
In the time you spend on social media each year, you could read 200 books - submeta
https://qz.com/895101/in-the-time-you-spend-on-social-media-each-year-you-could-read-200-books/
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geofft
Has the author gained any benefits from this practice? I feel like what limits
me is energy more than time, and I tend to page through Twitter when falling
asleep or on a short subway ride or something. If I'm reading something I care
about actually understanding, I'll make sure I'm awake and paying attention to
it and have enough time to properly understand it. I've fallen asleep reading
before, and it usually causes me to reread the section the next night to make
sure I understand it. Not so with Twitter.

Also, this is pretty dismissive:

 _Here’s how much time a single American spends on social media and TV in a
year: 608 hours on social media, 1642 hours on TV. Wow. That’s 2250 hours a
year spent on TRASH._

Not all social media or TV is trash, and more importantly, not all books _aren
't_. If my goal were to just read for the sake of reading, I'd find some young
adult lit that I'm not very invested in, which would make for easy reading,
but would it be better than social media or TV?

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gt_
I am not in disagreement of _any_ your points. But, it’s worth mentioning
that, while I don’t know the reason why this is, books will no longer make you
fall asleep if you practice reading them regularly. Tiredness will still have
the expected effect, but the _reading paper pages_ will not.

Again, I don’t know why it is, but I’ve observed the problem in lives of
friends and family for many years. It has yet to fail.

I made a significant move to prioritize reading books, even sacrificing most
of my social life for it. Ever since, I experience reading books keeps me
awake rather than encouraging sleep.

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rand_r
If you’re having trouble falling asleep, I found another technique to work
well: stream of consciousness journaling.

You just take a notebook and writing down every thought that flows through
your mind as fast as you can keep up. In about 5 minutes, I’ve found that I
reach a calm peaceful state of mind and can get to sleep again.

~~~
gt_
I could probably use this advice and I haven't heard it before. I'm curious
and will give it a try. Thanks.

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at_smith
Social media is also more consumable. It's easy to read a few posts while
you're waiting for a few minutes in line or something. With a book, it takes
time to get up and going with the story as well as hitting an appropriate
stopping point.

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aaron-lebo
You don't believe some training is at play here? If you get used to reading
isolated snippets of text over and over and over, you might think a tweetstorm
is a better medium than a book, but it probably has a far worse useful content
ratio, and I can almost guarantee you that you'll have a harder time remember
90% of that social media than you would in that "less consumable" book that
nonetheless is structured in a way to facilitate learning.

People have been taking books with them, reading parts, placing a bookmark,
and returning five minutes later for centuries. Is social media really more
consumable or does it taste good and we've gotten used to it?

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at_smith
I believe you're spot on. Training and being used to it is what I'd describe
as an unfortunate reality. It reminds me of a few startups that I've seen
who've created novels in the format of text message conversations to provide
the content of a book in the format we've been trained for. I've definitely
felt like my attention span isn't what it used to be when it comes to reading.

A large source of power for social media is that it is a 'pushing' force - it
constantly is throwing notifications and other stimuli at you.

A book, on the other hand, does not share that same strength in power. But it
has gotten better in pushing (i.e. Goodreads, Kindle, etc.).

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rainbowmverse
I can't find 200 books I _want_ to read each year. However, I find most books
I read through social media.

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yakitori
And? So switch one form of escapism for another?

We could all benefit from less social media, less articles ( like this one
from qz ), less news and less books. But what's the point of this clickbait?

You could "escape" and read 200 books and that wouldn't be any different than
wasting time watching tv or going on social media or reading silly articles
like OP's.

Reading books in and of itself isn't a "noble" pursuit. Especially when most
of it is clickbait formulaic nonsense.

Instead of reading 200 books, why not select a 2 or 3 important books and
learn those well? Reading the bible or knuth's the art of computer programming
is actually a worthwhile goal. Reading 200 formulaic saccharine books that rot
your brain isn't.

QUALITY over QUANTITY.

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DennisP
True, but the whole thing is based on Warren Buffet's advice: "Read 500 pages
_like this_ every day."

I wish I knew what books he was pointing to, but I think it's safe to assume
they weren't escapist.

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rand_r
Social media is like pornography. It helps satisfy one of the strongest drives
in Humans, which is being social. The need for social connection is wired very
strongly within us and reading a book does not satisfy that need. Therefore
reading will not replace social media.

We have to recognize that we are not robots that have to maximize
productivity.

We are sitting on millions of years of evolution guiding us to make and
maintain connections with other people, and it’s perfectly natural to let that
happen. Of course, it would probably be better to meet people face to face,
but that isn’t always an option for people due to various circumstances.

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i_feel_great
Does anyone here consider HN and Reddit prog to be "social media"? I have
learned a ton of useful stuff reading the comments on both. And not just
programming related stuff too.

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digitalsushi
social media to me is breadth first reading, over depth first reading. if i
can keep going to the root node and hopping to the next consumable thing with
no relationship to the thing i just read, it's breadth first social media.

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CM30
On the other hand, that social media time also gives me things to write about
online and ways to promote the stuff I'm working on. I like reading books as
much as anyone else does, but if my main job is web development and my
secondary hobbies involve news reporting, then using that time for social
media is a hell of a lot more useful.

I'm certainly learning a lot more about the latest advances in tech from
Hacker News than a physical book...

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anigbrowl
Meh, clickbait. I read a lot and am happy to get through 50 books a year.
Books you can read in a few hours are often trash as well.

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adamnemecek
500 pages means one thing for something from the nyt reading list and
something else for a grad math book.

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provost
TL;DR : To read 200 books, author estimates you need 417 hours a year reading.
Assumes 50,000 page non-fiction books and 400 word per minute. Supposedly,
average American spends 2250 on social media + TV.

The author also mentions multi-medium, which is what I do too (reading on
phone, Kindle, and audiobook). And amazon whispersync pairs your kindle book
to Audible narration, and lets you easily switch between reading and
listening.

