De-Converging Technology - Reading
What is De-converging
For the full introduction, check out the previous post De-converging Technology - Introduction. This is part of an ongoing ramblings about my attempt to start deconverging my technology.
De-converging, or de-convergence, is the opposite of converging or convergence. It’s a made-up word. The gist, the feeling, is that it’s breaking apart these bits of technology that we’ve melded together for convenience. Western society, and much of the world from what I gather, is constantly aiming to make the technology we use more convenient and do more and more functions, i.e. the smart phone. There are many benefits to this convenience and convergence, but there are also many unforeseen consequences.
Originally I was going to talk about deconverging books from our smartphones, but in reality I think that far fewer people read books on their phone than we’d like to think do. I know that I always had aspirations to read more, and having the Kobo, Kindle, Google Play Books, etc. on my phone would allow me to read in those spare moments throughought the day, but that never actually materialized. Instead I would read social media posts from Reddit or the news from Google News. I’d watch TikTok or Instagram reels. I’d check email or chats. Books just never happened. So what I want to blab about is de-converging your reading form your smartphone.
Dedicated Devices
As mentioned previously, we have so many things vying for our attention on our smartphones. And ideally you’re starting to see the trend of Dedicated Devices for a lot of these functions. Use an iPod for music, use a regular watch for time keeping, and now we’ll cover reading devices. I’m sure you can find a million posts about why you should uninstall social media apps from your phone, but I’ll add one more quick blurb about it. Delete your social media apps at the very least from your phone, but I chose to delete social media altogether and keep in contact with the folks that I actually care about via text or chat. I cannot stress enough how life changing removing social media from your digital life can really be.
Okay, now that the obligatory “get rid of social media apps” portion is complete, I also recommend having separate devices for certain reading tasks. For example, if you have to keep social media, like I use Reddit pretty extensively still for work and tech-related things, then only access those on your computer. You must get the big screen out to doom scroll. And that little bit of intentionality can sometimes cause enough friction that you don’t mindlessly doom scroll. Sometimes you might. People are people. I also only check my email on the computer since that’s a big-screen task, not a small screen task. Uninstall the news apps from your phone. Check the news on the computer, or watch it on TV. But remove it entirely from your phone.
An Tablet is Not a Silver Bullet
For books, comics, etc., look into either a tablet or an eReader. The upside to a tablet is that you can add a bunch of different reading apps, and even the news. BUT, you have to be careful. You can quickly end up moving all your “bad” apps from your phone to the tablet, and then you just have a larger screen to do the same bad habits you were doing on your phone, it’s just not as convenient or always on you…hopefully. Years ago I had a Kobo and it was great, but the problem was I bought a ChromeOS tablet and didn’t want dual purpose devices. My wife and daugther also didn’t use their Kobos because they had tablets, and so we donated them all. Dumb decision for the above reasons. My son recently got a Kobo, though, because they are super easy to sideload books on and I can monitor what he’s reading more easily as a result, and load books we actually already own. Seeing how much joy he was getting out of his eReader I decided to try it again.
I picked up a refurbished Kobo Nia for under $80 USD from Kobo’s store and cracked it open to upgrade the microSD card to more storage. I have plenty of fast storage, and I love that if the microSD card ever wears out I can easily replace it. I would argue that an eReader is the best way to deconverge your reading from your smartphone and actually read books. I have read more ebooks in the last month than I did all of last year. I found an old fantasy series that a friend recommended that is stupendous. I have sideloaded some how-to program books and take notes on paper GASP. It can also sync with overdrive and your library card, and with Pocket if you use that to read things later. It does all of that with good battery life, light weight, and a small size, and e-Ink is so much easier on the eyes than a tablet screen. Most importantly, though, is it’s only going to do one thing. It only shows books.
Only being used for reading books avoids all the pitfalls mentioned earlier with phones and tablets. Kobo and Amazon also allow you to subscribe to their services to read thousands of books. It’s like if Spotify or Apple Music had a dedicated iPod to stream their music, and nothing else. It still suffers from many of the same issues of subscription services, i.e. you don’t actually own the items you loaded, but it is vastly better than doom scrolling on Facebook or X-Twitter. So much like the iPod, an eReader does only one thing, and one thing well. It’s also much closer to reading a regular paper book. It honestly reminds me of when I was a kid and would have a book on a coffee table or on my night stand and I’d just read for 15 or 30 minutes. There’s some weird intentionality tied to the act of reading now being on a special device.
I can already feel people reading this and yelling “JUST READ A BOOK!” I get that. Just picking up a paper book is a valid option, too. But to be quite frank, most of us who have these addictions with technology have them for a reason. You have to outsmart yourself to ween yourself off the addiction. I find that while I love paper books for their smell and feel and sound, they are heavier and more inconvenient to just chuck in a bag. It’s similar to saying “JUST LISTEN TO A CD” instead of using an iPod. The eReader allows me to carry a multitude of books when I’m away from home in a package that thinner and lighter than a mass market paperback. It also means that if I finish a book while waiting for an oil change I can easily switch to another book. Even at home, picking up the eReader is easier than picking up a Robert Jordan tome to read a few pages of.
Conclusion
So my advice for reading more and deconverging is:
- Get rid of social media apps from your phone
- Remove all news apps from your phone
- Check your social media and news on the computer
- Get a dedicated eReader for books
- (optional) Get rid of social media. You will be much happier once you have.
- ????
- Profit
Truly, though, get a dedicated eReader and carry it around with you when you leave the house. Carry it around with you at your home, too. Anytime you have the urge to doomscroll, or if you catch yourself idly looking at your phone out of habit, pick up your eReader and read a page or two of a book. I recommend first reading a book from when you were reading a lot. For me that’s old High Fantasy novels or Sci-Fi novels. There will be a bit of that Nostalgia-Factor that will bring more good feelings. Give it a shot, and good luck!