] Scott Snibbe: This is self-compassion. It’s what we need to start with, because there’s no way to be nice to anybody else until you start just accepting everything about yourself. I actually thought our family had a pretty good relationship to technology, certainly within the context of our current society. Some of the things you about we already do, like my wife and I, we always put our phones away. Mine’s here in my office, like yours, I put in my office when I come home.

We have an analog life, an analoghome life for the most part. We don’t even have a television on the wall or anything like that. but there were some things in your book that I really, really felt like we could go further. One of them was, your encouragement to send an audio or a video recording in a chat message instead of text.

I noticed I kind of don’t like that. I don’t like getting actually so many text messages from my wife. Cause it’s a kind of coldness to it in a way, except when it’s a heart or a kiss or something like that. One of those illusions wow, is that really love? Because I started doing that now, just sending a voice message and I felt it was so much warmer. Also like on your Apple phone they disappear too. So much more like real life: you just hear it and then it’s gone.

Can you talk about why this can be a nice healthy strategy to adopt in our mobile communication?

[00:52:08] Jay Vidyarthi: Well, first of all, obviously, we need face-to-face relationships. We need people in our lives physically. That’s something we’re wired for and it’s very important to our well being. That being said, When we accept the world for what it is, that there’s a lot of people we connect with via technology, we have to acknowledge that there’s different ways to connect with each other. There is a lot of people who might take this point and say, Well, listen, it’s a higher bandwidth connection. You’re seeing more facial cues. You’re hearing voice cues. I think that’s true for sure.

But I think there’s actually something more fundamental about it. When you write a text, you are able to sort of self-censor yourself. It’s not spontaneous. You’re able to kind of like write and then erase and then rewrite and kind of share these little glimpses into some ideas you have. It’s highly conceptual. So beyond the fact that I’m seeing your face and I’m hearing your voice. There’s a spontaneity and vulnerability to it that you simply can’t fake.

The minute you think about it, it’s not authentic anymore. A key part of this that you may have noticed in the exercise about this in the book is that I recommended not doing multiple takes or even listening back to your take.

[00:53:21] Scott Snibbe: Which I did and and that’s really important too. It has to be spontaneous.

[00:53:26] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, that’s right. Because it’s not just about the bandwidth. Like I could do 10 takes of a video of myself and then, yeah, you still get my face, but there’s something still not authentic about that. Whereas I just hit the record. Some of the apps, you just press and hold the button and you just start recording. I can make a silly face for my brother. I can heartfelt emote. I just actually published a piece today about a friend who’s going through a health crisis and we’ve been connecting across the ocean via voice messages. This is a great example because it’s a sensitive topic, right?

As a compassionate human being, when he tells me some of the incredible challenges he’s going through, as any human being would, I don’t want to say something awful. I want to make sure he knows that I’m feeling his suffering with him. There’s all these social norms. I just hit record and I go out on that limb and just say what comes to mind.

I don’t overthink it because what’s authentic is often what is needed. And at some point, like a couple of months into voice notes, he shared back to me that a lot of his friends were finding distance and they were, advice giving and just all kinds of weird social reactions that were not in service, but he appreciated our connection along with a few other people in his life because I was just talking to him like a friend.

I reflected on that. I was like, one reason was I wasn’t overthinking the way technology could let me do if he were sitting right here, I wouldn’t be able to censor my authentic reactions. When I just hit record and start talking without overthinking it, some of that comes across too. So I think it’s about more than just bandwidth, which is a very logical rational way to think about it. I think it’s about authentic expression as well.

Practical ways to use technology consciously

[00:55:03] Scott Snibbe: Spontaneity. Authenticity. You’re a designer, principles is called “fight design with design,” are there other ways that you’ve designed your life to foster healthy relationships to your family, technology, and how can some of us pick up on some of your ways of designing our lives in healthy ways?

[00:55:22] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, there’s little nuances and you’ll notice they all come from self awareness. Unfortunately, it’s not as plug and play as maybe your question would suggest. But I certainly think these are all ideas worth trying. So we’ve mentioned a few we’ve mentioned getting the phone out of the bedroom, we’ve mentioned paper magazines.

