Namaskar. This site shares the findings of a formal research project on how gumba communities in Nepal are using, thinking about, and governing phone use and "time pass apps" like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Smartphones provide access to useful teachings, books, communication, and information, but also raise questions about the role of distracting and addictive technologies in monastic life. Because sharing potentially controversial opinions can be difficult, gumba rule-makers often do not know how people really feel about phone use, or how they really use their phones day to day.
To help, I gathered a dataset of lamas' perspectives on phone use for monastery administrators across Nepal to refer to in their governance conversations. I went to three monasteries in Nepal — one large community in Kathmandu (site A), one small rural community in East Nepal (site B), and one nunnery on the edge of the Kathmandu valley (site C) — none of which had formal bans on phone use during most of the day, apart from puja and class time. I talked to two dozen lamas about their mobile use, how they felt about that use, and how they and their community manage digital entertainment. I also gave a short survey to seventy-two shedra students, teachers, and Lopon about phone use, and recorded screen-time data from almost sixty of their phones.
The findings below are organized into four parts: how lamas use their phones; what concerns they have; what they value; and how they want to move forward. Please read and take whatever seems useful to you and your community. This work was conducted with the Rangjung Yeshe Institute for Buddhist Studies at Kathmandu University and funded by Fulbright Nepal. The head lama at each location, and each participating monk, gave permission to take part. An academic paper explaining these findings and more in detail will be linked here upon publication.
1. How lamas use their phones
A. Most lamas use smartphones every day.
- Everyone who took part in the project owned a smartphone.
- Lamas spent about six and a half hours on their phones each day, and turned them on an average of fifty-six times daily.
- Entertainment apps were by far the most used — Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube especially.
B. Most lamas thought they used their phones less than they did.
- 80% of survey participants under-estimated their own phone use.
- Actual recorded use was about 1.5 times higher than people thought.
C. Time pass apps are used mostly at night, on holidays, and during breaks.
- Most lamas said they did not use phones during puja or in class.
- Many shedra students and Lopon used their phones for entertainment for several hours before sleep.
- Most also spent many hours on time pass during free days.
"I use [time pass apps] a lot in the evenings… three, four hours, probably. Often I am not free until 9 pm at night… so then sometimes I use until 9, 10, 11." — site A, Lopon, age 33
D. Many lamas already work to limit their own use.
- More than half of interviewees said they try to self-restrict entertainment use.
- Strategies included deleting apps, locking phones away during exams, and switching to a flip phone.
- Lamas at the rural site B felt less strongly about self-restriction than students and Lopon in the Kathmandu valley.
"I used to like TikTok, Instagram, but these days I have like deleted completely… because from these reels I might get like distracted." — site A, Lopon, age 32
2. What lamas are worried about
Many lamas expressed concern about the effects of high phone use on themselves and their communities.
A. Shedra students felt that phones and time pass apps:
- Are addictive, easy to overuse, and wasteful of their time
- Make it much harder to concentrate on their studies
- Make meditation more difficult
- Reduce how much they sleep
- Reduce the time they spend with other people
- Worsen their mental health
"With our mouths we say we have to control ourselves, but we can't." — site C, shedra student, age 21
"For me, for my study life, having a lot of [internet] is a huge problem. Now, we have exams coming… But still I have everything to do. … personally for me I cannot control myself." — site A, shedra student, age 23
"[My mobile] affects me very much… because of phone my emotion is very unstable… good thought and bad thought always clashing." — site A, shedra student, age 25
B. Lopon, teachers, and administrators felt that phones and time pass apps:
- Are easy to overuse and a major distraction in general
- Make the monastery less social
- Make students less respectful and less attentive in class
- Are a bud (demon) and a major obstacle to developing strong practice
"It's lonely now, isn't it? This is a lonely person's friend. Now the phone is the best friend. The best friend." — site A, Lopon and primary school teacher, age 36
"I am lost in the mobile… I need to learn many things, you know? But I am lost in the mobile. My time is wasting… [time pass app] is totally opposite to the practice of dharma." — site A, Lopon, age 40
3. What lamas like about smartphones
Many lamas also appreciated the ways phones help them and make their lives easier.
