Literally have a book in one hand and my phone to type this.
Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
41–50 of 175 posts
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#42I 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 dow…
I think that's great. That said, I've tried audio (books) and it's just not the same as reading (print). Reading, to me, seems to engage the mind in a deeper way. It is, nearly by its nature, more proactive and participatory. On the other hand, watching and listening is far more passive. You don't work to consume, you just wait for it to come to you. For example, when you read you can pause, re-read, etc. On the othe…
I completely get this.
Between family, my full time job, side projects.. I had no choice but to listen to some of these books as Audio books.. I ended up pretty much listening to 25+ audio books this year.. the only way to make the content stick is to:
1) take a ton of notes
2) do exactly as you say, rewind over and over until you can mark it down.
These are the next few features I want to add to this thing, taking notes and rewinding quickly and bookmarking snippets precisely because of your point that audio requires a little more work to retain. Still worth it though, I would have never been able to read that many books this year given how busy I am.
Ultimately I will concede that it will never beat reading, but when we have no time or are commuting? This, in my opinion, is the next best thing for busy people.
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#43I'm actually working on an app specifically to address this problem. 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 su…
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 a…
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.
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#44Literally have a book in one hand and my phone to type this.
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)
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#45My 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 :)
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#46Does anyone have a TL;DR?
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.
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#47I 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.
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#48I 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 Faceboo…
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 ...
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#49Does anyone have a TL;DR?
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 wo…
I think they were going for irony.
Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
#50I 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 dow…
I think most people do have time but its filled with other activities like checking social media and watching videos. To find time to read a book requires dropping something else.