
Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction - wormold
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/02/08/reading-in-the-age-of-constant-distraction/
======
everythingswan
I've come to love books intensely. Not only because I enjoy learning--before I
read books, I found blogs to be great educators. I love books because they
create time and space to be alone with a thought. It gives me time to consider
things that I normally have no space for.

I remember Seth Godin saying once that every business book can be summarized
in just a few pages but the book itself is a story. I think it goes beyond
just that idea and is The Exercise in reinforcing ideas. Yes, you don't need
to spend 10 hours to memorize an idea: _move fast and break things._ Yea, I
get it.

But what does that actually mean? How do you actually implement that
philosophy? How do you internalize it? How do you navigate situations where
you will revert back to your old habit or philosophy? I think you have to
spend 10 hours thinking about it and then taking actionable steps to implement
it in order to make it useful. Teaching and writing are similar exercises that
I have found helpful as a learning tool.

I only just stumbled upon why I like to read. It is likely very personal. But
I have found that removing the distractions and habit of "horizontal reading"
makes me happier. I'm looking forward to reading the referenced book by
Birkerts.

(Aside: At times, I have found reading to be an excuse for not getting things
done on my projects. _I just need to know more about x, y, and z before I
start_. Ironically, the quest for knowledge can be distracting itself.)

~~~
chki
I've recently been shown a lot of ads for a service called "blinkist" where
the idea is to provide short summaries of non-fiction books and I think your
comment captures why that is a very bad idea. Reading and capturing an idea
takes time; it can't be properly substituted by a few minutes of "listening to
crucial insights from leading thinkers while you’re on the go."

Their business model is in a way the complete opposite of the ideas in the
article (although there is admittedly a difference between fiction and non-
fiction books):

They show pictures of very busy business people that can't fit a book into
their tight schedule; one of their ads said something along the lines of "80%
of successful managers read at least 20 books per year" (which is probably
just completely mixing up correlation and causation).

~~~
criddell
I don't think fiction can be shrunk down, but I think lots of non-fiction
books can.

I'm thinking specifically of some books that I've read in the past couple of
years that include:

    
    
      * Deep Work
      * Influence
      * Thinking Fast and Slow
      * Predictably Irrational
      * Getting Things Done
      * How to Win Friends and Influence People
    

I think all of these books suffer from the common pattern of present an idea
then a bunch of examples that demonstrate the idea. I don't think you lose
anything by ditching the examples. The core ideas are usually well stated and
don't need clarification or demonstration.

~~~
whatusername
I agree completely about non-fiction books.

There are certainly some fiction books that could use some shrinking down (For
Exhibit A: Crossroads of Twilight -- book 10 of the Wheel of Time)

~~~
criddell
Now that you mention it, when I was reading Snow Crash I started skipping all
the parts about ancient Sumerian language. All that he needed to do was
establish that it worked as some kind of low-level system of the brain that
could be tinkered with. Instead it felt like he spent 4 months researching
ancient Sumer and by God he was going to not let that work go to waste.

------
burtonator
I'm actually working on an app specifically to address this problem.

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

It builds on the idea of 'bookmarks' and we have a new take on them called
'pagemarks' which is basically a box that spans multiple pages.

This way you can keep track of the parts of the book you've read and jump
around.

I like reading multiple textbooks, articles, etc and go back and forth often.

This allows me to easily suspend and resume.

I worked on a proof of concept about 6 months ago and I've been expanding it
in my spare time.

You can read about it here:

[https://getpolarized.io/incremental-
reading.html](https://getpolarized.io/incremental-reading.html)

Polar is free and Open Source btw.

It blew up on HN a few months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18219960)

I'm about to re-announce as we're just in the process of porting it to the web
to make it more accessible to people (mobile, tablets, chrome OS, etc.).

It goes FAR behind this though and supports document management, offline, and
supports capturing web pages for offline usage and archival.

Additionally it supports annotation so you can take any page and add
highlights, comments and flashcards.

~~~
eigenvalue
Very cool! At least for me, so much of my reading is done on my mobile devices
(e.g, iPhone, iPad) that not supporting those via an app is pretty much a deal
killer for me. But if I could have one place to read PDF files, saved websites
(e.g., like Pocket; btw, Pocket integration would seem to make a lot of sense
for Polarized) where annotations/highlights are also stored in the cloud (say,
in Dropbox), and I could access this on the go on a mobile device, I would
certainly use your service.

~~~
burtonator
Mobile + web is coming... I'm also working on different ways to read while
mobile which I think will be amazingly valuable.

I'm going to keep these a surprise though.

I like to read on my laptop and not mobile though... but maybe that will
change.

~~~
davidtsong
Awesome, thanks for the share! Would be great to integrate functionality from
Zotero

------
CharlesMerriam2
As I read this story, some moving advertisements start along the top and
sides. After ten seconds, a floating bar covers the text. After a few more, a
modal dialog. Then the 'share me now' buttons, obscuring the text. Then I
leave.

Too few websites offer an experience for someone to read the content, and so
we will see "Reading Online Content in the Age of Constant Distraction" in
HackerNews.

~~~
geolgau
How can you live in 2019 without an ad blocker? I'm on that page and never got
any ads/intrusions.

~~~
IanSanders
Maybe they are using an iphone or something. Adblockers don't resolve the root
of the problem!

------
cableshaft
I joined local book clubs to help combat this. The book clubs help me get
motivated to read books. I don't always finish them, and sometimes work or
other commitments prevent me from going out and discussing the book, but it
does help motivate me to sit down and read a book again (often when I'm in
line waiting for things is a good time for me to make progress on the book. I
try to do that instead of checking Facebook updates, but I also read before
going to bed also).

The main problem with this, is they often choose books that I'm not that
interested in reading. Sometimes I plow through it anyway and sometimes I just
skip that month. That's why I'm in multiple groups, so I can see what each
group is reading and pick the one or two books that look the most interesting
from those.

But sometimes the books I'm really into. Like I got excited when The Devil and
the White City was one of them, and one of them is currently reading the Deep
Work book, which I'm finding interesting and wanting to incorporate some of
its ideas in my own life.

~~~
gerdesj
_I joined local book clubs to help combat this._ There is no need to be so
adversarial! There is absolutely nothing wrong with checking your
Facebook/Reddit/Twitter/HN/Register/./G+(lol) feeds. Reading a novel is not
mutually exclusive to that, in the same way that your work and home lives are
intertwined but still separate (probably).

It sounds to me from your comment that you need to break away from your book
club and go your own way and do your own thing. They have piqued your interest
and pointed out _a_ way but that way is now yours. I have no idea where you
are in the world but if you have a local lending library within reach, that
might be a good place to consider visiting. I'm from the UK and what little is
left of our library system after much cutting of budgets (generally outside
Laaaaaandon) is still legendary but sadly being diminished by
London/Cardiff/Edinburgh/Belfast focused knob-ends.

