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Do you use meditation apps? I do, but there is a significant downside to relying on apps to learn mindfulness and meditation. Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you to stop using your app, but I am going to explain why it’s important to supplement with other forms of education.

Mindfulness and meditation apps provide quick, easy access to guided meditations and offer hundreds of guided meditation options. And, of course, they’re portable, so you have access to recordings wherever and whenever you want provided you keep your phone battery charged!

Some apps also allow you to track the length and frequency of meditation sessions, which may help you meditate more often and for longer, both of which are beneficial.

Preliminary research shows that app users experience reduced mind-wandering, lowering of perceived stress, fewer symptoms of depression, more positive emotions, and less aggression. 

But…

Research on mindfulness is in its infancy. There are very few studies and each one tends to focus on a specific meditation app, which means its findings may not be generalizable to other apps. Furthermore measures of effectiveness are typically self-reports as opposed to objective measures and it is not clear that the factors on which participants are asked to rate themselves accurately represent elements of mindfulness and meditation that are learned through training with a qualified teacher. This means we do not yet know just how effective mindfulness apps are, or how they compare to traditional mindfulness training.

Perhaps the biggest limitation of mindfulness apps is they typically don’t offer lessons in how to meditate or practice mindfulness. They merely guide you through meditation. Guided meditations have limited usefulness, as Dr. James Cartriene notes in his Harvard Health Blog post entitled Mindfulness Apps: How Well do They Work? He writes, “It’s hard to notice what’s going on inside or around you if you’re distracted by someone speaking, even if it is soothing speech, and some reviews of these apps point this out. Research also indicates that the self-directed, silent form of mindfulness practice is more effective than externally guided exercises. Being talked through a breathing exercise is actually a form of relaxation training (learning to release tension from the body), which also has value, but is different from mindfulness training.” I agree with him.

Your app may offer a guided meditation to help you relax when anxious, but it won’t teach you how to be mindful of anxiety by acknowledging it and mindfully facing it head on. Apps don’t teach you how to actively manage difficult emotions, or how to bring mindfulness into your daily life. They cannot coach you through rough spots in your personal practice and they cannot offer support other than helping you track your meditation sessions.

It’s also incredibly easy to record a guided meditation and some of the people who produce meditations are not qualified to teach mindfulness. And of course, you need to be a careful consumer, because not all guided meditations are based on mindfulness practice. There are all sorts of practices that people label as meditation and if you are uneducated in mindfulness, it can be difficult to know whether what you’re listening to is a legitimate mindfulness practice.

Now, I can hear you saying,  “Don’t you offer guided meditations, Monica?