Keep Calm and AmaZen: Materialities of Energy-as-Work in Digital Mindfulness Technologies 1
Intellect eBooks July 20, 2026 DOI: 10.1386/9781835952504_10 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Digital health Field mathematics Innovative human-technology interaction |
| Key points | Argues that digital mindfulness technologies operate within a paradigm of energy and efficiency, putting exhaustion to work and extracting the human body as a resource for data-driven growth, rather than cultivating it for balanced flourishing. |
Abstract
This chapter maps out the topography of energy, bodily exhaustion, and digital (data) exhaustion in the context of digital mindfulness technologies. Using a walkthrough method, content analysis, and visual analysis, I argue that digital mindfulness technologies such as Calm and AmaZen follow the industrialized notion of energy that has been with us since the nineteenth century. Such understanding of energy that situates work as an end goal encapsulates the paradox of mindfulness technologies that operate in a paradigm of energy and efficiency, even if that entails putting exhaustion to work. While the affordances of digital mindfulness technologies allude to natural resources, these natural resources are put to work not only for mindfulness ends but also as elements of an infrastructure that sustains these technologies. The human body is not to be preserved or cultivated for flourishing within a balanced ecology but continuously extracted in a loop of data-driven growth, efficiency, and progress.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |