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Comment by sibeliuss | Hacker News Reader

For me its easy: Sitting on the computer reading makes me feel depressed. Reading books makes me feel happy. And so I've gradually reduced my footprint on the internet to basically zero -- no social media, only a few sites (mostly HN) bookmarked -- in an effort to make the internet less of a thing. It's working.

Sometimes I'm staring at my screen and I have no clue what to even do or where to go, and I close it and then pick up a book and instantly feel better.

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Same experience for me. Viewing screens, with their unnatural light and uncanny hyperrealism, rattle my nervous system, and I can feel a subtle internal fight in my brain about what I’m doing. Somehow it’s also easy to get trapped, like you get magnetized. I see this in everyone. It can sometimes cause arguments trying to get someone to break the spell and have them reengage with the world. It’s not just the normal aggravation of context switching, our nervous systems get slightly hijacked.

Starting to read a physical book sometimes is very difficult after spending time on screens, but if I can break thru the first 15 minutes where I can’t get my eyes to track the page effectively and let myself slow down enough to fully pay attention to the words in front of me, with no possibility to click anything, then I find that my mood changes and I feel happy, calm, creative, inspired. After an hour I only reluctantly give up reading the book.

Rinse and repeat everyday. Some days I wish all computers would stop working.

Agree with your second paragraph, but for some books, I've gotten too used to being able to look up words/topics directly from the ebook. I find myself annoyed I can't long press a word with a physical book.

I then end up grabbing my phone and looking up the word/topic, and then it's back to the electronic device that I was trying to get away from with the paper book.

Something that's helped me with this is having my phone nearby so I can use voice commands to get word definitions. No need to touch the device and get sucked in but all the ease of an ebook. Of course this only works in more private locations I suppose.

Good idea, but I think it might work better if you had an Android device. Siri is not great at definitions and you often have to literally spell things out for her. (if she hears you at all and doesn't start randomly calling your aunt instead of providing a definition)

Read on a Kindle (/KOreader) and put your phone far enough so it becomes annoying to go grab it :-)

The solution with these addicting things is always to create some kind of barrier…

I've tried this, but I find the screen refresh of e-ink displays very distracting. I also prefer scrolling text when reading vs. flipping virtual pages - which limits me to non e-ink displays.

I just created a Reading Focus mode on my iPhone that automatically limits the number of apps available / notifications visible when I'm reading. We'll see how this works.

I've been "magnetized" by paper books many times as a kid. I also don't observe any difference between the degree of engagement between paper and ebooks.

I do, however, read mostly from devices that I very specifically configure to be optimized for reading - and that includes blocking all notifications.

Could not agree more. I also find that I don't retain information that I read on a screen but I retain information from print media quite well. I've started to wonder if memory relies heavily on additional senses, like touch, and sensory experiences that are almost entirely visual don't stick with us the same way. I can remember specific passages from books I read 15 years ago and I can even picture where they are on the page and how far they are into the book, whereas I can barely remember which articles I read on HN during work on Friday, let alone the content.

I become more convinced each day that online life is a shallow substitute for a human existence in so many small ways that will only become clear to us in retrospect.

I think you're totally right that the tactile nature of holding books and flipping through pages reenforces things. I can't prove it, but I can second the observation!

They say that smell is deeply linked to memory and books often have a particular smell too, whether it's from the paper or the ink or whatever. I wonder if that plays into it as well? I was going to say someone should study this but it appears many people already have: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X1...

I find a similar effect from taking notes by hand - it reinforces the information much more strongly than typing. In college this was my major "hack" to get as much as possible out of my classes.

+1 for getting away from the screen. I've stopped buying eBooks for exactly this reason. A glass of wine or bourbon and a book with a soft lamp is a much better way to power down at the end of the day then doom scrolling or vegetating to Netflix.

It is a lonely thing though, so YMMV when considering your spouse or roommates.

Something I like about ebooks though is the ability to change font size and other things. My eye sight is not that great even with glasses so I've found the ability to change font size to my liking and comfort indispensable.

When I read an ebook, I still feel a marked difference (overall much more relaxing and better) than reading a web page.

I've found that Kindle gives me the same effect as physical books. For narrative-driven fiction specifically & light non-fiction. Physical still wins out for reference material and things I need to flip around.

It keeps me away from "screens". My page count skyrocketed this past year when I started checking out ebooks from the library and reading before bed. Works even better with a partner who can go to sleep with lights off while I use the warm backlight.

Exactly what I've felt. I have started a new project for tennis, and that keeps me going. Reading a book about topics that I need for project, exploring different ideas, etc. What I found most interesting is that reading a book opens up a totally different world of thinking. More ideas, enrichment of creative thinking, clear thinking, focus... I was sitting in front of computer and try to think what to do next, while ending in endless worthless SM scrolling... I can feel you :)

This is why I love my iPad Mini so much. I use it to read articles I have saved in Pocket. It's otherwise disconnected from everything else and never recieves notifications.

I feel the same. I switched to reading articles on my Kindle and now I enjoy reading web content again.

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