We talked a little bit about entertainment, but one thing I’ll say is when you’re engaging with a video game or a TV show and you’re enjoying it, really noticing your body is such a powerful little trick. One way that I’ve kind of designed my situation for that is the way that I’ve organized things on my interfaces.

Your home screen, for example, of your phone, the launch screen of your TV, the console screen of your video game. These are all jump off points where you choose an experience. The way you organize and customize what’s available there can help you make skillful choices. But also what I tend to do is make a visual decision, like change a wallpaper or change a color as a kind of singing bowl to remind me to notice my body. I’ll jump into my phone, but then the picture right on the front will be something I’ve intentionally chosen to remind me, hold on, take a breath and slow down.

Sometimes I find myself asking myself an inquiry question. Like, why are you here? Why am I picking up my phone right now? And many times I’ve like caught myself kind of engaging in something that was quite not actually aligned with my real intentions in the moment, and that sort of caught me.

Another one that’s really interesting around I guess little tricks that can dramatically shift the way you’re relating is like, I noticed that when I send messages, dramatically impacts my mind for the next hour or two, because I’m waiting for a reply, basically. This is not necessarily true of everyone, but for me, especially if it’s something I really care about emotional message to my partner or a proposal for a business contract or anything like that. I will find myself ruminating and checking for replies. I actually have set an intention that I try not to send any work emails that are serious at the end of the day.

I will find myself ruminating and checking for replies. I actually have set an intention that I try not to send any work emails that are serious at the end of the day.

Because if I send a message at the end of the day, I’m way more likely in that window from like 5 to 9 p.m. to keep going back to my inbox and seeing if I got a reply. Sometimes I’ll actually snooze the email and send it in the morning, so the reply comes when I’m already at my desk. The same is true with some social messages in different categories. One of the other things that really affects me a lot in my relationship with technology is I will compulsively like want to play a game if it’s on my phone.

There was a game that I was into and I deleted it, but instead of just deleting it out of self-malice or self-criticism, I acknowledged that I was actually looking for something to chew on in those moments. I was looking for some play. I removed the game from my home screen, but in the same place, I put a chess app. I’m by no means a chess master, but it’s just something to chew on that’s a little bit more productive.

Now actually, like a year and a half later, now a little group. It has chess, it has the New York Times Wordle, it has a crossword app, and a sudoku app, and these are all games that I enjoy, I chew on, but I don’t compulsively chase. I’m not like constantly pulling my phone out to play Sudoku. So there’s like a self awareness of like needing to chew on something, needing to play, but avoiding an app in that position that might be too sticky.

[00:58:56] Scott Snibbe: You go into this in great detail in your book. You have no work email on your phone. The problem, of course, is a lot of the company’s defaults are not necessarily the healthiest ways for some of us to interact. I found there is a healthy way to interact with social media. But what I found is that I turned all the notifications off: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, of those. I developed apps too, creative apps. I remember the days before notifications and it was much more intentional.

I just do that. Then the only way for me to see Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, is I have to remember it.

[00:59:38] Jay Vidyarthi: I, for the very same reason, I had an emotional need of wanting to be productive and so I was compulsively checking my email. I removed it for a while. I put it back on my phone if I’m traveling without my laptop or let’s say I’m going to a concert. At some point I was like in line for a concert with my wife, and I was like, Oh, I have to download the email app to get the tickets. She rolled her eyes cause she lives with me and knows what I’m like. I went to go download the app and it said that it was already downloaded.

I realized that just actually a retreat from email on my phone completely destroyed the habit, but what was really important about that transition was that I didn’t just delete it. I deleted it with an intention that every time I found myself looking for it, that would be a cue for me to step into mindful awareness, to step into a moment of meditation.

Every time I instinctively pull my phone out and my finger was hovering around the space where that icon used to be, I would treat that like a singing bowl and be like, Whoa, what am I looking for right now? What is the need? With that clarity, now email is actually back on my phone, but I don’t use it compulsively at all because I’ve kind of seen through that habit pattern.

