Changing the Subject: Looping Effects and Subject Transformation Matrices in Two Meditation Apps

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study of digital religion is currently in its fourth wave of research, focusing closely on the interrelation between users and digital religious technologies. In the fields of philosophy, cognitive science and cultural studies, looping effects, or the dynamic process of subject formation as a result of the development and internalisation of new categorisation schemes, have been investigated independently of the development of digital religious technologies. I bring these separate areas of investigation together to understand the way users are transformed by Buddhist meditation apps. By introducing the framework of a subject transformation matrix, I look closely at how meditation apps create value-laden conceptual spaces within which religious subjects are transformed through processes of self-care. Understanding this dynamic relation between users and digital technologies has deep implications for the development of digital religion studies, our understanding of religious subjectivities and the role of religious apps in public spaces.