Smartphones and Mindfulness: Understanding the new wave of meditation apps

How focused are you right now? Are you aware of the feeling of your feet touching the ground? The air flowing in and out of your lungs? Or are your thoughts, racing around your head, your main focus of attention? If you are like the majority of people, it can be hard to harness your full attention and focus. Listen to this podcast below and on Spotify, Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Overcast, and Radio Public. In this battle to stay focused, we might have an unlikely ally, our smartphones. In recent years, numerous apps have popped up to help us meditate, stay calm and remain focused in our daily lives. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Drew Brazier, an experienced psychologist and the co-founder of the Mindcurrent app—a mindfulness app that uses expert tips and exercises to help users reduce stress. You will learn what benefits meditation can provide, how apps can help with daily guidance and how perceptions are changing in our society. And for our Weird Wide Web piece, we have a story on Airbnb, regarding a new patent on software that scans user’s online presence to predict whether or not they are trustworthy.