Digital Age Needs for MBS Awareness

At the beginning of this chapter, Zora's account can be multiplied many times over to represent the stresses and demands of modern life in the digital age. The plentiful use of technology and gadgets to meet those needs is not the selected strategy most people would adopt, but quite a few would. The opinion and editorial articles of major publications reveal the tremendous challenges created by work weeks that have crept from 35 to 40, 50, to even 60 hours. Consider the many best-selling titles that reference these issues:

1. Wikinomics (Tapscott & Williams, 2006)
2. A Whole New Mind (Pink, 2006)
3. Grown Up Digital (Tapscott, 2008)
4. Predictably Irrational (Ariely, 2010)
5. Thinking Fast and Slow (Kahneman, 2011)
6. The Organized Mind (Levitin, 2015a)

What is the message? These titles have shaped an accepted narrative about the complex demands of life and desire for strategies to cope with the digital age. The overwhelming success of a genre of digital age solution self-help books documents the need to take control of and understand the surrounding mayhem.

In addition to long work hours, people experience urgent and persistent problems of blurred boundaries between work and private life. Consider the real estate agents who are virtually glued to their smartphones, direct call devices, and beepers (in some areas they are still used) in order to navigate the circuitous pathways to closing a home purchase. With the cacophony of text messages, phone calls, and e-mail alerts, seldom is a meal or family outing safe from interruption or cancellation.

Think about 18-wheeler truck-driving teams that use shortwave radio, satellite devices, cell phones, and GPS to track their cargo, routes, and progress. In order to quickly execute long-haul cargo deliveries, these teams also trade off driving. For 10 to 15 days, a team may travel nonstop as one partner drives, and the other sleeps in the back of the cab. Such grueling schedules substantially deplete workers' energy, concentration, reaction response times, and overall health.

In these cases and others, when do work hours and responsibilities end and personal time begin? It is an increasingly rare occupation in the digital age in which hourly workers or salaried professionals have explicitly separated and protected private time.

Recent, popular debates about the high cost of multitasking illustrated that the plethora of gadgets in the digital age is not all positive news. Individuals need to keep a watchful eye on when their work needs their undivided attention. In such cases, solutions can be as simple as turning off ringers, e-mail and text message notifications on phones, and computers for segments of time to allow for complete concentration (Bellur, Nowak, & Hull, 2015; Kahneman, 2011; King & Cranston-Gingras, 2014). However, how often are we allowed or encouraged to work in such isolation?

Not only do books about organizing your schedule, work, and thinking continue to abound but also so do gadgets and programs similarly support them. Many readers may recall the Franklin Organizer System, which was a specialized notebook calendar organizer with paper refills based on a specific method of prioritizing and tracking tasks. Some, but not too many, people still use such formats. However, most professionals and families now use convenient and ubiquitous phone-based calendars to identify times, request appointments, and share schedules. However, as people who are stressed with too many demands and technology interfaces, more help is needed to provide relief and refuge for our minds, bodies, and spirits.

The following scene portrays one example of the need for intervention in the conflict between our integrated MBS beings and the demands of modern life.

Popular authors such as Kegan (1994), Levitin (2015a, 2015b), and Pink (2006) have been adept at capturing the stresses and mental confusion that are characteristic of the digital age. Based on this popular genre of publications, Scott is not alone in struggling with the new demands created by technology and work-life balance. For example, Levitan (2015b) aptly explained the mental confusion created by e-mail alone:

With this one innovation, long-standing communication rules, access, and priority signals have changed forever. The result has been significant because professionals and organizations became overwhelmed with hundreds of e-mails daily and lost the privilege to physically presort or triage information. The universally accessible e-mail in-box opened the floodgates to a deluge of correspondence.

More specialized research explored how individuals, organizations, and society intersect within and because of technology communications. This cyberculture literature (Bell, 2006; Cheung, 2007; Lévy, 2001) focused on technology-mediated communication and the communities that have formed around and within the cyber world.

As mentioned, Remund and Aikat (2012) specifically examined the impact of information overload on individuals and organizations. Their key chapter on the topic provides a detailed history of the concept of information overload and related research. Their work vividly summarized research findings regarding the negative impact that individuals experience, including, stress, frustration, confusion, failure, and overworking. However, the publication also reveals the damage to organizations because of anytime, anywhere access to infinite amounts of communication and data. Remund and Aikat's (2012) summary of recommendations for organizations and individuals is powerful:

They continue to say that organizations must focus on training and coaching employees in strategic communication. Their reasons for insisting that information overload can be controlled in this manner is that strategic communication will result in employees being able to focus on meaningful data, make sound decisions, and improve performance (Remund & Aikat, 2012).

