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Dharmette: Tech-Sati (4 of 5): Integrity & Care in Digital Interactions

We continue today with the fourth day of our exploration of tech-sati—awareness and mindfulness of technology, and the way we interact and work with technology. On day one we started with anchoring in the body, always being aware of the body and our intention when we interact with technology. We'll lose it, but coming back to it is so important. On day two, we talked about feeling tone—pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral—and understanding how it can pull us into engagement. Yesterday, we talked about attention in an attention economy, and it was a pretty full day. So if there was some content that didn't land, I'm glad the recording is available.

Today I want to continue by acknowledging for all of us that not only are we impacted by our interactions in a digital world, we impact others. Today we're turning our awareness towards this: Oh yeah, I am a participant in this. I participate with every text message, with every chat I put in. As I interact here and see the chats coming, I am part of this. I impact others and I am impacted by others. How can my attention and my intention serve care, wise action, and ethical action? That's what I want to focus on today—really bringing our practice and our understanding to the fact that we impact others.

There are studies that suggest this. It was very interesting as I was looking at research studies on this topic, and one research study that I found highlighted a predictor of online behavior. I'll just come out and say it: our mood has a strong impact. Perhaps not surprising, but it usually goes unchecked. If we are frustrated or angry, it comes through the digital interaction especially. It is so important to check our mood. Are we frustrated? Are we angry? What is my intention? Why am I posting this? Why am I about to say this? What's the reason why I'm sending this message?

We need to really check in with our state of mind. What is my mood right now? What are my emotions? And stop. If we're not in a place of stability, just stop. Use the practice of S.T.O.P.: S, stop. T, take a breath. O, observe. Really observe and make a change. And then proceed. Maybe proceeding looks like, Okay, I just need to go and cool off and take a walk because this is not appropriate, or really questioning, as a kind but wise friend would, the way we're interacting. Is this wise?

Another study that was interesting, by Cheng and colleagues in 2017 if you want to find it, looked at mood and the surrounding conversation. A previous study on 16 million CNN comments found that mood had an impact, and if there was a hostile conversation or hostile comments they had seen, that increased subsequent trolling and unwholesome actions.

But this other study was on about 1,350 Twitter users who had posted either racist or xenophobic messages. They received a reply using empathy, humor, warnings about the consequences, or no intervention at all. The empathy messages humanized those who were targeted, reminding the sender that their words could actually hurt real people. The empathy condition produced an increase in the deletion of previous hateful posts. Empathy works. It's really empathy, kindness, and mettā^[3]. There is a human being on the other side.

In the meditation today, I brought in a sense of empathy—seeing and feeling the other person on the other side, or the other people who are getting impacted, especially when you are posting on a message board. Our messages impact others. We impact each other all the time. We underestimate our power, our agency, and our impact, especially given that all of us humans have a negativity bias. If there are five or ten positive messages and one negative message, we read that negative one and people get riled up, upset, and reactive. Let us all be wise about how, through this web of interaction, we impact one another.

So when we're caught, when we are not showing up as well as we can, just stop.

Another thing I definitely want to talk about today is this aspect of conscience and concern. There is a teaching on the two "guardians of the world," hiri and ottappa^[4]. Hiri, a Pali word, is the inner sensitivity that recoils from harmful conduct. It is often translated as "disgust," which is not a great word, but the sense is, Ooh, I don't want to do this act. I don't want to do this. The body and the heart recoil from something that is harmful. Ottappa is the external version—the concern about consequences from a social perspective. It's the feeling of, I don't want to be the person that other people see acting this way. What would the wise think if they saw this message? Ottappa is external; hiri is internal.

I want to tell a story that really talks about hiri and ottappa. A person is given a chicken and an axe and is told, "Okay, go and kill this chicken." The first person takes the chicken, goes behind the shed, and cuts the head off. That's that. The second person is given the chicken and the axe, and they come back and say, "I couldn't kill the chicken because there are other people watching me." The third person goes behind the shed, comes back, and says, "I couldn't kill the chicken because the chicken was watching me." The fourth person comes back and says, "I couldn't kill the chicken because I was watching me."

These are different levels of conscience: other people, the chicken, and myself. I can't watch myself do something that is harmful and insensitive. I want to bring this question up for all of us. When nobody is watching, but I am watching this being who is me, how do I conduct myself? How am I in the world?

That is very important not just in our interactions with others, but also in the internal dimension, especially in the age of AI. How do we interact, for example, with chatbots? Chatbots are only one instance of artificial intelligence, specifically large language models (LLMs). How do I interact with LLMs and AI agents? Do I use them to support my thinking, or do I offload? Do I do cognitive offloading, where I let them do the thinking for me? How can I keep the responsibility of my own mind and actions? Of course, getting research support in various ways is fine, but how am I interacting? Is it wise? Is it wholesome?

There are so many questions and so much concern. Let's remember S.T.O.P.: Stop, take a breath, observe the body and mind, and proceed with discernment.

The question is always: Is what I'm doing, or about to do, beneficial? Is it beneficial for others? Is it beneficial for me? Is it kind? Does this reflect who I want to be? What is my state of mind right now? What am I accomplishing with what I'm doing right now? All these questions make digital technology and our interactions part of our domain of practice. Our practice is our life, and our life is our practice. It doesn't stop when we open our eyes and end our meditation. All of this is practice.

With that, I appreciate your practice of listening, taking in as much as is beneficial and kind for you, and letting the rest go. I look forward to the denouement^[5] of our series tomorrow on Friday. Be well, take good care, and may you have tech-sati. Take care. See you tomorrow. See you in quotes tomorrow! [Laughter]