On Electronic Books

 As you might recall, last month I acquired a library card from my local county library, something that I had not owned for some years.  And while I physically checked out a couple of books, the equally interesting benefit to me was the fact that I could get books electronically and read them on my phone.

The interface was surprisingly better than I had thought it would be on my phone: the book was readable and in some cases were far more readily accessible than waiting for the hard copy to arrive and at least in one case, was the only copy that existed.  And so I have experimented with reading books on my phone as an alternative form of reading.

That said, having completed what is the initial "trial run", it is not something I think I will do on a regular basis.

The problem is not really with the actual technology - it is easy enough to use and the book downloads on your phone quite readily and is thus available anywhere.  The real issue was pushed to my mind during a read of Cal Newport's book A World Without E-mail, a bit ironically about how e-mail has made us less communicative, not more.  What I realized, as I held my phone in my hand and read it, is that while I was reading, what I was really doing was training myself to spend more time on my phone.

If anything, I already spend too much time in front of screens. Between work, writing, and the inevitable "just checking" things on my phone, I could easily argue that half of my day is spent looking at a screen of some kind.  That strikes me as not being good for a lot of things:  my ability to concentrate, my vision, even my sleep patterns.

More importantly perhaps, it disrupts my ability to concentrate.

When reading a physical book one has to concentrate on the book - primarily of course because it is contained in one's hands. It is not easy to just "flick over" to e-mail or social media or a bank account; one has to put down the book and go to the next task.  This is true of any physical activity of course:  it is the thing that we are doing and cannot be easily turned away from without stopping the activity entirely.

Reading a book on my phone simply enforces my bad habits of multi-tasking, which themselves are exercises in failure.  It also reinforces the idea that I can split my attention between things and somehow maintain the same level of concentration.

I have three books currently to read and one in waiting.  After that, I believe I will be returning to the "old-fashioned" theory of the physical book on a more frequent basis.  It may not be as convenient, but convenience is not really a thing I need at the moment.  Focus, concentration, and engagement are.