There is no greater pleasure to be had than from a damn good book and very few
books are not damn good. OK, there are one or two other things that are quite
fun ...

~~~
cableshaft
I also read plenty of Facebook/Reddit/HN feeds still, I'm not trying to
eliminate them. Combat was kind of a hyperbole I guess. I'm not declaring war
against reading articles online.

But I have found that for all the interesting articles online, if I reflect
back on them after a year, I can remember approximately 0% of what I read,
while I can remember at least which books I've read and something interesting
about them, so I wonder just how useful reading those articles are. Hasn't
stopped me from doing it, but I don't think it's quite so useful (I'm not
really counting tutorials in this, where I actually gain tangible skills by
following what I read, though).

And I still buy and read my own books. I just wish I could finish a book, go
someplace for dinner and discuss it with a few people afterwards like I can
with the book club books. It is also harder for me to finish books I want to
read, though, because I don't have that looming deadline reminding me. I
suppose I could set my own deadlines, but I know from past experience that I
don't treat those seriously.

It's the same thing for me with game design. I do still design game in my
spare time, but I get a looot more work done when I know there's a looming
game convention or a competition deadline coming up. Same with writing. I get
the vast majority of my new writing done during the month of November each
year, during Nanowrimo. The rest of the year moves at a crawl. It's that
comradery and not-imposed-by-me deadline that helps keep me motivated.

------
nothrows
I recently discovered I score very low on VVIQ. Vividness of Visual Imagery
Questionnaire. I don't have full on Aphantasia. But listening to how for other
people reading a book is like watching a movie in their heads blows my mind.
Being able to imagine with any level of depth sounds pretty amazing. As a kid
I never really played pretend or was into fiction. But I'm curious that
possibly long form reading is on the decline is associated with lower
abilities to imagine in the general public?

~~~
mathieuh
I mean, the level of CGI and game engine textures we have is almost
indistinguishable from real life. Perhaps because we have access to the super
high-fidelity, interactive simulations, we've lost the practice of imagining
so vividly?

~~~
max76
I grew up with unlimited screen time starting at age 2 and used the majority
of it to play 3d video games. I score very high on the VVIQ.

My story is antidotal, but your hypothesis is also not backed by data. I'd
like to purpose a counter hypothesis: spending time in interactive 3d worlds
requires building internal maps of the environment. Exercising these portions
of the brain improves Visual Imagery Vividness.

There are lots of unforeseen consequences of screen time. I suspect this isn't
one of them.

~~~
15155
I'll second this hypothesis. Also unlimited 3d world time: I have _vivid_
recollections of very large maps, spaces, etc.

I can remember every WoW raid environment, every detail of every CS map I
played, etc.

------
gdubs
My wife and I recently embarked on the 'Great Books' list from "How to read a
Book" [1]. It's a nice contrast to the more scattershot reading that happens
online.

If you're interested in how technology might cause self-interruptions that
make things like sitting down with a book more difficult, I recommend checking
out "The Distracted Mind". [2]

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book)

2: [http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/distracted-
mind](http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/distracted-mind)

~~~
davidmr
I spent a year at a “Great Books” college whose program Adler helped found. It
was a really amazing luxury to be able to spend so much time on it (I left
after freshman year, so I only got through the Greeks).

Ultimately, St John’s generates a lot of lawyers and humanities grad students,
but not a whole lot else without extra pre-grad school to school to get some
of the STEM prereqs out of the way. I love that the school generates
humanities scholars, but it’s not my bag, so I moved on.

If I had the money, I’d love to go back and finish when I retire, but at 40
I’m already not as smart as I was in college, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be too
dumb to be a useful classmate when I retire!

If you haven’t gotten to Euclid yet, do yourself a favor and get the Heath
translations with his notes. A few of them are really, really hard for people
trained in late second-millennia mathematics to be able to get through without
some hints.

~~~
gshubert17
I attended St. John's College's Graduate Institute, spending four summers (8
weeks each) reading and discussing a shorter version of the undergraduate
reading list, and took an M.A. degree in the Liberal Arts thirty years after
my Computer Science degree.

It was well worth it for me, at age 54, and for participants who were
retirement age. At 40 you may be feel less smart than when you were younger,
but you're very likely more mature and a better reader.

St. John's offers week-long Summer Classics sessions, which convey a lot of
the same experiences of reading and discussion:

[https://www.sjc.edu/santa-fe/programs/summer-
classics](https://www.sjc.edu/santa-fe/programs/summer-classics)

------
lbacaj
I think distractions are just the beginning of our issues, a much bigger
factor on how much I can read is Time.