Another way to interpret Remund and Aikat's (2012) recommendations is to realize that the information overload of the digital age demands new strategies and a strong focus on life balance. Not only are information, data, and demands pummeling our in-box, smartphones, and Bluetooth headsets but also they are creating havoc with our work-life balance.

This urgent need was first recognized and discussed as early as 1984 by Langer. A contemporary psychologist researcher, Langer published her research about the value of mindfulness and the need to better understand and develop it. Her original work distinguished between habitual (mindless) actions, which are restrictive patterns introduced and promoted through childhood and educational systems. As she explains, mindfulness differs greatly by emphasizing the freedom to follow one's intuition, use creativity, and explore different perspectives.

The new edition of her work (Langer, 2014) is especially relevant given the pervasive dominance of media from multiple sources. Similar to the negative impact of mind-sets promulgated by business and social relations, social media and mass media broadcasts promote and reify homogenous perspectives and beliefs about events and narratives that dominate casual and business conversations alike. In such instances, crowd pressure and popular opinion become powerful forces. It becomes a rare event when someone exercises critical literacy skills and advocacy to confront the dominant or favored narrative and exert pressure to question unexamined “facts,” motives, agendas, and values.

In 1979, Langer's original test of the mind-body unity construct modestly revealed that individuals had much greater control over their physical health than previously understood (Langer, 1984). Since then, Langer's research (1984, 2009, 2014) has continued to apply an unconventional model of wellness and validates the power of mindfulness in addressing health issues. Specific examples she discusses include the benefits of placebo treatments and mind-based therapies as alternatives that assist patients with varying needs to reach healthier conditions. Her research results have held up as the studies revealed how several diverse groups of adults used mindfulness to cope with conditions spanning weight loss, vision, diabetes, colds, and more (2009, 2014). In addition, her research has examined and found that benefits can be achieved when treating people with other physical diseases, such as arthritis, chronic pain, prostate cancer, and multiple sclerosis (MS).

Langer (2009) described her research as using a “counterclockwise study approach,” which may be described as a positive psychology approach to health and wellness. In essence, she flips Western medicine “counterclockwise” by asserting that individuals have more control over their health, wellness, and disease than generally recognized. Langer's research demonstrates that compared to actions from the outside, our beliefs dictate more about the condition of our health and our ability to heal. Langer's (2016) most recent research publication explores connections between mindfulness and learning.

Mindfulness and Learning

Our discussion leads us to exploring research related to mindfulness more explicitly in educational contexts. In 2011, McCown, Reibel, and Micozzi presented a practical book that introduced and guided educators through teaching mindfulness. Their book was based on the approach to mindfulness that was explicated and popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn (1994). In this approach, mindfulness is defined as “the capacity to be with and in the constant flow of awareness” (p. xxiii) and they recognized that all people possess the ability to engage in mindfulness.

McCown et al. (2011) presented a critical perspective of the educator's role in teaching mindfulness. They describe teaching mindfulness as an exciting, honored experience of facilitation. They emphasized that instructors do not teach people how to become mindful, but instead they point out and guide others in their practice and development.

Considering the specific needs of adult learners, many populations may benefit greatly from the use of mindfulness to support learning in formal and informal contexts. For instance, some GED and ABE learners may have had negative learning or social experiences related to their former educational efforts. Such a history of negative learning experiences may become dominant memories and create prohibitive obstacles to academic advancement. For example, learners may have been embarrassed by their public mistakes; failing quizzes, tests, or classes; having extra attention drawn to their errors by less-sensitive instructors; and even being called names, labeled, or publicly assigned to “correctional” groupings for additional tutoring. Mindfulness exercises can assist learners with overcoming these barriers and more in several ways.

Many needs for mindfulness (or contemplative practice) arise across educational contexts. Case in point, in 2014, Barbezat and Bush presented a comprehensive book that revealed the value of contemplative practice for education. Specific needs exist when learners must overcome prior histories or break cycles of errors and failure. In these cases, working with a guide or instructor to discuss and visualize success was a powerful strategy (Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Bush, 2011). Why does this approach work? There are many connections between emotions and cognitive functions; therefore, if learners have greater confidence and calmness about learning, they create a much more conducive environment for learning to occur. Based on current understandings of neuroscience, scholars now understand that such profound change in the wiring of the human brain is possible because of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. The adult brain is capable of learning new information and behaviors because it continues to create new neuropathways (neurogenesis) and reshape itself (neuroplasticity) (Barbezat & Bush, 2014; Bush, 2011; Doidge, 2007; Langer, 2009, 2014). (To use an analogy, if our brains were physical computers, they would be performing their own hardware upgrade such as increasing memory and storage space.) The advances in neuroscience as they relate to learning were discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.

