Reading the Internet

like, actually reading (not multi-tasking)

Deception Pass, Washington (photo by Carmella Guiol)

For Christmas this year, my husband gifted me a Kindle. I was confused, because I already have a Kindle. “This one is for reading the internet,” he said.

There’s a lot of good (and bad) writing on the internet, and I like to read as much of it (the good stuff) as I can. The problem is, I hate reading on my laptop. I get too distracted with the ten thousand other things that are happening and I can’t focus on what I’m reading. (You should see my browser, with a million open tabs of half-read articles that I have yet to finish reading.) So, all these interesting articles were mostly going unread as they languished in my over-extended, chaotic browser tab situation.

There are many tasks that we can do while multi-tasking.

Reading isn’t one of those tasks.

For a while, I found a solution: Instapaper. It’s an app that functions as your own personal newspaper reader. You send articles to the app and when you’re ready to read, they’re all there. This really worked for me because I could read the articles when I was actually in reading mode, not when I was in the middle of doing a million digital tasks on the internet. I could focus on what I was reading and give it my undivided attention. The other thing that I LOVED about this app is that it removes ALL ADS from the article that you’re reading. A wonderful improvement for your reading experience!

Now, that should have been the end to my “reading the internet” woes, right?

Wrong. The other tiny problem is that I hate reading on my phone. I try to do as little on my phone as possible, and I still end up with the dang thing attached to the palm of my hand for most of my waking hours. Plus, I do pretty much ALL of my reading in bed, and I never allow any smartphones into the threshold of my bedroom. (Rule # ONE of digital health – no phones in the bedroom. Come on. You know better than that!)

So basically, I had all these great articles cued up on Instapaper, but I never had the time to sit quietly and focus on reading them because that reading had to be done on my phone. And WHO can focus on ANYTHING when they have a phone in their hand?

If I had a tablet, perhaps that could have been a good solution. But I’m not trying to add any more dynamic screens to my life. So, alas, I continued to be unhappy about my internet reading situation.

Until Norbert’s Christmas gift! So, I wrote before that I already had a Kindle, and that is true. I use it exclusively for reading e-books that I borrow from the library. But here’s my dirty little secret. I have never connected that Kindle to the internet, and the reason I never connect it to the internet is so that I don’t have to return them after my allotted two weeks are up. (Whoever can finish a book in two weeks does not live with two toddlers.)

It’s shocking, I know. But the truth is, I’m not harming anyone with my little workaround. The e-books from the library are encrypted, which means that I can only download them onto my Kindle. I cannot go around sharing them with a million friends. And how do I get the e-books onto my Kindle in the first place, you might ask? A USB cable. A simple, low-tech solution. As soon as I have the e-book in my digital possession, I “return” the book to the library so that the next patron can have access to it.

Anyway, now that you know my dirty little secret, I can tell you why Norbert’s Christmas Kindle gift was brilliant and vastly improved my reading experience.

Now, whenever I come across an article I’d like to read on the internet, I send it to my new Kindle. Whether I come across something I want to read on my phone or on my laptop, I can easily forward the article to my new Kindle, which is connected to the internet. I’ve even started doing this with Substack newsletters or other long emails that I want to read later, when I have more focused attention. Then, when I crawl into bed at the end of the day and am ready for my nightly reading ritual, all the articles that I have flagged throughout the day are there.

Okay, I’ll be honest. I still don’t read ALL the articles that I want to read from the internet. There are many that never get opened, or that never get finished. But the difference lies in the quality of my reading experience. Instead of trying to read a thoughtfully articulated piece about racial reconciliation in America while also signing my kid up for swimming classes and also chatting on WhatsApp with my college friends and also texting Norbert about dinner and also making a grocery list (whew, but it’s true!), I can read that thoughtfully articulated piece about racial reconciliation while I’m lying in bed, doing nothing else but paying attention to the words on the page. It’s a much more pleasurable experience, I can assure you. AND, I am able to process what I’m reading in a much deeper way.

🧹Housekeeping

🌀In the pipeline: I apologize for my extended absence. I have been hard at work interviewing people for the upcoming podcast. If you or someone you know has interesting relationship with social media and/or smartphones, please get in touch!

✍️Represent! I am seeking representation for a nonfiction book based on this newsletter. If you or someone you know works in the publishing industry, please contact me.

🚀 Growing this newsletter! Please forward this newsletter to all of your friends! And don’t forget to post about it on social media (if you’re into that kind of thing — and if you are, add me on TikTok and Instagram).

🔥Something new: I added a paid subscription option. For now, the content will be the same for both paid and free subscriptions. I’m just giving readers the option of paying for my newsletter if they so desire!

🗞️In the news

🌸 It’s the first weekend of spring. It’s totally okay to unplug. by Tess Taylor

I am proud to say that I was quoted in this article about social media sabbaticals!

Anyone I talked to who used social media regularly with any degree of happiness had set strong boundaries. Guiol took a full year off, before returning, partly to share her work. Now she wears a watch (which means she doesn’t check her phone for the time), uses an alarm clock in the bedroom and doesn’t keep apps on her phone. She talked about going on platforms only with a distinct errand in mind — “join a new moms group” or “post an item for sale.”

She also talked about taking time offline to engage hard but necessary questions: What is a community? What art practices do you need to honor? What feeds your spirit?