As we become adults, with responsibilities Time is incredibly hard to find.
Big readers tend to be productive people and as such the more active and busy
we are the harder it is to sit down and read. This might sound like a straight
forward problem but I find myself bookmarking great articles or writing down
great books I heard about only to never really find the Time to go back and
read them.

As a little shameless self promotion this problem of not having enough time to
read led me to build an App that lets me listen to any article from the web.
It converts the article to Audio using some amazing open advancements in
AI/ML. Now when I’m standing on the train with a coffee in my hand and holding
a pole with the other I can get through a ton of this content from the web
distraction free.

You can check the app out here: [https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com)

~~~
Swizec
> but I find myself bookmarking great articles or writing down great books I
> heard about only to never really find the Time to go back and read them.

Try replacing “can’t find time” with “not a priority”. It means the same in
practice and makes for a huge shift in perception and your own personal
feekings towards stuff. Especially in the guilt department.

You have more important things to do and that’s okay. When you come across a
book that’s important enough you will magically have time for it. Priorities
are fun like that.

~~~
jm__87
Probably a lot of people just get lured in by social media, video games,
Netflix, etc and then spend far more time on these things than they would
actually like. I doubt many people are consciously prioritizing their web
surfing or video game time, but it just turns out that way since these things
are designed to be habit forming.

~~~
Swizec
I agree and saying "not a priority" instead of "don't have time" helps with
that too.

"Sorry reading books is not a priority"

Wait ... then what _is_ a priority? Social media? Screw that!!

And it prompts you to [try to] do better with your time.

Remember when we used to read books a few pages at a time on the pooper
instead of scrolling through twitter or hackernews? Good times.

~~~
jm__87
Haha yeah, absolutely. I've limited my social media use to HN only for a while
now (mainly because I feel it is one of the few sites left where you can just
have a civil discussion without things getting too political) and I feel I'm
significantly happier and more productive now than I was a few years ago. Of
course many other things have changed in that timeframe, but I don't really
ever see myself using Facebook or other popular social media again. Quitting
all that is quite liberating.

------
divan
While it's not what article is about, but amount of distraction you see even
just to read this article is insane:
[https://i.imgur.com/xHRmvuJ.png](https://i.imgur.com/xHRmvuJ.png)

------
yebyen
How apt that this is posted today! I've been tracking my reading progress on
the Google SRE Workbook via Beeminder, and today I am derailing my goal
because I am far behind. [1]

I started tracking my progress because I wanted to see how much I can actually
read in a day on a regular basis without losing focus and abandoning it, I
even got a Kindle because it was on sale.

Long story short, 10 pages a day was what I settled on as a reasonable goal,
and here I am not keeping up with that.

I actually should mention too that there is a person on GitHub[2] who converts
texts to epub/mobi as a hobby, and that's how I saved $50 on my copy of the
SRE book and workbook, Kindle edition, which are freely available in HTML
format, thanks Google[3]!

[1]:
[https://www.beeminder.com/yebyenw/srebook](https://www.beeminder.com/yebyenw/srebook)

[2]: [https://github.com/captn3m0/google-sre-
ebook](https://github.com/captn3m0/google-sre-ebook)

[3]:
[https://landing.google.com/sre/books/](https://landing.google.com/sre/books/)

~~~
Kluny
Ten pages a day is a lot! I'm an avid for-fun reader, and ten or fifteen pages
is about what I manage while reading during breakfast, lunch, and sometimes
for a few minutes before bed. That's with pretty lightweight pop-non-fiction
as well. Maybe it would be better to reduce the goal to something consistently
manageable, and don't beat yourself up!

~~~
yebyen
I changed the whole strategy today. Kindle reports % done and some bizarre
"book location" number which is like an order of magnitude bigger than pages,
so it's easier to report on and comprehend my "percent" location in the book.

Beeminder is all about beating yourself up. But derailing is not failing. You
don't fail if you set a new goal and start again. I decided that I will get
from my current location at 32% completed to 100% completed in about 7 weeks.