[01:00:46] Scott Snibbe: You built that muscle. Another one is auto play on Netflix, and all of them, Disney Plus everything. That’s one of these dark patterns for most of us that it’s hard to resist, and it creates kind of anxiety and then you’re back into this loop again. Of course, turning those off it’s harder than you think. You have to Google where that setting is buried, one that I found very healthy for my mind is yeah, you watch one thing a week or two a week or something like that, and it does not instantly start playing the next.

[01:01:18] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, it creates false urgency. When you see through that, like I’m certainly disabling it, removes the burden from your mind to have to figure that out. But even if it is there, when you see the false urgency, you can slowly pivot. Like I’m at a point now where those countdown timers, I just kind of smile. I’m like, Oh, trying to trick me. I just sort of laugh, it’s almost fun to see through it and to notice the impact that it has.

I was going to say one more thing about notifications. For those of us who are a little nerdier, there’s some incredible hacky tools out there to customize our experience and those are only growing. I definitely disable a lot of notifications. Social media as well. But I go one step further. There’s a set of tools called demetricators that I use.

When I use a social media like LinkedIn or Twitter, there’s a little extension on my browser that simply removes all the numbers from the interface. Can you imagine, I use Twitter pretty regularly. And as far as anyone knows, I’m just on Twitter. But I can tell you Right, now my experience of Twitter is it’s just like a forum because there’s no likes, there’s no number of retweets, there’s no number of followers. I don’t know which people have more followers or less followers.

I don’t know which tweets have more likes or less likes. It’s just a list of posts and I respond to the ones that are interesting and like you were kind of expressing there, it’s really a beautiful experience. Social media can be so wonderful and you really see, like I get really nerdy about this as a designer, but the impact of subtle interface changes on our state of mind when interacting with a piece of technology can’t be understated.

[01:02:53] Scott Snibbe: Social media can be used in very healthy, very beautiful ways. I mean, as long as you’re not steering down content that’s very, you to be mindful and understand what’s healthy for your mind, but both what you post and what you consume. you know, I tend to post nourishing things about things in life and our family.

And it’s quite nice the way you. run into people in New York, people I hadn’t talked to in a decade, and they’re caught up. It’s kind of quite sweet. They’re like, Oh, I saw Samaya in eighth grade now. You had this art show. I love that episode of the podcast. It’s quite nice if you use it in healthy ways.

but I want to go to what you were saying about the news, because this is something actually Buddhism has a lot to say, because reading the news in certain ways, in certain contexts is of a minor non virtue if you, depending on how you do it. And, um, I did a three week meditation retreat here at home.

The first time I found a way to do it at home. All of my family was great in supporting me in doing that. And it’s just so nice. I found it so beneficial I was only in that world of the meditation and a little bit of nice interactions with my family, but they wouldn’t tell me any news either.

Afterwards, oh gosh, I found it such a benefit. I really dreaded, you know, going back to the news. But then there’s a way you do want to stay informed, especially because I run a podcast and want to reflect on things happening in the world. So I kind of did what you did. I tried to find a weekly source, a paper magazine, but, this is very old aphorism.

They say there’s nothing older than yesterday’s news. You know, when, when people say to me like, Oh my God, like that’s, I can’t be a contributing member of society if I don’t read the news every day. And I was like, Well, when you’ve stumbled across yesterday’s newspaper, you know, if you remember newspapers and you stumble across yesterday’s newspaper, it’s like trash. It’s old in a day . So if it’s trash the next day, it’s trash the next day you read it too, you know.

I’m not saying, I actually do mostly read the news every day and catch up on it. But I kind of realized this about myself, this, False urgency. Talk more about that. You mentioned false urgency, and I think this fits under that category.

[01:05:06] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, I’ve been obviously investigating my relationship with technology in a mindful way for a long time, and there’s many, many different ways you can relate. False urgency is what I believe is one of the illusions at the root of a huge amount of the problems with our relationship with technology. The news is one example, but there’s false urgency in our messaging.

