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Wow, do I feel this pain. As both an author[1] and a book-lover, I've been on both sides of this divide. People just don't consume books the same way they used
by DanielBMarkham 8y ago
Wow, do I feel this pain. As both an author[1] and a book-lover, I've been on both sides of this divide. People just don't consume books the same way they used to.
As a reader, I find I have to slowly re-introduce deep reading -- even if I've just been away for a week or two. I usually do this by getting a physical book and a physical distraction device, usually my phone. I go to a place where there's nothing else in the room.
Then I read as much as I can until I feel "bothered" (beats me what the correct adjective is here. "Bored"?) At that point I pick up the distraction device and poke around: Twitter, Facebook, HN, and so on. I make an effort to put it down. Eventually I succeed, then back to reading.
Over a period of many cycles, my reading time gets up to close to an hour long. But it's a struggle.
I don't think I could do it with an e-book reader. In those things, they put the distraction stuff just a click away. Hell, they'll sell you more distraction stuff you can play the millisecond you get bored with the text.
What I'd like to know is whether I'm some weird outlier or whether many other readers are going through this same process.
As a book writer, I tried as hard as possible to plug into a feedback loop with my readers. I ran beta groups, I emailed extensively to find out what worked and what didn't. All of the communication, as far as I could tell, collapsed into some version of "Make it take five minutes so I can go consume more material" Hey, I'm with you, but some things can't be covered in five minutes. Some things require a narrative and background for you to make sense of it, dear reader. What to do then?
(Add: Had one beta reader assure me that he already understood all the stuff around the first third of the book and I was wasting his time. So I jumped him directly to the second third. He was completely lost. I thought about cross-indexing the book to show how each part was used later, but what the heck would that accomplish, aside from reassuring myself that the text was needed? It is a frustrating problem from both sides.)
1. Shameless book plug: https://leanpub.com/info-ops https://leanpub.com/info-ops
- beat 8y agoThe Kindle Paperwhite helps a great deal with the e-book reader problem, and having distractions just a click away. It's useless as anything but a book.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago> I don't think I could do it with an e-book reader. In those things, they put the distraction stuff just a click away. Hell, they'll sell you more distraction stuff you can play the millisecond you get bored with the text. I have owned some model of Kindle for six years now. For each device I have owned, I put it in airplane mode as soon as I took it out of the box and I kept it that way. (I generally download what I want to read from pirated ebook communities, so no need to deal with an online bookshop’s ecosystem.) It is not hard to avoid distractions of being sold more stuff.
- ramblerman 8y ago> Then I read as much as I can until I feel "bothered" (beats me what the correct adjective is here. "Bored"?) At that point I pick up the distraction device and poke around: Twitter, Facebook, HN, and so on. I make an effort to put it down. Eventually I succeed, then back to reading. This sounds reinforcing. I understand you have to fight through the boredom a bit, but not sure giving yourself a quick fiddle on your phone is optimal.
- amelius 8y ago> Then I read as much as I can until I feel "bothered" (beats me what the correct adjective is here. "Bored"?) At that point I pick up the distraction device and poke around: Twitter, Facebook, HN, and so on. I make an effort to put it down. Eventually I succeed, then back to reading. I noticed myself doing this while watching a movie. Even at suspenseful moments, I press "pause" and pick up my phone to browse around HN and Facebook. After a while I continue watching, but then five or ten minutes later I'm back on the phone.
- bitwize 8y agoVideo games do this for me. I don't know how kids these days spend hours playing Fortnite. A few rounds of that and I need a break.
- tralarpa 8y ago> What I'd like to know is whether I'm some weird outlier or whether many other readers are going through this same process. Been there, done that. I blame several things: (a) the Internet, of course. (b) I am much pickier about what I read. In the past I would have simply said "the language is poor, but the story is good" etc. Now, such things really bother me and I don't want to continue. (c) I somehow lost my ability to read without subvocalization (actually, I know why, but it's really hard to get it back). Extremely annoying!
- BeetleB 8y ago>I don't think I could do it with an e-book reader. In those things, they put the distraction stuff just a click away. Hell, they'll sell you more distraction stuff you can play the millisecond you get bored with the text. My first ereader did not have wifi. For me, the absence was a feature. Still, I now have a Kobo which has wifi, but I don't find it a distraction at all. Everything is pretty slow - if I wanted to browse the web, it's easier to put down the ereader and do it on my PC or phone. So for me, there isn't any distraction at all.
- ReverseCold 8y agoMabye you're just not reading things you find interesting? I personally find that I only get bored of reading if I'm reading something I've read already or if it's about a topic I don't feel like reading at the time.