Computer-supported mindfulness: Evaluation of a mobile thought distancing application on naive meditators

The last 2 decades have seen a constantly increasing interest in mindfulness, due to its positive effects on health and well-being. Recently, a number of mobile applications aimed at supporting people in practicing mindfulness techniques have appeared, but their efficacy has not been formally evaluated yet. In this paper, we first introduce the reader to mindfulness techniques, traditional as well as computer-based. Then, we propose and evaluate a mobile application (called AEON) aimed at helping users in practicing thought distancing, i.e. a mindfulness technique that requires one not to react in response to his/her thoughts but to be aware of them and observe them while they go away. AEON allows the user to enter his/her thoughts and visualize them as written in ink on a parchment placed under water. By touching the screen, the user can interact with the water and produce waves that progressively dissolve each written thought. We evaluate AEON on a sample of naive meditators (i.e. people with no or minimal experience with meditation), contrasting it with two traditional thought distancing techniques that are not computer-based. The first traditional technique requires users to mentally visualize their thoughts as printed on clouds and observe them as they pass by, while the second requires users to write their thoughts on cards, then pick up the cards one at a time, look at them and toss them into a wastepaper basket. AEON obtained better results in terms of achieved mindfulness, perceived level of difficulty and degree of pleasantness. Since practicing mindfulness tends to be difficult for naive meditators, these results suggest that AEON can be a novel and effective way to help them approach mindfulness.     

Institutional pressures and mindful IT management: The case of a container terminal in China

Although it has been only ten years in operations, Yantian International Container Terminals Limited (YICT) has evolved as a world-class container terminal and become the first Chinese port to receive the Best Global Container Port of the Year award for 2005–2006, as well as being designated China's best container terminal in terms of operational efficiency for 2008. A success factor of YICT is its extensive use of IT in managing and enhancing the productivity and services of the port operations. Premised upon Institutional Theory and the organizational mindfulness perspectives (preoccupation with failure and success, reluctance to simplify interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and reliance on expertise over formal authority) and using case study methodology, we examined the institutional pressures faced by YICT in its IT management (ITM), and determined how YICT coped with its institutional pressures during its IT development.     

Aligning RFID applications with supply chain strategies

Many large retailers decided to adopt RFID as their new supply chain technology, but RFID adoption by all industries did not spread as rapidly as initially expected. We believe that its benefits constituted the major barrier to its adoption, and argued that a major contributor to the delay has been its inappropriate implementation. Our study reports the result of six in-depth case studies, which, together with case content analysis of 88 reported RFID applications, provided us with a clear view of the RFID implementation landscape, suggesting that organizations often mindlessly adopted RFID applications that were misaligned with their supply chain strategies, leading to unsatisfactory benefits. Insights into how organizations should adopt RFID were developed from our results and were discussed.     

Mindful navigation for pedestrians: Improving engagement with augmented reality

Navigation systems are often followed mindlessly, as users may focus the attention on the device and not on the path. The risk of errors and bias related to the mindless adherence of the instruction is high.We suggested that a mindful walking navigation system could reduce the errors and improve the overall exploration experience. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis with an Augmented Reality system, with information directly projected on the path, in comparison with a standard device. Moreover, we tested the hypothesis that when users feel they are in control of their path, both performance and overall experience would improve. We found that both conditions increased the navigation performance and experience, decreased travel time, errors, and confusion and it increased the number of landmarks noticed.     

Interactively mediating experiences of mindfulness meditation

Sonic Cradle is a human–computer interaction paradigm designed to foster meditative attentional patterns. A user׳s body is suspended comfortably in a completely dark sound chamber while the interaction paradigm subtly encourages them to focus on their breathing to summon and progressively shape an abstract immersive sound experience. Basic interpretive qualitative methods with a purposive sample of 39 participants were used to systematically analyze interview data after a 15-min experience of the system. Results suggest that this persuasive medium can pleasantly encourage an experience comparable to mindfulness by consistently inducing a calm mental clarity and loss of intention. Surprisingly, participants also reported perceptual illusions, feelings of floating, and emotional responses. Mounting evidence implies mindfulness meditation as an effective practice for self-regulation; this study represents a first step toward realizing technology׳s potential to increase wellbeing by introducing people to this psychologically beneficial contemplative practice.     

