Randomized trial finds brief meditation causes no more distress than routine internet use in adults, indicating digital mindfulness carries minimal adverse emotional risk.
Key Points
To examine the prevalence of adverse experiences associated with three brief digital meditation practices compared with routine internet use and determine whether preintervention characteristics predict these outcomes.
Secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial in US and UK adult cohorts (N=5049) comparing three brief digital meditation practices (mindfulness, self-compassion, and gratitude) against routine internet use.
Assessed adverse outcomes across 5-minute and 10-minute practice durations and used preintervention baseline characteristics to evaluate outcome predictability.
Distressing experiences occurred in 4.1% (204/4925) of participants during the intervention, with brief meditation showing no significant difference compared to routine internet use (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.76-1.47; P=.76).
Participants randomized to brief meditation were significantly less likely to report an increase in negative affect (overall incidence 7.1% [348/4908]) than those using the internet as usual (OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.50-0.80; P<.001).
A 10-minute session was associated with higher odds of distress than a 5-minute session (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.07-1.89; P=.02), while baseline traits showed acceptable discrimination in predicting distress (AUC=0.73).