False urgency is what I believe is one of the illusions at the root of a huge amount of the problems with our relationship with technology.

There’s false urgency in our email. The countdown timer on streaming services is false urgency. There’s a lot of false urgency, but sticking with the theme of news, the reality is obviously, everyone’s trying to get our attention and that’s how they make their money in the media and their ability to do that stems a lot from polarizing statements, exaggerated statements, and hyperbole, but really it all comes from false urgency.

Why are they polarizing the statements? Why is there hyperbole that so and so smacked down the other person in Congress or whatever? It’s because you get this sense that something urgent is happening and I have to go look at that.

Now there are people who need to be up and up on the news because of their job, but there’s so many different channels that we stay abreast of. The question that I often inquire into is to whether the level of urgency that information I’m presented with is appropriate to the level of urgency it actually is.

That lens, whether you’re thinking about Slack notifications at work, or social media notifications, or headlines in the news, or podcasts or whatever it might be. That is something that will give you a ton of clarity on how you groom your feeds and choose which channels to follow. Yes, a paper magazine by definition has a lot less urgency, especially like a monthly news analysis.

But when you’re looking even at your digital news apps, you can look at the different channels and the apps you use, and you can evaluate like, is this channel, is this media outlet presenting an appropriate level of urgency for the content they’re presenting? What I love about this too, is it’s nonpartisan. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, false urgency is a kind of problem that’s not serving us at all, on every level.

[01:07:19] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, and it’s not just, the less-reputable news sources too. That’s what I learned something I learned from looking at the New York Times, maybe a little too frequently sometimes, is that the headlines change. They now publish stories right when they come out, but it starts out with the writer’s headline.

I remember this particularly with these like Hillary’s emails that were released, y like over 10 years ago at first it said, possible discovery of duplicate emails, sort of a boring headline. Then I noticed a few hours later they’d change it to, Bombshell Discovery of Unread Emails but the article hadn’t changed. So that’s often what I tell people is, don’t be fooled by the New York Times. They’re operating under the same principles, your principle of false urgency. That’s at work, even at the venerable New York Times.

[01:08:10] Jay Vidyarthi: That is the market of ideas right now, and just like we talked about tech companies, the media companies are just trying to stay afloat in this incentive market. I don’t know how the systems change, but I know as as as individuals targeting this illusion and like one news app that I’ve been really enjoying is called Verity and it basically, it’s sort of AI powered, but it’s also curated And it presents the news in a very factual way.

But in the news article, it shows you the spin and the urgency that different outlets are using and the different narratives. I think the way the algorithm works from what I can tell, is it looks at all the reporting from all sides of the spectrum, anti establishment, pro establishment, left, right, it downloads and separates the things that they all agree on. It calls those the facts, then it presents here’s the left narrative. Here’s the right narrative. Here’s the anti-establishment, but when you just look at the facts and the headline, there’s no false urgency. It’s just like, This is what happened.

How can people working in tech make a positive impact?

[01:09:06] Scott Snibbe: It was very hard because when I was in college, I used to subscribe to Newsweek, but they don’t exist really in that form anymore. So I finally found one called The Week and it does just what you’re saying. For each story, it actually had quotes from all sides of the political spectrum. I found it really quite illuminating and lovely.

For people who work in the tech industry as designers, developers, leaders have a lot of leverage: at Instagram, Google, Facebook, Netflix, OpenAI now, for any of them listening, how could they steer technology toward interacting in healthy ways with their customers? Is it even possible? With this top line of profit.

[01:09:52] Jay Vidyarthi: I don’t have the answer to this question. I wish I did. I think it’s something we need to be working on. But there’s a couple of lenses. One I shared earlier about the collaboration between tech companies and regulators and scientists and individuals to gradually lead to culture change.

You can look at things like drunk driving and cigarettes as some historical examples of these type of collaboration, which I think is essential. But for the average technologist who’s working at one of these companies, the reality is, as you probably already know, you’re in a system with incentives, and it doesn’t really feel like there’s any way to escape those incentives.

