Yoga vs. Smartphones

Sometimes it’s fun to compare and contrast two things that don’t even appear to be closely related.  Consider yoga and smartphones.

Although many practitioners view yoga as merely a set of good stretching exercises, a good yoga teacher will strongly emphasize the psychological aspects:  focus on your breathing and try to avoid (or dismiss) mental distractions.  Yoga is also associated with mindfulness, which is again a form of mental focus: paying attention to what you are doing, whether it be walking or eating.  Mindfulness is moving the focus “off the mat” into daily living.

As we focus in yoga we also become aware of outside thoughts that creep into the mind.  Recognize and acknowledge those thoughts whether they be hopes, worries, regrets or whatever.  This skill helps return to the mental focus at the time, but it also is useful in being otherwise conscious of gut reactions to try to slow down and contain those reactions long enough for critical thinking to kick in.

Smartphones on the other hand often do just the opposite, but it goes beyond the distraction of continual nagging ringtones, chirping and vibration or of pulling out the phone to check it 80 times a day on average.  This Wall Street Journal article paints a far scarier picture.  Studies show how the phone can affect the owner’s concentration and performance, even when it is in an apparently passive mode.

Research over the last few years suggests that as our brains depend more and more on technology our intellect weakens.  Two studies found the beeping or buzzing affects owner’s focus and performance “whether they check the phone or not.  Sometime just hearing the phone signaling but being unable to answer it can cause a spike in blood pressure spikes and other negative physical reactions.

A more worrisome example involved a test of 520 undergraduate students in two areas:  available cognitive capacity (related to ability to focus) and problem solving. “Some of the students were asked to place their phones in front of them on their desks; others were told to stow their phones in their pockets or handbags; still others were required to leave their phones in a different room.”  They found that the farther away the students were from their phones, the better they did; although none reported that the phone was consciously a distraction.  (The same dynamic shows up in some college classrooms where those who bring their phone to class generally earn a lower grade.)

But the two are similar in other ways.  Yoga and mindfulness have in some ways become a fad.  As I wrote back in August, the mindfulness-like exercise of walking in the woods is becoming a moneymaking venture for some who label it forest bathing, which apparently requires a trained leader.  Just last week a reader sent me another ad for a similar activity offered by a parks and rec department in Connecticut: hiking yoga for only $25 per session.  Brown University warns:  “Dependable scientific evidence has lagged worrisomely behind the rapid and widespread adoption of mindfulness and meditation for pursuing an array of mental and physical wellness goals.”   Many of the claims are based on hype.

Likewise smartphones are promoted with a great deal of hype.  The newest model is superior to anything on the market and to all competitors.  People will stand in line to trade in perfectly good phones just to be on the cutting edge.

Both smartphones and yoga may also have something of an addictive quality.  As long as two-and-a-half years ago Pew research already had a category of smartphone dependent.  Maybe yoga can help with the smartphone problem, or maybe it would be a case of trading one addiction for another.