Since the 1980s when I was a kid, the digital revolution has permeated everyday life, and changed our waking hours so much, it’s easy to overlook and forget its omnipresence. As Nicholas Carr details in SUPERBLOOM (Norton 2025), we used to grow up with our personal lives at the center of our homes, local environs, and social relationships. Nearby at home, there would be a telephone on a wall or table, and in handy reach, maybe a stereo, TV, or cassette player alongside the cassettes we had purchased, then later, CDs. In the 1990s, I obtained email and checked it once per week. Now, the Internet is a conduit for business and social life, as we all know.
Of course, it cuts both ways. As I was speaking with a new acquaintance this past Sunday at a birthday party for a neighbor, the music streaming service Spotify provides a storehouse of music for any user at their fingertips. At the same time, a user owns nothing. A user must pay a monthly subscription or be subject to advertising; a user could be locked out, or subject to whatever new format that the company wishes. I myself don’t have this subscription, yet, but subscribe to it for my kids. Let’s remember, these technology companies are not a library, and their gifts are not free. Who uses who?
Being Mindful With Technology:
Mindfulness Teacher Nikki Mirghafori in the September 2025 issue of Lion’s Roar, which I checked out of my local library, had an excellent article offering some grounding practices for our digital age. It is easy to get caught up in what she calls the “attention economy,” or for instance, “doomscrolling” across social media. An exponential plethora is out there! Nikki Mirghafori nudges us to be in our bodies. Notice your fingertips before starting to type. Maybe set a timer to remind yourself of each hour, or whatever interval suits you. Add in a breathing practice that prompts you, before a computer screen, to take a deep breath.
In writing this, I paused, and took a deep breath. You know what, my breathing while typing was shallow. In fact, when I went back to proofread, I held my breath again.
Nikki Mirghafori also notes that the Buddha would have, teaching today, applied mindfulness practices to using technology. The Buddha addressed the world around him then, so now would too. Our phones or laptops are extensions of our vision and action. It’s easy to forget as we give it our attention.
Last Remarks:
At the CityLit festival in Baltimore, Maryland this past spring, fiction writer Michael Downs spoke about his own battle to avoid AI, such as turning off AI within his email accounts and elsewhere, so they stop requesting to change his language, stop summarizing, and stop providing language in advance as he starts to type.
I cannot recall right now what he said about practical steps to implement it. I want to follow up. Of course, I write. I like to write. I’m a writer. I prefer my own writing to winging it with approximations. In closing his talk, Downs noted that people using AI for art-making may not actually care about art, but rather want their “art” to help them be an “artist” or to advance other purposes.
Conclusion:
Well, I just took another deep breath. Oddly, I had been holding my breath again as I recalled that last takeaway.
In the article by Nikki Mirghafori, she invites readers to reset one’s mindset while using technology. The first step, it seems, is to notice technology’s presence. Then, notice our own.
By the way, I have four poems out with BLAZEVOX: AN ONLINE JOURNAL OF VOICE in the Spring 2026 issue, available here as a PDF from this link.
Stay free, stay funky, stay fresh.
Cheers,
G. H. Mosson
Maryland, USA