Contemplative Media Design: Practicing Mindful Media

This paper examines the gap between developers and scholars, looks at the possibility of games becoming a modern form of meditation, and offers theoretical and practical principles for designing media and technology to induce contemplative experiences (“contemplative media design”). With the objective of outlining guiding principles for designing “mindful media,” this paper reviews methods used to apply fundamental concepts in consciousness studies, media studies, and game studies and evaluates the results in existing and forthcoming games. This paper identifes phenomena essential for designing “mindful media,” presents the results as principles for “contemplative media design,” and ofers examples of games which have incorporated these principles. Moreover, this paper will explore how games can help induce and encourage more mindful states of consciousness and elucidate how designing and developing “mindful media” through “contemplative media design” holds rich creative and research opportunities available for scholars across all disciplines.