This is conservative to account for the fact that I should be able to read
other books in this time, as they strike my fancy! It will probably also help
that I no longer have to count the number of pages, now that I've switched to
tracking percent. I did the math and the new goal is a little less than 10
pages per day now. Thanks for the encouragement!

------
superqwert
Something I've found to be exceptionally good at helping with reading (I've
been reading ~50 books a year for the past 5 years, on top of a full time job
and family) is to use Goodreads - it gives you those short term endorphins
when you can mark a book as read and can help it compete with all the other
offerings of the world that reward you more hormonally.

Alternatively, if you don't want to use the tool, I would recommend getting a
nice notepad to write in some short book reviews, which will give you your
endorphins as you fill the book up more. And you get the additional benefit of
being able to look back through your notes to see what you thought of various
books and how your thought x time ago.

------
KorematsuFred
Did a small survey last year on this point and discovered that while
technology might sound distracting people are actually spending more time
reading/viewing stuff they like more lot more than before.

We found that among teens for example very few people read anything from news
websites very rarely but almost every single teen had read at least one
article in depth on very niche topic that appealed to them. (For example
reading about affairs for their favorite pop star). Most teens performed very
poorly when they were given 1 hour and asked to prepare a presentation on "any
american hero".

~~~
duxup
Totally anecdotal story / corner case:

I was a terrible reader growing up, I had ADD before the days when they
diagnosed that.

My son also has ADD and strangely, he is an avid reader. I've caught him
reading two books at once (both in his lap) and swapping between them and he
was comprehending them (I did some Q&A).

At least on the very surface to me that might mean that reading is not
necessarily antithetical to someone who is prone to distraction / lack of
focus .... or a distraction heavy world.

We've seen history full of predictions what the phone, or video games, or
computers would do to seemingly related technologies, and not been good at
predicting the result.

~~~
pault
This is called hyperfocusing (AKA the zone) and it's a typical characteristic
of people with ADD. I have it pretty bad and I almost flunked out of school
because I would spend all day reading enormous serial fantasy novels (wheel of
time FTW!).

~~~
cf498
OT, but is there by any chance a series similar to wheel of time, or that
captured you in a similar way, which you would recommend? Havent found
anything quite like it, but that might be because of nostalgia and my fond
memories of reading it as a teen.

~~~
ChanderG
If you are looking for sheer scale, can recommend Steven Erikson's Malazan
family (around 36 novels set in the same world; starting with the Malazan Book
of the Fallen) though the atmosphere is much bleaker.

Another recommendation would be Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere multi-series
(Mistborn, Stormlight Archive), currently in progress, closer to WoT
thematically.

------
andrelaszlo
This article resonates a lot with me. I have always found great pleasure in
reading but lately my computer and phone steals all attention and I genuinely
feel less smart because of it.

