Meditation on the Go

Abstract

This chapter explores how people use smartphones in popular culture to practice religion, focusing on the app, buddhify. It argues that buddhify is authentically religious because it communicates an experience of mindfulness through a procedural spirituality that poaches from video game play. Like other digital devices, buddhify can best be described through “user experience” and “user interface.” User experience defines a person's emotions and attitudes toward an application. Buddhify is designed to promote “mindfulness,” an active state of open nonjudgmental awareness of one's thoughts and emotions. User interface indicates the junction between a person and digital devices and includes the screen elements, such as menus and commands, that lead users through an application. The app's user interface cultivates an experience of mindfulness through ritualization, a way of performing certain activities that differentiates them from more conventional ones and ties this difference into a group's ultimate reality.