Meditations on YouTube

This paper reports findings from a study of meditation videos posted on YouTube. It reports on both the features they offer and the kinds of comments posted. The most-viewed one hundred videos referenced faith-based traditions, "new age" spirituality, and entirely secular meditation practices. A convenience sample of comments was taken as a snapshot of responses. Comments were sorted into three main groups: remarks about the video, reports of subjective experience and responses to other comments. The paper presents examples and discussion of the comments and relates them to Seligman's theory of well-being, in particular the difference between pleasure and gratification. It argues that although the value of "found data" is limited, these data indicate some of the ways that YouTube is being used to create gratifying and meaningful as well as pleasurable experiences.