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@colinwalker Oh, I couldn't agree more. I had shared my thoughts on the original post by Michael Harris. We do need to read more, and better.

@colinwalker I definitely notice that issue with reading on my phone and computer. It’s one reason I love my Kindle. It reminds me of all the nice things of a book while the benefits of digital (highlighting, searching, storing as many books as you want)

@colinwalker very true. Though I am a reader through-and-through and love the long form. Twitter-style short fiction, and even flash fiction still doesn't appeal as much - even when done well. Funny though how Reader's Digests are still so culturally reviled...

@colinwalker completely agree, I noticed this with my own reading too. Although, I usually get books from library, I’ll often purchase digital versions of the ones I liked or enjoyed for notes, highlights, search, and easy reference.

@amit I hadn’t gotten to the original yet so will save that for my commute. I agree about the distractions which is why most of mine are off and my phone is always on silent - select ones go to the Watch but it’s easier to ignore there.

@oyam One complementing the other is the best way.

A few disparate comments:

"we read with an underlying agenda: can I write about this, what's the best quote, the pithy takeaway?" I wonder whether this is unique to bloggers, who are always looking for things to write about. I admit to having fallen into this trap. "It's wrong that we... share to social networks without even reading the piece based solely on the promise of what it contains." I love the comment in a friend of mine's Twitter bio: "If I Tweet it, I've read it." "Reading on paper or a screen need not be different". I still find the experience quite different. The Kindle's definitely better than other devices (it's not like staring into the Bat Signal, for one), but still not the same. And poetry's pretty bad on the Kindle too. It often messes up the line breaks. Agree thoroughly with your last paragraph, which is the guts of your message. :)

Sorry, I included some asterisks thinking they'd come out like bullets, but they've disappeared altogether. Hopefully you can make sense of what I've written.

@colinwalker Something I realized… I have stopped reading on the Internet too. I use a text to speech conversion add-on that reads the webpages for me, and I'm constantly on the lookout on how to send something to either Google Home or Alexa and have them read to me.

Sometimes you get the impression the world is trying to tell you something. Maybe it's serendipity or just a prevailing theme rippling through the web but a number of pieces within a short period all presented a similar theme: slowing down. Julian Summerhayes wrote about slowing down in life as you get older:

"Instead of resisting the inevitable loss of physical prowess and letting go of my maniacal fascination with work, perhaps I should see this ‘slowness’ as a way to more deeply connect with the present moment."

In response to the same thing as my post about reading on screens rather than paper, Amit Gawande advises us to read Patiently, slowly, uselessly. Good advice. Next, Vincenzo Di Nicola (professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal) writes a manifesto for slow thought over at Aeon. Slow thought is an escape from the demand for instant answers; he argues thought is never complete and should exist without speed or milestones, allowing us to live in an "atemporal present" without care for past or future. As an illustration he uses the idea of "Socratic walks" in which Socrates would walk the streets and squares of Athens speaking to different people in order to reanalyse an idea, slow the thought process and thus delay reaching a conclusion. Seth Godin preaches patience:

"Much of the work we do as creators, as leaders, as people seeking to make change--it needs to ferment, to create character and tension and impact. And if we rush it, we get nothing worth very much."

As I say, trying to tell me something. I've written about slowing down before after being inspired by Mike Caulfield but an attempt at the time to create an iterative, gradual process didn't bear fruit. Perhaps it was because I tried to achieve it within WordPress so the context was too similar to live posting and I couldn't mentally separate the two. In any event, now that I avoid interacting directly with WordPress whenever possible, any such solution is void. However, in conjunction with trying to read more deeply, I have taken to delaying any reaction I might write in response to certain things. I've had Safari tabs open on my phone for days, weeks, even as far back as December in one instance, because I want to fully process what they hold. Read, digest, revisit. I enthusiastically devised a partial outline and wrote several notes for my new project but have since set it aside for a while, allowing it to "settle" in my mind rather than rushing in headlong. A good tactic but one to be equally wary of. As Seth also warns, going slow can just be a way of avoiding what we should be doing:

"Sometimes, we mistakenly believe that we're building something that takes time, but what we're actually doing is hiding. We stall and digress and cause distractions, not because the work needs us to, but because we're afraid to ship."

Finding the balance is crucial to give myself the best chance of achieving what I’ve set out to do and avoid imposter syndrome. Still, I think what serendipity is trying to tell me is probably the right approach.

Thanksk for referencing my post, Colin! I think the fact that you posted this without reading the original post I referenced serves to reinforce the point ;)