Another emotional and cognitive barrier that mindfulness can address is that of countering self-fulfilling prophecies. Replacing negative expectations with thoughts of success not only changes peoples' attitudes but also their words, choices, and actions through the continued practice of mindfulness (i.e., contemplative practice) (Langer, 2009, 2014, 2016).

In the digital age, there are increasing numbers of underrepresented and unique groups of learners entering higher education. In the United States, the increases in higher education students who are nontraditional students, veterans, international students, adults with disabilities, victims of sexual violence, and so on means that our campuses have more learners who may benefit from creating successful educational careers for the first time. For learners with difficult educational histories, different strategies may be needed than. Leveraging the assistance of technology, instructors or guides can introduce, teach, and coach mindfulness strategies, with the goal of learners becoming independent. Technology can support these mindfulness efforts by providing on-demand tutorials, coaching, instruction, timers, visualizations, simulations, environmental control, focusing tools, remediation, and more (Coleman, 2014; Powers, 2014).

Providing instruction in applying mindfulness techniques may assist individuals from across this wide range of learners to develop new strategies to reconsider the specific barriers or issues at hand, examine their accuracy, and consider new possibilities or solutions. Another way to describe the process and outcome is that mindfulness practice provides opportunities to reframe prior experiences and change habitual behaviors that have had negative outcomes. Educators who are skilled in introducing and facilitating mindfulness practice with adult learners provide an entirely different set of digital age skills to support their learners' success.

MBS Theories and Models to Consider

Exploring the literature provides a variety of MBS theories and models that may be applied to instructional needs of adults. The three that will be discussed in this section are Eastern philosophies, holistic perspectives of education, and contemplative practices in education.

Strategies to Incorporate MBS Awareness in Adult Learning

Evidence of the adoption of cultivating mindfulness in different adult learning and higher learning settings is found in the availability of several books of strategies to cultivate it. Based on the context that the digital age provides a great need for mindfulness, this section focuses on four strategies for cultivating mindfulness and MBS connections with and without technology-facilitated tools.

Strategy 11.1: Mindfulness Focus!

In my estimation, one of the simplest, bravest, and yet most profound ways to introduce the practice and effect of mindfulness in formal education is to make it the first activity. A colleague of mine at University of Wyoming (Sun, 2007) introduced me to how her students quickly embraced mindfulness activities.

In a formal instructional setting, introduce this protocol as a trial strategy to increase focus and learning. At the very beginning of the next three class meetings, ask the learners to clear their desks and sit quietly. All electronic devices should be turned off, books and notebooks closed. The mindfulness leader reads a script similar to the following in a gentle clear tone but at a slow pace. Please note there will be times of silence interspersed.

As other sources document, there are many variations of this approach (e.g., Barbezat & Bush, 2014; McCown et al., 2011; Schoeberlein & Sheth, 2009). In discussing the strategy, Sun shared how the students truly enjoyed the meditation, were more focused on the course content, and more engaged in course discussions. Indeed, when the trial period was over, the learners asked her to continue the mindfulness exercises with them.

King (2013) proposed a holistic model of MBS learning to illustrate how MBS can interconnect the many critical experiences and concerns of adult learners (see Figure 11.1). The model illustrates the interrelatedness of its many elements. It reminds educators and adult learners that they can use all dimensions of their life to build peace, cope with concerns, and scaffold solutions.

Conclusion

Discussing MBS connections in adult learning contexts may seem unusual. However, tragic news headlines, increasing trends in mass violence, and cruelty illustrate that people need to have effective strategies to reconcile such conflicting experiences.

The expanse of publications related to holistic (mindfulness and MBS) perspectives being applied in formal education contradicts the lack of full-fledged understandings and experiences that cultivate such views. This chapter has explored the concepts, models, and theories of mindfulness and MBS. On the practical side, extensive examples of resources, strategies, and activities related to technology were provided.

Researchers and authors agree that the digital age and our modern world include great confusion, stress, and many demands (Kegan, 1994; Naisbitt, 1982, 2006; Remund & Aikat, 2012). At this point in time, mindfulness and MBS provide different, integrated philosophical and practical orientations to cope with many of these issues. Technology brings tremendous benefits to health, communication, and globalization; however, adult learners need to be equipped to successfully navigate these challenges from a place of wholeness.