Distracted Reading

We have fewer and fewer devices doing more and more things these days.   In the past you may have carried a cell phone, a camera, a calculator, a calendar, a GameBoy, and even a book.   Now you can buy yourself a smart phone or tablet and keep all of those old devices and more in your hand.  This is great advancement in technology but sometimes we have to adjust to these new abilities.

Last year I did a great job of reading books.  I do not have a great history of reading books over the years and I wanted to do some catching up.  Unfortunately I have not done as well this year and need to start up again.  One of the problems that I have encountered this year is distracted reading.  I usually will read a book on my phone or on my tablet.   It's convenient because I always have my book with me but the problem is that the phone is also all of the other things I talked about a minute ago.  I'll be in the middle of reading and getting into a story when suddenly my phone chimes and I have a new Twitter message or an email.  As I try to ignore the notification and keep reading my curiosity gets to me until I exit out of the book app and check my messages.  Once I'm there I might as well check news headlines or Google+ updates.   The next thing you know my reading time is gone and I only read a page.

To avoid this problem I think I'm going to try turning off the notifications during my reading time.  Other than the distractions I actually like reading on the screen.  It's not uncomfortable to hold and the screens have progressed where it is easy on my eyes.

The second distraction that I have encountered while reading books is my brain.  Sometimes I wonder if we have trained ourselves into having shorter attention spans.  Twitter, short media sound bites, and short form stories is what I encounter throughout the day.  When I encounter a story or news article that is more than two pages long I save it for a later time while I keep reading the short form news.  It's probably time that we slow down and read the details to let a story develop.   You know, like a book.