> When you first start meditation, once a day is enough. If you feel like meditating more, that's fine, but don't overdo it. There's a burn-out phenomenon we often see in new meditators. They dive right into the practice fifteen hours a day for a couple of weeks, and then the real world catches up with them. They decide that this meditation business just takes too much time. Too many sacrifices are required. They haven't got time for all of this. Don't fall into that trap. Don't burn yourself out the first week. Make haste slowly. Make your effort consistent and steady. Give yourself time to incorporate the meditation practice into your life, and let your practice grow gradually and gently.
The way 'mindfulness' is taught and the business of retreats and training gets in the way of the real work, which takes place every day and in normal life, a little at a time. It doesn't need to be complicated.
It's amazing how far the ideology of the unfettered market economy has seeped into our lives to the point that the idea that we should retrain the entire human species to fend off media manipulation seems somehow more practical than simply putting an end to the unethical business practices of an industry.
Imagine if a local company was pouring waste into the river and someone argued the solution was to offer anti-poison resilience training rather than stopping the problem at the source.
> retrain the entire human species to fend off media manipulation
Mindfulness assisting in opening one's eyes to media manipulation is just one of the benefits, not the only one. There are many benefits to teaching it to all.
The Buddha had a lot of great ideas, but it was over 2000 years ago. If, perhaps, we can teach mindfulness in a way that is more consistent and available to all (like a focus-detection feature in devices), I would definitely support it if it results in the same changes in the brain. Since changes induced by meditation (both acute and long-term) are detectable with brain scans, this seems like something easy to test and compare with traditional mindfulness teachings and practices.
I suspect that no, constant nagging wouldn't improve “mental hygiene”, in any useful definition of that term.
I also suspect it wouldn’t improve productivity, only stress.
> Meditation is a useful tool – but we actually need to stop the people who are pouring itching powder on us. We need to band together to take on the forces stealing our attention and take it back.
I'd argue the 'attention stealing' -- the 'itching powder', as the article called it -- is all in your head. It does exist, concretely, of course, in the form of social media, video games, etc. but their power over you -- the itchiness -- is something I find is seen for what it is through mindfulness. If we teach people proper control over their own minds, we put the power in their hands to evaluate new technologies and services mindfully.
I would sooner fight for teaching proper mental hygiene to people than trying to regulate every possible idea under the sun (as it suggests at the end). You DO own your own mind, as TFA says at the very end -- so take control of it!