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Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

theparisreview.org

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Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#61

Post by lbacaj »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #53
lbacaj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Could you...hit button, have it rewind some fixed amount of time (10 secs a tap?) and then email / store a text transcript of that segment? __That__ might be something I'd like to try.

For sure planning the rewinds by second but even more I’m planning sentence rewinds so one could rewind sentence by sentence and even saving snippets of one or more sentences..

I hadn’t thought about emailing that though, it’s a solid idea thank you.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#62

Post by yebyen »

Kluny wrote: post #33
yebyen wrote: post #32

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 se…

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!

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!

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#63

Post by 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.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#65

Post by chiefalchemist »

lbacaj wrote: post #61
chiefalchemist wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you...hit button, have it rewind some fixed amount of time (10 secs a tap?) and then email / store a text transcript of that segment? __That__ might be something I'd like to try.

For sure planning the rewinds by second but even more I’m planning sentence rewinds so one could rewind sentence by sentence and even saving snippets of one or more sentences.. I hadn’t thought about emailing that though, it’s a solid idea thank you.

I still buy paper books, mainly because the library frowns on highlighting and notes in the margins :)

Fwiw, I've been wanting to do a website where I - and others? - could share the highlighted bits (in an easy on the eye pull quote-y sorta way). More or less my personal notes in public. Kinda like Cliff Notes meets meme-y inspiration type quotes. But also as a sample of the book for those curious about reading it. That's why I'd want a transcript. For my records, so to speak.

I should ask mention, 95% of what I read is non-fiction.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#66

Post by max76 »

mathieuh wrote: post #19
nothrows wrote: post #16

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 d…

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?

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.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#67

Post by 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/ 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

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#68

Post by the_af »

kccqzy wrote: post #63

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:…

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.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#69

Post by jm__87 »

Swizec wrote: post #59
jm__87 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction

#70

Post by m463 »

int_19h wrote: post #38

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 h…

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.
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