While owner Elon Musk denies X, his rebranded Twitter, is an even bigger cesspit of abuse, racism, and unfettered nastiness than it already was, perhaps one way to improve things is meditation, according to Kiwi academics.
Researchers from University of Auckland (UaA) trawled through more than 60,000 Twitter posts by users who’d completed a two-month mindfulness course to see if it changed how they tweeted, and it turns out that yes, it made them nicer.
Those involved meditated for 60 minutes per day, and the number original tweets they posted increased compared to retweets, and they were more upbeat too.
UoA Business School researcher Shohil Kishore was inspired to investigate if, and how, a contemplative practice like mindfulness might influence online behaviour after he saw a Twitter (now X) post by an influencer announcing a 60-day meditation challenge.
Kishore and fellow researchers Sanghyub John Lee (UoA) and Amy Errmann (Auckland University of Technology) found that those who completed the 60-day online meditation challenge, exhibited more positive emotions in original tweets, compared to those who didn’t
“We found that they were posting more content overall, more original content compared to retweets, and that the tweets that they were creating were more positive in nature than their counterparts who didn’t complete the challenge,” Kishore said.
Kishore says the study shows that mindfulness can be particularly amenable to creating original content.
“We argue that if consumers practice mindfulness, they more fully engage in online activities that require creativity and creation, which means that they are more likely to post original content rather than simply retweeting information created by others,” he said.
When it comes to retweets, users who finished the meditation challenge displayed fewer positive reactions than the incomplete group.
Meanwhile, users who did the meditation also exhibited higher engagement levels in terms of replies and length of tweets than those who didn’t.
“There’s a lot of research on mindfulness in terms of investigating the effects of meditation on positivity, but we wanted to explore whether it can result in any tangible change, and our findings here indicate that an individual’s relationship with technology can evolve over time when engaging in meditation regularly,” Kishore said.
So if you’re keen to remain a part of a billionaire’s superego looking glass, perhaps a daily chant may help you survive with good vibes in mind. Call is Muskfulness.
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