Althouse: "One evening early this summer, I opened a book and found myself reading the same paragraph over and over, a half dozen times before concluding that it was hopeless to continue."

November 30, 2015

"One evening early this summer, I opened a book and found myself reading the same paragraph over and over, a half dozen times before concluding that it was hopeless to continue."

"I simply couldn’t marshal the necessary focus. I was horrified. All my life, reading books has been a deep and consistent source of pleasure, learning and solace. Now the books I regularly purchased were piling up ever higher on my bedside table, staring at me in silent rebuke. Instead of reading them, I was spending too many hours online...."

So begins "Addicted to Distraction."

What? Are we supposed to keep reading? Why? And more important, how?

22 comments:

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: tl;dr; 11/30/15, 8:43 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Char Char Binks said...
tl;dr

THAT is Funny.

I am Laslo.; 11/30/15, 8:57 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: He should commit himself to a life-long program of reading the classics.

The classics do not include Jonathan Franzen's 500-page novel Purity.; 11/30/15, 9:06 AM
cf said...: Excellent read this morning for my addicted Self, ironic/cool/telling that I came to it by pursuing the addiction itself. (Darn you, althouse, you are contributing to the addiction of a nation!); 11/30/15, 9:14 AM
mikee said...: One is not "supposed" to keep reading, one keeps reading despite the distractions of modern life. Or one doesn't. Life continues, either way, up to the moment of death.; 11/30/15, 9:19 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Which (kinda) asks the question: Is reading Althouse a distraction?

Or am I choosing to focus on pieces of writing -- smaller than a book -- that are worth thinking about?

A lot of times it is Russian Nesting Dolls: Althouse posts writing that may interest me into following a link to a larger piece.

That larger piece may be a book review that interests me in the book -- or tells me all I want to know about the book so that I can forgo reading it.

Or maybe it is a piece about the book's author, and -- while I have no interest in the book -- I am interested enough in reading about the author.

It is not the material that distracts; it is whether one is reading distractedly.

I am Laslo; 11/30/15, 9:24 AM
Paddy O said...: I simply couldn’t marshal the necessary focus. I was horrified. All my life, jogging has been a deep and consistent source of pleasure, learning and solace. Now the running shoes and exercise clothes I regularly purchased were piling up ever higher by my bedside, staring at me in silent rebuke. Instead of jogging, I was spending too many hours online....

Same thing, same response. Reading and writing is like running. You build up endurance as you keep at it.

I have the same issue with spending time online (here I am now!), and also have two young kids, and was teaching a full-time adjunct load (4-6 classes per term). My reading fell off almost completely. But, I had a book contract in hand and a lot of writing to do. So, I got disciplined to read and write again, starting off with shorter page amounts and less sustained time of reading, then building up to a better level.

Same with jogging. After running five miles a day, I fell off with jogging for far too long. Shorter distance and less sustained overall amount of time (mixing walking and running).

But it's a discipline. It's much easier to eat poorly, read frenetically, sit persistently.; 11/30/15, 9:27 AM
Jaq said...: Maybe if he could summarize his points in a gif....; 11/30/15, 9:35 AM
Jaq said...: Internet gives us more of what we like. What we like are moments. What we don't like is to work for them. Problem solved, the internet is us. It's like carping that the water doesn't taste as good as when you had to tote it back from the well in a wooden bucket and drink it from a metal ladle, all the while dodging amoebas.; 11/30/15, 9:39 AM
traditionalguy said...: Listening to Audible is the solution. And it is not so heavy to carry. And your pillow hides the light while earphones cancel the noise.; 11/30/15, 9:40 AM
robother said...: "Reading a book" seems more virtuous than "surfing the web." But without knowing the substance of the book or the website visited, such a judgement is questionable.

I suspect most of the books we see people reading, say, on transatlantic flights are no more ennobling than the inflight movies.

Reading is a mere distraction for many of us; replacing it with another less socially valued distraction (the internet) at least allows us to see the empty nature of the activity.; 11/30/15, 10:26 AM
Ann Althouse said...: To me, the problem with a book, now that I'm so adapted to the web, is that it wants to control me, to keep me in the grip of one author for a long time, to have that author's mind mind-snatch my mind, and I rebel. I'm the rebel, in love with freedom. I must throw off the oppression and go looking for other things to read and, most important, write.; 11/30/15, 10:35 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Yes, we must continue to read books. It requires more depth and focus. I don't read as many books as I used to, but I still do.

Here's a quick tip -- I love football, and watch plenty of it.

