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Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

theparisreview.org

161–170 of 175 posts

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#161
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.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#162
post #29
post #23

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 dow…

> 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…

One of my plans when I retire is to read a LOT of books. Yet one day I read a post by a HN contributor where he said, "But nothing's really stopping me from doing that NOW" and he then embarked on regularly walking to the park and reading. As a result I've been trying to do the same thing, because when you start computing numbers and realize you only enough time left in life to read a paltry number of books[1], you learn to prioritize really quickly.

[1] https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are missing the point of reading anything long form

I see what he's getting at. Last night I watched an episode of True Detectives. Tonight I'll look for a hockey game on TV. Tomorrow I might watch some Game of Thrones. I also have a couple episodes of Better Call Saul on my DVR. I watch (and read) the thing that appeals to me at the time I want it.

If that's how we're looking at it, wouldn't that be the same essential idea as leaving a bookmark and juggling a few books at once?

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#164

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…

I found this experience to be very true while reading Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People". It was easy to just look at the table of contents and immediately know all the steps - but only by reading the whole chapter could I actually internalize how to put each tenet into practice and what it looked like in reality.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#167
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 nov…

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 :)

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As someone who's always had limited visualization ability, I feel kind of offended that you're labeling this like a personal failing. I have to imagine someone with full-blown aphantasia would be even more upset.

Sorry you got that impression, I mean modern humans, not any particular group with a diagnosed condition.

Didn’t mean to single out people with aphasia or any other similar disorder at all.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#169
post #51

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…

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 op…

Most non-fiction books that I've started and quit reading before 25% was because they felt like the content that could fit in a blog post had been stretched to over 300 pages.

I've found that summaries can give you quite a good idea of what the book is about in most cases. I read the full book if the summary interests me.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are missing the point of reading anything long form

I see what he's getting at. Last night I watched an episode of True Detectives. Tonight I'll look for a hockey game on TV. Tomorrow I might watch some Game of Thrones. I also have a couple episodes of Better Call Saul on my DVR. I watch (and read) the thing that appeals to me at the time I want it.

Of course, but if you are lost in a good book, you don't notice when one chapter ends and another beings. You are lost for hours, and don't think about changing to some other article or paper.
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