I have been reading the book ‘A beautiful mind’ since a few weeks and I am still on the 78th page. This comes from the person who used to read Famous Five Big edition(3 books) in one night. I cannot read at a stretch like that now….with no distractions.
I open a book get in to the groove only to have my Whatsapp tone sound from the corner of the room. I check and reply to the message only to be tempted to take a quick peek onto my Instagram feed. Well, you know the drill. (I try to mute my phone and tab but I am often greeted by a feeling of anxiety – I might be missing out an important call or email. FOMO they call it right?) Notification tones have reduced my reading speed considerably. That’s when I feel like calling my smart phone, a necessary evil.
Being overloaded with information on a screen yet not being able to either read through the whole article or to completely immerse in a book is what this attention-span devouring gadgets have done to us. That brings me to a scary thought. How do children who are bought up with Iphones and Tablets all around them fare in this attention-span category?
..and somewhere I am glad, if not adulthood, at least I had a childhood free of such distractions, days where I could actually take my book out and read in the garden, feeling the evening breeze, lost in the character of the books.
140 character feeds have shortened my attention span. 1:1 ratio pictures have narrowed my vision.
Has your gadgets reduced your reading habits? How do you reduce distractions while reading?
(It is the 3rd Day of Write Tribe’s Festival of Words and the theme was Free Write)
i don’t read on my phone that much, i prefer a book, or second, a kindle. i only recently purchased a smart phone but now understand what you mean about those annoying notifications.
how do you like the book, A Beautiful Mind, btw? I loved the film and am curious how it compares.
I haven’t watched the movie. The book is intense and a moving story. Though I haven’t finished the book…..yet !
I have resisted getting a smart phone knowing that I would constantly be checking it, looking at Twitter etc. I am glad that I have resisted because I find my attention span isn’t great anyway and I have enough other distractions! Like you I find that I am unable to read for as long as I used to, except if I purposefully switch all phones and laptop off and put some time aside especially to read.
These gadgets define “necessary evil” totally.
Can’t explain how much of a pain it is. I can never concentrate until I take the battery out and hide the evil phone somewhere. This post was amazingly expressed. Kudos!
thank you very much, Aiza 🙂