Your Phone Is Actually a Great Reading Device.
I don’t like how scrolling makes me feel right now . Every headline, meme, and take I scroll through makes me feel worse about the world. It’s not entirely unjustified—there’s a lot of bad stuff going on—but marinating in the feeling doesn’t help.
Of course, scrolling isn’t always harmful. Firstly, it can be relaxing and keep you updated on what’s going on with your friends. But I think we all know that scrolling has diminishing returns: the longer you continue, the lower the overall quality. And that’s why reading is perhaps more important now than ever: it has no diminishing returns. Scrolling is a brief reflection on many things; reading is time to think about one thing.
That’s why I try to read more and scroll less. Watching hundreds of memes about the latest stupid thing some billionaire said doesn’t help me achieve any of my goals. It may be worth taking the time to gain context on the issues I care about and think deeply about them. So I’m taking active steps to push myself to scroll less and read more. I hope these tips help you achieve the same.
Hide (or delete) social networking apps
Are there social media icons on your phone’s home screen? The simplest thing you can do to reduce scrolling is to remove these icons. You can do this by removing icons from your home screen or uninstalling the app completely. Either way, the process is simple: tap and hold the icon. Both Android and iOS will give you the option to either remove the app from the home screen or uninstall it.
Personally, I prefer to simply remove apps from the home screen. This reduces the number of times I turn on my phone and reflexively open an app to scroll, but keeps apps available when I really need them.
Although this may not be enough for you. You may struggle to scroll, even if it means opening an app off the home screen or dragging when a notification appears. If this is you, I recommend simply uninstalling the app completely, at least temporarily while you try to get into the habit of scrolling less. This will completely eliminate the problem.
Put books on your phone
It’s easy to download books to your phone. There are great apps, including Kindle and Kobo , if you want to purchase current games. (Apple also has its own Books app.) You can access millions of publicly available books with a little searching. And there’s a good chance your local library offers free e-books: Libby is a common app for that.
Set up one or more of these apps and place them right on your phone’s home screen. Ideally, you’ll place the icon right where the social app you used to open permanently lives. The idea is to trick yourself into opening the books. It’s not magic: you have to force yourself to read. However, over time, a habit can begin to form.
Another thing to consider: audiobooks. Some people cannot learn to read, no matter how hard they try. Others can’t find the time. Either way, I think audiobooks can be a great alternative. Listening to a book while driving, cleaning the house, or just hanging out at home is a great way to immerse yourself in books and reflect on them. Some people get elitist about this – ignore them. Listening to books is great. Most local libraries offer audiobooks both on the Libby app and on physical CDs. Otherwise, there are services like Audible and evenSpotify that can help you get your audiobook fix.
Make reading articles easy for yourself
If you don’t want to read entire books on your phone (I personally don’t), you’ll probably find this an ideal device for reading articles, and there are plenty of ways to do it without having to scroll.
I love having Read Later apps on my phone’s home screen. They allow you to save articles found on the Internet for later reading. I usually cut out articles during the workday when I shouldn’t be reading, and come back to them in the evening. Personally, I use FlyLeaf , which is a great option for Apple users, but Instapaper is also a very good tool for the job.
But it’s also a good idea to have a few publications that you look at regularly. There are all kinds of ways to do this. The easiest one is to bookmark the home pages of a few of your favorite websites and blogs so that they appear every time you open your browser. A more technologically advanced solution is to find an RSS reader that will show you headlines from any number of websites. This way you can stay up to date with everything in one place.
Or you can explore apps that let you read entire printed publications. I recently discovered Press Reader , which offers full versions of magazines and newspapers. Some libraries offer it for free and allow you to read full printed versions of a wide variety of publications. Chances are your local library has something similar, or you could physically go there and read the magazine they have on their shelf. (I like to do this.)
Manage your notifications
Nothing gets in the way of reading faster than getting caught up in something else. If you’re really going to read, use your phone’s Do Not Disturb (DND) feature. We’ve talked a little about how to set up Android and iOS notifications, so check out those articles for more details. But the bottom line is that you don’t want notifications to appear while you’re trying to read. If you want, you can turn Do Not Disturb modes on and off manually, and you can also schedule them. For example, if you read before bed, you can set your phone to never ring during your normal nightly routine.
You can get fancy: Apple’s new devices could use artificial intelligence to filter all but the most important notifications . I tried out this feature and so far it’s a great way to disconnect without missing important things.
Swap your phone for something else.
I’ve talked a lot about phones in this article because that’s where most of the scrolling happens. However, if you really want to read more, it’s probably a good idea to do it on something other than your phone. E-ink devices work, but so do paper books and magazines. Scrolling through Reddit on a book is literally impossible.
However, depending on how your brain works, a new gadget could help. My colleague Joel Cunningham wrote about how Boox Portable helped him stop doomscrolling , and I can understand why. It’s essentially an e-ink Android device, roughly the size of a phone. If you want something more, you might want to look at an e-ink tablet . They are great for both reading and writing down ideas. Personally, I use Remarkable to read articles and research articles. It’s good to take a break from my colorful and animated computer devices for a while. There are all kinds of e-ink devices that can give you the best of paper and electronics. Take a look at them – they might be just what you need to trick your brain into reading more.