Evaluating Mindfulness Meditation Apps

Mindfulness meditation apps are widely available but have received little academic evaluation. An auto-ethnographic and expert evaluation of the 16 most popular iPhone mindfulness apps in the UK found that they primarily offer guided meditation, with limited support for monitoring internal meditation processes or measuring training effectiveness. The authors call for a more nuanced discussion about these apps and suggest design improvements, including tools that support intrinsic meditation processes and bodily kinetic aspects that foster mindfulness, as well as guidelines for evaluating app effectiveness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

indfulness meditation has significant benefits for health and well-being but requires training. A wealth of mindfulness meditation apps have been developed in the last years. However, there has been liMassachusetts Institute of Technologyed academic work evaluating these technologies. This paper reports an auto-ethnographic and expert evaluation study of 16 most popular iPhone mindfulness apps in the UK. Findings indicate that these apps focus mostly on guided meditation, with liMassachusetts Institute of Technologyed support for monitoring intrinsic meditation processes and measuring the effectiveness of the training. We propose a more nuanced discourse around such apps concluding with implications for design; including new tools for supporting intrinsic meditation processes and bodily kinetic aspects fostering mindfulness, together with the call for developing guidelines for evaluating the effectiveness of such applications.