Depending on where you are in the hierarchy, you might be simply be mandated to follow this incentives as they are, or you might be someone who actually has a say in setting the incentives. Let’s start with the latter group. If you actually have a say in setting those incentives, let’s be realistic. You do need to make a profit. You do need to make technology that drives business, but that doesn’t have to be the only incentive. And as we’ve talked about it in personal life, that awareness drives change. Simply measuring something else can have a dramatic impact.

What is a small amount of resource you can set to measure something and the way that I tend to package this for large companies is if you go to the mission and vision of these companies, you tend to find the answer to the question of what to measure in a way that is palatable to the leadership and the board, because the reality is Facebook wants to connect the world, Airbnb wants people to belong anywhere, et cetera, et cetera.

Why aren’t we measuring belonging? Why aren’t we measuring a sense of personal deep connection? I don’t know what changes that lead to, and maybe I’m being a bit idealist, but I think, if your dashboard has, yes, adoption, retention, activation, but also has some measure that’s connected to your highest vision and values, it can be a way to start the conversation of systemic change.

Why aren’t we measuring belonging? Why aren’t we measuring a sense of personal deep connection?

I also want to address the individual who doesn’t have a say in the incentives. What I have for that person is that, fundamentally, I believe change comes from within, and you have a long career ahead of you. Educating yourself about these approaches, working on your own personal relationship with technology, seeing through the conceptual illusions in your own life, seeing how you can bring that to your design practice to yes, you do have to shoot that three pointer through those incentives, but is there a way you can do that in a compassionate way and trying to find those opportunities?

And stay true to that deeper mission. Your goal, if that’s you, is to not let the incentive structure turn you into an incentive driving robot, but to retain your humanity while you do what you need to do to succeed and to climb the ladder and eventually, hopefully find yourself in a position where you can shape those incentives.

[01:12:35] Scott Snibbe: One of the favorite things I learned at work is, “What gets measured gets done.” in Buddhist centers, we do something that sounds a little cheesy, which is that before we start a meeting, we say, May our work benefit others. I think a little bit about that when I think back to working at Facebook, if we had just said that at the beginning of every meeting, boy, I think we would have made more beneficial products.

[01:13:00] Jay Vidyarthi: We do have to learn from our mistakes like you were in house of Facebook and some incredible work was done at Facebook and is still happening, but there’s some some mistakes were made. I think we do need to accept that, we need to learn from it. I think when you go back in time, that’s one example. I think measuring elements around what was actually there, happening in the user experience for individuals would have been a huge boon to help steer the ship early when it wasn’t too late to actually think about the effects of some of these elements like newsfeed and others.

[01:13:36] Scott Snibbe: You already led us through one nice exercise and you agreed to lead a meditation that will air separately. Most of our interviews, our guests lead a meditation, we’re going to air that in the next episode, but could you tell us a little bit about the meditation you’re going to lead?

[01:13:54] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, we’re gonna go through something that may seem a little bit scary to people is we are going to get into a mindful state and then we are going to engage with our phone in that meditation. What we’re going to do is if you’ve ever done like a mindful eating exercise, there’s a lot of inspiration there where you inspect the raisin and sniff it and eat it and think about where it comes from.

We’re going to deeply and mindfully investigate our phone with clarity, including activating it. Then at the end, we are going to look a little bit into false urgency in particular and notice the tug of false urgency on our attention in the moment.

[01:14:34] Scott Snibbe: Well, Jay, I’m really looking forward to that. I get to do the meditation right now and the listener’s get it in the next episode. I have really gotten a lot out of your book. I encourage everyone to read it, Reclaim your mind. It’s quite short too. You’re generous in being succinct. as they say, If I’d had more time, I would have made it shorter.

You obviously put a lot of effort into making this book short, a little over a hundred pages. I got a lot out of it. I think anybody who wants to develop a healthy, intentional relationship to technology for themselves and their family will really benefit from it.

Thank you for having this conversation with me.

[01:15:11] Jay Vidyarthi: Yeah, thank you—to take your words out of your mouth, May this work benefit others.

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