Your phone is not just a gadget. It is a gateway into an economy built to capture attention, shape behavior, and keep you coming back. We bring on Jay Vidyarthi, mindfulness teacher, UX designer, technologist, and founder of Still Ape, to talk about the real world collision between contemplative practice and the modern attention economy. We start with a short, grounding practice of “doing nothing,” then zoom out to the strange fact that even this conversation is carried by microphones, data packets, and screens.
Jay shares what it feels like to grow up loving video games and early internet creativity while also longing for silence, retreats, and depth. That tension shows up everywhere: tech culture can dismiss meditation, and mindfulness culture can quietly shame technology. We name the cost of that split, especially the guilt, shame, and fear that can creep into how we talk about screen time, social media, and even our kids’ digital lives. Jay offers a more honest frame: you do not have to abandon technology to be mindful, but you do need a healthier relationship with your attention.
From there, we dig into the incentives behind the systems, including how AI may be pushing us from an attention economy into an “attachment economy,” where people form bonds with bots and start confiding in them. Jay argues that mindfulness is becoming subversive, not because it is trendy, but because choosing where to place attention runs against powerful forces. He calls the response “attention activism,” a middle way that avoids both naive techno-optimism and tech doom, and invites teachers, designers, and everyday users to show up online with wisdom.
If you care about mindfulness, digital wellness, humane technology, or building tech that supports human flourishing, this conversation will give you language and direction. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who feels stuck in scroll mode, and leave a review. What would it look like to treat your attention like something worth protecting today?
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ABOUT THE SHOW
Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.
Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.
Each episode offers a mix o...
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