Evaluation of a mobile mindfulness app distributed through on-line stores: A 4-week study

Recently, interactive approaches aimed at helping people practice mindfulness have appeared in the literature. However, the few available user studies for such approaches focus only on short-term effects and are carried out in a lab or in a similar artificial setting. In this study, we aim instead at assessing the effectiveness of a mobile mindfulness app when used by people in their everyday contexts and over a prolonged period of time. People could participate in the study by downloading the app from Apple’s App Store as well as Google Play and by answering a mindfulness questionnaire at three pre-set times over a 4-week period. Moreover, the app automatically collected usage data each time it was used and qualitative feedback at the end of the study. Results reveal that users with no or minimal experience with meditation significantly increased their level of mindfulness over the 4-week study period. Moreover, the qualitative feedback provided by participants indicates that the app was positively perceived as beautiful and its usage elicited positive feelings in most of them. We discuss possible factors that could have contributed to the obtained results. Finally, we analyze how many users abandoned the study and at what times, comparing such data with other studies based on app stores distribution, and giving possible reasons.     

Psychological and physiological responses to stressful situations in immersive virtual reality: Differences between users who practice mindfulness meditation and controls

Several studies in the literature have shown positive psychophysical effects during or immediately after mindfulness meditation. However, the extent to which such positive effects are maintained in real-life, stressful contexts, remains unclear. This paper investigates the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) program on the psychological and physiological responses evoked by immersive virtual environments (IVEs) that simulate emergency situations that may occur in life. Before and after the 8-week period, healthy MOM participants and a group of controls not involved in any meditation course were administered self-report measures of mindfulness and anxiety, and acted in the IVEs while a set of physiological parameters were recorded. Responses of MOM participants to the immersive virtual experiences were different from those of controls. MOM participants showed increased mindfulness and decreased anxiety levels. They also showed decreased heart rate and corrugator muscle activity while facing IVEs. We explain these results in terms of the awareness and acceptance components of mindfulness. More generally, the present experimental methods could also open up new lines of research that combine psychological and physiological indices with ecologically valid stimuli provided by IVEs in an effort to increase understanding of the impact of mindfulness meditation on realistic life situations.     

Mindfulness and willingness to try insects as food: The role of disgust

Mindfulness, commonly associated with Buddhism, refers to the state of being aware, taking note of what is going on within oneself and outside of the world. In the current research, we examine the possible impact of mindfulness on willingness to try insect foods. We present the results of three studies—one correlational and two experimental—illustrating that mindfulness increases disgust and lowers willingness to try eating insects. On the one hand, this counters existing literature that mindfulness reduces emotional reactivity. On the other hand, it is in-line with mindfulness making one more aware and accepting of present and incoming information, which would conceivably include context-relevant emotions such as disgust in the case of eating insects that Western cultures see as disgusting. Our findings support the latter possibility. We situate our work within the literature on the various impacts of mindfulness on food choice. We also discuss implications for food sustainability practitioners.     

Mindfulness in learning safe sex via social media: Perspectives of personality and experiential value

Sexual topics are attractive to young adults and this may invoke substantial attention that diverts their thinking regarding sexual intervention to engage learning contents. The aim of this study was to explore students’ mindfulness when learning how to use condoms from watching videos on a social media (i.e., YouTube), and to self-assess their mindfulness, which reflected to their continuance intention to learn about safe sex via social media, mediated by their perception of hedonic and utilitarian values. Data from 132 senior high students were collected and subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The results indicated that the neuroticism personality trait was positively correlated to mindfulness, but openness was negatively correlated to mindfulness. Mindfulness was positively correlated to both hedonic and utilitarian experiential values, and both experiential values were positively correlated to continuance intention to learn about safe sex via social media. The implications of this study suggest that social media may be a useful channel for senior high school students to learn sexual health concepts.     

Measuring mindfulness and examining its relationship with alcohol use and negative consequences.

Mindfulness has been proposed as a useful adjunct to alcohol abuse treatment. However, very little research has examined the basic relationship between alcohol use and mindfulness. Inconsistency in definition and measurement of mindfulness across studies makes such research difficult to interpret and conduct. Therefore, the current research sought to validate an emerging mindfulness measure, the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and examine its relationship with alcohol use and alcohol-related negative consequences among a sample of 316 college-aged adults. The purported factor structure of the FFMQ was examined using confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to examine relations among mindfulness, alcohol use, and alcohol-related negative consequences. Consistent with past research, results supported the five-factor structure of the FFMQ. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that two awareness-based factors of mindfulness were negatively related to alcohol use. After controlling for alcohol use, one acceptance-based factor (nonjudging of thoughts and feelings) was negatively related to alcohol-related consequences, and one awareness-based factor was positively related to consequences (all ps