Medium’s new “Claps” feature is an exercise in Mindfulness.
Giving a “heart” to show your approval for any piece of content is common among many social media platforms. Twitter, almost two years ago, updated their “Favorite” button (which was a star ⭐️) to a “Like” button (which is actually a heart ❤️).

But Medium has decided to move forward and offer a more engaging system, with “Claps”.
Instead of simply stamping your approval once with the previous Heart, you can now display a wider range of appreciation, clapping as many times as you are enjoying reading this site.
Medium isn’t alone in developing new systems to increase user-to-user engagement. Over the years on Facebook, you may have recalled users getting bored of the “Like” button, and instead called for an addition of a “Dislike” button. Facebook decided to up the ante, and offer their users a frontier of “reactions”.

I’ve decided to quickly survey how Claps has changed the way I read on Medium.
Mindfulness is the impartial evaluation of the internal and external values of our perception.
Practicing mindfulness is about maintaining control of our attention and emotions so that we are present and productive in every waking moment. You can use this to hype yourself up at the gym, focusing before an interview, and yes, even sitting back and reading Medium articles!
Clapping invites our participation anywhere we want, instead of just at the very end, or just once, with the archaic heart feature. Consider this passage from Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors by Dr. D Corydon Hammond:
Notice the paper. What color is it? Notice how clean and crisp it seems. Fingers slide over the surface, and feel how smooth. Eyes can flow across the page, going easily from side to side, seeing everything. Notice the letters on the page. They seem dark and distinct The pound parts of the O’s and C’s are very smooth; and down parts of the T’s and L’s are tall and strong. The words seem to stand out very clearly.
This is the exact approach I have adopted to reading content on Medium. I’m not waiting until the end of a piece to decide if it meant something to me. I’m being mindful of where I am within each word and sentence of an article, and clapping for any moment that calls out to me. In the event that I don’t feel like sticking around to the end of a piece, I can feel satisfied that I took what I enjoyed from it, even if I didn’t finish it.

For Writers, “Claps” can only go up.
Your new claps may not compare to the same average number of hearts you received in the past; the claps will now most likely exceed them. Now, every reader is truly unique and individual, displaying variable heights of inspiration toward your work.
I’m a new writer at Medium. I don’t have much of any hearts or claps yet. But I have to wonder if this will change the way we all write on Medium. Will we treat every article like a performance, vying for excitement and engagement from our readers at every paragraph? Can I say the same for us readers? Will we boot up every article like we’re on our way into a theater, with our ticket in hand?
I personally feel that this is a enormous change to the way we use Medium, but I could see how some of us might think it’s cheesy, or ignore it like we did with the last feature anyway. But I think we can all get on board for any tool out there that serves to make reading fun.

👏 Happy Clapping 👏