It's a big reason why we're launching
[https://mypapermag.com/](https://mypapermag.com/) It's an app (web only for
now: vue/django) where you select great long reads selected from our partners,
but the important thing is that you actually get them _in print_ in your
personalized magazine every n weeks. This way you get the distraction free
experience of a regular magazine, the freedom of choice of the web, the best
articles from our partners and the best tech for reading (paper) in one place.
It's what we're trying to achieve at least, still in private beta and only in
France for now but please let me know if you want to try it out or if you have
any feedback, andre@mypapermag.com </ShamelessSelfPromotion>

~~~
andrelaszlo
I forgot to add that if you're interested in how our reading is changing,
Maryanne Wolf's research is great. Her book 'Reader, Come Home: The Reading
Brain in a Digital World' gives a great overview of a diverse way of looking
at reading. (I haven't read 'Proust and the Squid' yet, by the same author,
but I think it touches on similar topics)

According to Wolf, our "reading circuits" are changing on a neurological
level, affecting reasoning, critical thinking and even empathy.

On the other hand were getting better at skim reading, quickly sorting through
mountains of lower value information.

This article in the Guardian gives a great summary:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-r...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-
reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf)

Another good article on the topic, if you happen to prefer French, from Usbec
& Rica: [https://m.usbeketrica.com/article/a-plus-vous-lisez-en-
diago...](https://m.usbeketrica.com/article/a-plus-vous-lisez-en-diagonale-
plus-votre-cerveau-reclame-de-la-rapidite)

(Disclaimer: Both The Guardian and Usbek & Rica are supplying articles for our
platform)

------
int_19h
For me, eInk readers, and especially smartphones, boosted the amounts I've
read (which were substantial to begin with).

For eInk, it was mostly because I could take it to more places, stuffed with
many books. When you can get through a book in 2-3 days, a 2-week vacation
needs quite a few!

But smartphones were the real gift. Now I have _all_ my books right there in
my pocket whenever I go, so in any situation where I have to wait (lines etc),
I can just whip it up and continue reading. Even if it's 10-15 minutes at a
time, it all adds up. This doesn't work well for technical books because of
interruptions, but it's perfect for fiction.

Another nice things about phones for reading is OLED screens. Because they're
"perfectly black", I find it to be the best low-light reader for night reading
in the dark, before sleep.

~~~
m463
Being able to change the font size, the screen brightness and to a lesser
extent hue (bluish <-> amber) has led to the death of physical books for me.
That and a kickstand phone case.

~~~
int_19h
Oh yes, I totally forgot about that part for low-light reading. Blue light
filters are awesome when properly done.

------
radicalbyte
I've largely stopped reading fiction books for the opposite reason. I can't
put them down until they're finished or I fall asleep at 4am with book in hand
(and alarm set to 6am for work).

Long form news articles and technical books consumed in pomodoro-sided is what
I have to get by on.

------
axiom92
I would finish reading this article, but first let me scroll the Reddit front
page once more.

~~~
insickness
Looks like an interesting article. Lemme check out the comments first.

------
kccqzy
Last year I cancelled my Audible subscription for much of the same reason:
when listening to an audiobook it is too easy to get distracted, but reading a
book is different. With an audiobook you feel like since your hands are free,
you can go do something else like gym or household chores, and finding
yourself no longer catching up with the audiobook. And that's not to mention
you don't feel like you are in control: the narrator decides the pace, not
you. But with a book, it's much harder to get distracted and thus easier to
get into "the realm of duration."

Since cancelling Audible, I started buying paper books on Amazon and I have
experienced much better focus, and much greater enjoyment from the books I've
read.

~~~
the_af
I never understood audiobooks to begin with. To me, reading is an intimate,
personal thing. Listening to some narrator is more like being the spectator in
some piece of performance art. When I read, I want to be left alone with my
thoughts. I don't hear a voice when reading (like some people do, apparently)
and I definitely don't want to hear some guy or gal actually speaking the
words!

More importantly, I want to read at my own pace, not someone else's. I often
go back and re-read recent paragraphs, for example.

~~~
procinct
It’s very interesting to me that you read without hearing a voice in your head
reading each word. I tried to read your comment without requiring the voice in
my head but I wasn’t able to do so. Can you elaborate a little more on what
reading is like for you with no voice in your head?

~~~
the_af
I do not speed read, unlike what the other comment mentions. Your assumption
is correct: this is my standard mode of reading. I'm actually not a very fast
reader (though I used to be when I was a teenager!), and I like to re-read
paragraphs and sometimes even go back a few pages and re-read something I
liked. This is also why e-readers, as convenient as they otherwise are, are
not my preferred medium when reading novels: they make it uncomfortable to go
back and forth. A printed book actually has the best UI for me :)

I can't explain what it feels like to read like this. I don't hear a voice
_except_ when my attention is drawn to this, like right now: I'm definitely
hearing my voice when I type this, but that's because I'm thinking about it.
As soon as I forget this discussion, I'll go back to silent reading mode.

Also keep in mind that right now I'm hearing my own voice, not some
narrator's. I'd find it extremely distracting if it was someone else's voice,
e.g. if it was a woman's voice if the writer was a woman.