A. Shedra students liked:
- The availability of recorded dharma talks on YouTube
- The ease of communicating with friends and family far away
- The usefulness of research and Tibetan translator apps
- Access to foreign media like movies, books, and news
"About the dharma… what the guru has said about the dharma, we can know that from the internet. … if we don't have a phone, in this place in the jungle… we wouldn't even know what he said. We know that from our phones. That's good." — site C, shedra student, age 21
B. Lopon, teachers, and administrators liked:
- The ease with which dharma teachings can spread online
- The helpfulness of phones and messaging for administrative coordination
- The availability of educational resources online
- How much younger lamas can learn about the outside world
- How time pass apps can be a useful distraction from negative emotions
"Good use there is, for attention practice, lots of audio, explanations from guru in audio, masters in India and Tibet… And many thankas are available, and many books, pdf, dictionary are available." — site A, Lopon and administrator, age 34
4. How lamas want to move forward
Almost three-quarters of the 72 participants expressed a desire for new rules on phone and digital entertainment use, offering many ideas for reducing the harms of time pass apps without losing the positive and useful parts of phones.
A. Stronger place and time restrictions
Many participants at all three sites thought that things would be better if rules banning phone use in certain contexts or at certain times of day were strengthened and better enforced. People particularly mentioned strong restrictions on night-time use as a rule they thought would be very good for their community.
Examples: strictly no phones after 10 PM; no phones during self-study, puja, and class; removing free Wi-Fi to discourage use.
"[No phones after] 10 o'clock… that rule would be good. Tomorrow morning I have to go to class. And I will feel sleepy. I doze off in class. And from there, I don't understand. And I fail." — site C, shedra student, age 20
B. Bans with a weekly allowance
Eleven participants felt lamas should be limited to one or two days of phone use per week — a restriction that some believed should apply only to primary school and shedra students, not adults. Though this would be hard, participants saw it as a net gain for the community in the long run.
Examples: phone use on weekends or one day a week only; phone use on holidays only.
"If phones are for students, allowing them to use it one day a week is the best… Because the more you use the phone, the less attention goes to studies… if I reached a big post, I would make it so phone usage is only one day a week." — site B, shedra student, age 30
C. Better education
Three participants at site A proposed that phone use would be less of a problem if monasteries taught lamas how to use phones and entertainment apps properly.
Examples: training on healthy phone use; teaching the advantages and disadvantages of apps.
"How to use that mobile, the advantages and disadvantages of the apps inside it, that kind of education should be given… then people will misuse it less." — site A, Lopon, age 40
D. App-specific restrictions
Four participants thought not all phone use should be banned, but that specifically problematic apps, or certain activities on them, should be.
Examples: limits on highly distracting or addictive apps such as social media; bans on making TikToks or Instagram Reels.
E. Accountability systems
Three participants thought that a system should be put in place to make people's phone use public, thus keeping people's habits accountable to the community.
Examples: screen-time checks; a public "screen time habits" chart posted in the monastery; more community discussion of phone habits.
"I would like to see… accountability… I would like if the khenpos would come and be like, 'I have to see your screen time.' Really, you know, post it, put it on the wall. Because that's what we do for like, our absences." — site A, shedra student, age 35
Questions for further reflection
Some questions gumba administrators and teachers may want to consider when thinking about how to manage phone use in their community:
- What kinds of phone use are most beneficial to our community, and worth protecting?
- What kinds of use are most harmful, and need to be limited?
- How might traditional ways of regulating behavior in the monastery be applied to phone use?
- Which apps specifically are a problem here, and how might we focus on managing those kinds of use?
- What role should education and self-governance play? When does self-governance need to be aided by restrictive rules?
- How can we best support lamas in bringing their phone use into alignment with their own values?