A New Year: Look Down at a Book, not Your Phone

I, like many others I assume, are pondering what new goal they will deem to be their 2016 New Year’s Resolution. I’ve shuffled between a few ideas such as the typical, ‘exercise more’ or ‘study more than 2 days before the test’. However, these ideas have passed since I would label these more of “life lessons”, rather than a resolution. A resolution should be something specific, something where you can actually hold yourself accountable. With the rise of smartphones everywhere, whenever you look up, everyone else is looking down. Looking down at their phones that is. I’m guilty of it too; why risk a conversation with a stranger when I can safely converse with my device that holds the photos and conversations of my friends that I already know and love? So here’s my resolution:

Every time you are waiting in line, going up in an awkward elevator ride, waiting for the bus, or basically anytime you would usually whip out your shiny new iPhone, instead, pull out a book.

I don’t know if I am brave enough to spark a random conversation with the gentlemen in front of me in line, but instead, I can look down into my book and get to know the characters and places I’ve never known. I think it sounds pretty simple, but for such a simple action, the outcome could be greater than you would even imagine.

According to an article from Daily Mail, researchers conducted a study that found that the average user picks up their phone more than 1,500 times a week and uses it for about 3 hours and 16 minutes a day. Additionally, in an article, Forbes said that the average college student reads approximately 450 wpm. Given that you devote the 196 minutes to reading a day in lieu of your phone, and that a novel, such as Brave New World is 64,531 words, you could hypothetically finish this novel in about a day. However, given that you do not read as quickly when picking up and setting down a book and there might be occasions where you do need to check and reply to those important emails, it’ll probably take you longer to complete the book. Nonetheless, think of all of the books you can read and the knowledge you can absorb in just one year. Compare this to the daily thumb exercises that don’t give you much other than possibly a hit to self-esteem after seeing friends posting cool photos of Europe (more on this here if it interests you).

Mark Zuckerberg did something similar but different. Last year, he vowed to do A Year of Books, where he set out (and accomplished) to read a book every other week for a grand total of 23 books. Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, a philanthropist, and a new father. He carves time out of his busy day to pick up a book, and I think I can too.

I’m looking forward to a new year, for many reasons, but I think this will be a great addition. So far my book queue or for my fellow computer science enthusiasts, queue<book> Resolution_2016, has Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and An Abundance of Katherines, but I’m always looking for more! Additionally, just for irony purposes, these new smartphones are so thin that they make for great bookmarks.