~~~
procinct
Ah I see! I also only hear my own voice when reading (I think this is the
norm). When I'm really absorbed in the book I forget that I'm "hearing" it but
I no doubt am actually hearing it so it's interesting to see that isn't the
case for everyone :)

------
LandR
The thing I find is hardest about sitting and reading a book is the quietness
and being essentially alone with my own thoughts.

If I'm sitting watch a film / netflix etc, there is noise and that seems to
distract my brain from going to dark places.

It's like I'll be reading a page and then by the end of the page I've taken
nothing in and my brain is forcing me to think about stuff I don't want to
think about. Intrusive thoughts like you suck as a person,you're fat, you're
ugly, why do your friends like you? You suck at your job etc.

I think this is the same reason why I struggle to sleep, just being alone with
my thoughts trying to sleep ends up putting me in a bad place.

It sucks because I used to love reading.

~~~
dan00
Yes, this sucks. It can be quite hard to see and understand, that these
thoughts are your own activity, you are enabling these thoughts.

You can't control if thoughts pop up, but you have control if you are
following these thoughts, if you continue them.

It might be very difficult to see the difference between the pop up of a
thought and its following, because if you always follow a thought you get used
to it, it just automatically happens.

It can be quite hard to get rid of this habit, it takes time and energy, but
the more you try to not automatically follow thoughts - but only if you really
want to - the less thoughts will randomly pop up.

------
matt_j
I read on the train when I commute to and from work. The train is frightfully
busy, rammed full, noisy, uncomfortable, but as soon as I open my book it's
just me and the page. It's my favourite part of the day, my own little world.
The only problem is the trip seems too short, I lift my head after what seems
like a few minutes and I'm already pulling into my station.

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entropy_
I definitely agree with most of the points in the article. I've always been an
avid reader and I find that this has enriched my life and my ability to think
and reason about the world around me.

However, I find that the dig at amazon and e-books is definitely
unwarranted(Or at least overblown). As a denizen of the third world, Amazon
and the Kindle have been a lifeline to me. It's pretty much impossible to find
anything that isn't bestseller trash in bookstores where I live. The selection
is limited only to what might sell to the largest possible audience/lowest
common denominator. Being able to get books on demand, electronically and
cheap has been the only way I've been able to keep up my reading habit in the
face of tightening time and budget constraints(2 kids, a job, etc...)

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gravity_123
My approach to this is to make peace with the fact that I don't need to nor
can read every interesting thing out there. So I choose 2-3 articles which
seem promising (mostly based on a hunch and how people here react to them),
send them to kindle using this website[1] during work and then reading on my
way home. Personally, I have noticed, reading a few articles around topics are
also better for retention compared to reading just the discussion around the
same topics and 10 more. Still haven't figured out how/when to read books, but
we'll get there some day :)

[1]:[https://fivefilters.org/kindle-it/](https://fivefilters.org/kindle-it/)

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josteink
Medium matters. For in-depth, “digital” reading the only thing I have which
works for me is my Kindle.

It’s distractionfree by design, and that’s why I love it. It’s definitely not
just another redundant screen.

~~~
marvindanig
Yeah but Kindle != web. And that is huge bummer for me! I generally prefer
reading everything online, or not read at all.

~~~
retsibsi
I don't know if this addresses your issue (whether it's about the content, or
about e.g. being able to use hyperlinks), but Kobo ereaders come with a
version of Pocket preinstalled, so when you see an interesting web page on
your computer, you can send it to your ereader with the press of a button.
Apparently there's something similar for Kindle:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/)

~~~
jmcphers
Instapaper integrates with the Send to Kindle feature and will mail you a
"newspaper" with all of the articles you've saved to Instapaper in the last
week. It's fantastic.