But, there's no need to focus on a football for 3 long hours. Read or work-out while the game is on. I find this to be an enjoyable use of leisure time.; 11/30/15, 10:36 AM
bwebster said...: I started out as a voracious reader as a child and have continued that through much of my life (I'm now 62), but I've noticed a drop-off in my reading in the past few years and, yes, it does in fact seemed to be tied more than anything to having my iPad and iPhone sitting on my nightstand -- with e-mail, web browser, and games instantly available -- even as a growing number of unread books pile up there (the drop off in reading doesn't seem to have had that big an impact in my purchase of books per se).

As a result, I have started a deliberate effort of taking the time to read more, particularly in the evening. But it does take actual discipline, whereas through most of my life the challenge I've faced has been putting the book down and getting other things done.; 11/30/15, 11:00 AM
wildswan said...: The only kind of reading I can do now is "internet oppositional attitude reading". No book or magazine will be more entertaining and informative than the web. But project reading works because it is "internet oppositional attitude reading". That means taking on some huge project, consciously irrelevant to it all, such as history of chemistry, or the cause of World War I and reading my way through based on some book supplemented by the internet or else some irrelevant culture area like all of Nero Wolfe or 40's mysteries. The internet can clarify the obscure and illustrate with video; and it can supply the whole of a genre on Kindle. And because I'm working on one subject an internal dialog develops so that I get as interested in how things are going in the Austro-Hungarian chancery as in Rubio's chances. I think the internet has disrupted a communal internal dialog aka culture - it's very interesting to see what people in the Forties thought was interesting in terms of tricky situations, what they really wanted to do, what they thought was showy, what was real, what was oppressive, what was boring, what was just wrong. And when I get tired after some months I just drop it - it's all so far out except eugenics that it never comes up on the internet though it lives there. And so I still read books.; 11/30/15, 11:10 AM
Stephen Taylor said...: "...But it does take actual discipline, whereas through most of my life the challenge I've faced has been putting the book down and getting other things done. .."

I completely concur. I've always read voraciously, but the Internet has proven to be a distraction. I have to make myself sit down and open a book, but when I do the old love for reading returns. It's the starting a book that has become difficult.

Read a good zombie novel over the weekend. "Monster Island" by David Wellington; it's the first of a trilogy. Zombies takes over New York City, as well as most of the rest of the world. Our hero needs to get into Manhattan and liberate some pharmaceuticals for a Somali warlord. Things go awry. The author thinks of some zombie-related issues that had never crossed my mind, like what happens to the animals? In this case they become zombies. The attack of the zombie pigeons was very well handled. Recommended if you enjoy horror, but not for the squeamish.

Next up: "A Slight Trick of the Mind" by Mitch Cullin. Sherlock Holmes is very old, and sliding into senility, but there's one last case to solve.; 11/30/15, 11:49 AM
Paddy O said...: "A Slight Trick of the Mind"

roadgeek, just this last week I watched Mr. Holmes, starting Ian McKellan and thought it great. That movie was based on this book. I didn't know that until now.; 11/30/15, 1:32 PM
Paddy O said...: I once asked a relatively successful, very active Christian blogger who happens to also be a well-regarded academic about the blogs he reads. He said he doesn't read blogs. That "a friend once told me one can either write blogs or read blogs, and I chose the former."

My own blog shows that I generally do the latter. Though, I add to this that I can either write blogs or write books/articles, and the latter is more lasting and lucrative (by helping me get and advance in jobs); 11/30/15, 1:36 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: I don't have trouble reading.

What I have trouble with is watching a movie on videotape.; 11/30/15, 2:06 PM
Steve said...: I recently tried to read Aeschylus' "The Oresteria" and it was beyond me. In my youth I was more than capable at reading at this level. I assumed it was age and head injuries. I wonder if my brain is still plastic enough to regain its former capabilities.; 11/30/15, 2:42 PM
Stephen Taylor said...: Paddy O, I also watched "Mr Holmes" this past week, which is what provoked me to order the book. The movie was outstanding, but the books usually have more detail, and sometimes an entirely different plot.

Also watched "Horror at 37,000 Feet" this weekend, starring William Shatner and his toupe; it also had Chuck Connors and Roy Thinnes and a plethora of other 1973 stars. It was a CBS movie of the week, and cheaply made, but fun anyhow.; 11/30/15, 3:31 PM
Marty said...: Jorge Luis Borges wrote book reviews of books that didn't exist. Reading his review was enough.; 11/30/15, 3:53 PM