Reading books on your phone
Being on vacation always reignites my motivation to read books. I mostly read on my Kindle, but during this vacation I read an entire book on my phone. Because the ebook library service we have only exists as an app. While I do like physical books, I am not overly attached to the medium of literature or text in general. Still, it is difficult to completely ignore the sort of stigma associated with reading (staring at) on your phone. Staring at your phone is, with at least some valid understandable reasons, becoming less than desirable. Many people say they want to decrease their screen time, we setup various blocking mechanisms (with varying results) and we are in general more critical of heavy smartphone usage. While it is easy to take a photo in the subway of everyone looking at their screens, and then get it viral on social media with a self-righteous post about how everyone are zombies - or the counter flashmob with a group of people coordinate to silently read physical books in public transport (both get plenty of engagement on social media), we don’t actually know what people are looking at. Yes, many are most likely scrolling through reels, but some may be reading a book, reading the newspaper, catching up on messages from their kid’s school or whatever. I heard a podcast where someone said she has started buying very small pocket books, so she can read those instead of reading on her phone in public due to this. Of course we shouldn’t really bother ourselves with other people think, and that is true to an extent, but I can’t completely ignore what kind of signals I am sending to my kids. Whether we like it or not, it does send different signals to your surroundings if you are sitting on the couch looking at your phone with high focus for half an hour or doing the same with a paper book.