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sidkhanooja
I've been an avid reader since I was seven years old - I stopped in college
(almost completely), but it was during my internship and job that I started
reading vociferously again.

Nowadays after I finish the book, I try to review the books I've read on
Instagram in the form of a post or a story - some people go to the extent of
unfollowing me (seeing it as a stupid use case for the service), but some
people I know IRL have also started reading the same books I finish.

Not every distraction is a force for evil.

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djohnston
i think you can find "deep time" on the internet. the internet is just a
medium, and its speed is only one of many factors that make using it
distracting. i've read things blogs or wikis that have taken hours of intense
focus to grok. my point is that the dichotomy of books and the internet
doesn't seem particularly valuable, while "deep time" vs "shallow time" is.

~~~
wilsonnb3
I would argue that while you can find deep works on the internet, it’s still a
medium that encourages shallower works than the printing press did.

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logifail
Isn't it ironic that an article with this theme should be published on a site
that - if you allow scripts - has not one but two horrible animated pop-ups
(slide in from right - trying to get you to sign up for their newsletter - and
centred overlay trying to sell you their t-shirts).

The author certainly appears to have chosen their title well. <sigh>

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Isamu
I read more books on paper now than I ever did pre-internet. Because of the
far greater ease of requesting a library book now.

Now anytime I hear of a good book, I look it up on the online catalog and,
because all the libraries in the county are linked, the choice is bigger than
ever. I just request a few books and have them delivered to my local library.

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miki123211
I have different experiences with reading than most. When I'm reading and
notifications come in, I ignore them as distractions, much like one would
shake off and ignore an annoying fly. I don't know whether the fact that I'm
usually listening rather than reading (I use a screenreader) makes any
difference.

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bmj
If this interests you, there is a book-length treatment of the same subject:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9859899-the-pleasures-
of...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9859899-the-pleasures-of-reading-
in-an-age-of-distraction)

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mapcars
Constant distraction happens only if you chose it. Chose it to not happen.

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Bland_Tongue
Lately, I have been finding the physicality of reading a book especially
pleasing when so much of my daily work, communication, and distraction are
spent in front of a screen.

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agumonkey
Literally have a book in one hand and my phone to type this.

~~~
gerdesj
Literally? (left eyebrow raises slightly/right eye twitches slightly, almost
imperceptibly)

I presume you mean that you have a book written (a tattoo perhaps) on the palm
of your hand. It is either a very short book or you have one of those new
fangled micro-fiche-tats.

8)

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hughes
In this case, social media directly makes reading difficult due to the share
icons obscuring the left side of the text.

Seems a window resize event fixes their positioning.

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jdlyga
I love audiobooks. I can do other things while I hear words. No worrying about
being distracted, because being distracted is part of it.

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gasgiant
I stopped reading the essay at paragraph four when the boilerplate Marxist
horse-hockey kicked in. Does that count as being distracted?

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good-idea
Does anyone have a TL;DR?

~~~
gerdesj
Reading books is good for you (obvs.) The author is easily distracted.
Distraction causes less reading of books ... internets ... Facebook ...
_handwringing_.

OK, I am being a bit unfair but I've just seen the word: "surficiality" and
actually want it to not be a speling mistak. It looks like a word that really
should exist on its own merit without "pe".

If you can't be arsed with the whole piece, the final para is worth reading
and actually does a pretty good job as a precis of the thesis. Give it a
couple of goes and roll it around on your mental tongue. A sentence like this
is either bollocks or insightful: "We hold in our hands a way to cut against
the momentum of the times,"

Anyway the entire article is not too long and worth a few minutes, in my
opinion. The penultimate para is stuffed full of sentences designed to get you
thinking. The author likes to play with words and sounds (Mairead Small Staid
is a poet, critic, and essayist living in Minnesota.)

Read it backwards, para by para. It still works.

~~~
secondtom
I think they were going for irony.

