What Phones are Doing to Reading
Here’s a New Yorker article that popped up in my inbox: “What Phones are Doing to Reading.” For much of the piece, writer Jay Caspian Kang reiterates what we already know. We are too used to scrolling and too used to seeking the “knowledge” of an algorithm, and in general, these qualities make us abandon books more readily if we’re not engaged straight away and they also cause us to want to skim and tap — “a quick calcification of muscle memory,” he writes.
It’s not at all a tirade against e-readers, it’s more a look at how hard it is to read books on devices that are more than that: “The e-reading apps have their merits. At times, they become respites from the other, more addictive apps on my phone. Switching to a book from, say, Twitter, is like the phone-scroller’s version of a nice hike—the senses reorient themselves, and you feel more alert and vigorous…”
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many people totally against e-readers. (Myself included even though I generally prefer a “real” book.)
The point of the piece is basically to talk about a new e-reader called the BOOX Palma that is meant to satiate our need for toggling…but in a good way. Do you do e-books *and* audiobooks? The Palma is for you. Want to jot some notes about the book in a Google Doc? Palma. (Palm Pilot flashbacks, anyone?) It only operates via Wifi and the interface is grayscale. It appears to be a good solution for those who read on devices that also house every other digital distraction but want a more “multimedia” experience to supplement what they’re reading. Like a souped-up Kindle Paperwhite.
However, I read a line in an essay by Ann Patchett yesterday about her first college Thanksgiving in a freezing dorm by herself: “In those happy dark ages before cell phones and the internet, such miscalculations were solved not by changing the situation but by changing yourself.” I adore this sentiment. And I think this device is maybe trying to get at that in a roundabout way?
That said, if we believe reading is so “life-changing,” is it really asking too much that we adapt to a book (digital or otherwise) instead of asking the book (in whatever form) to adapt to us? Something to ponder!
originally published on instagram