How to read books without responding to the «call» of gadgets?

What makes us reach for the gadget while reading? First of all, it is worth understanding when exactly this happens. Hardly at the climax, when the hero makes a fateful decision. We think about the phone when the plot starts to get boring. For example, in the novel War and Peace, a long description of the battle begins — and the hand itself reaches out to open the social media tab and put another «like». We are bored — that’s the main explanation. By the way, the very word «boredom» in English came into use precisely thanks to literature: Charles Dickens and the heroine of the novel «Bleak House», «dying of boredom» in marriage.

Got bored? Wait to respond to the call of the gadget!

Can you imagine productive work without rest? Or an active journey — without the opportunity to exhale even for a couple of minutes? Or maybe you still think that a long happy family life is possible only at the peak of passions? Alas, we get used to almost everything: both incredible joy and shock do not last too long. Constantly living at the highest «boiling point» is impossible, and it is not necessary: ​​it promises nothing but exhaustion and dulling of the senses. If you eat the same favorite dish every day, you will get tired of it very soon.

It turns out that boredom while reading, as well as in life in general, is quite natural. Moreover, it is productive. The American poet Wystan Hugh Auden wrote: “In every great work there are passages that are boring in themselves, but cut them out, as they do in abridged editions, and the creation dies. Do not think that living art is always interesting and equally interesting. The same can be said about life itself.

This means that the ability to experience boring and routine moments in the book is not only a kind of meditation, a chance to slow down, which is often not enough in everyday life, but also an opportunity to look at the situation more broadly: can I take breaks? Can I accept life with its calm flow? Do I give myself time to rest and reflect? And if not, what am I running from? Or rather, where am I in such a desperate hurry?

It seems to be an addiction. Most of us

Almost everyone has accounts on social networks, but not everyone checks them every minute in anticipation of a “like”. Remember — perhaps in a new company you felt uncomfortable and hid in your phone. And if a book becomes boring, it doesn’t matter, social networks will give a dose of dopamine, a hormone that stimulates the pleasure center in the brain. A surge of dopamine and other goals no longer seem attractive, all our thoughts are just to update the mail or check the comments. Even if it seems that this is not the case at all, the hands themselves reach out to update the tape.

Why is this happening?

Any addiction (and we all “live” in gadgets, so we are to some extent dependent on them) weakens the functioning of cognitive control mechanisms. We are less and less in control of the process of interaction with a smartphone, we begin to act “on the machine”. The world turns into a tunnel where the only light source is the phone display.

Addiction is not only physiology. An important role is played by psychological factors — what need we realize through dependence on gadgets. This habit provides a secondary benefit, even if we don’t realize it. The brain is just trying to do us a favor — to memorize how to quickly get what we want.

Smoking, for example, makes it possible to relax, take an “official” break, chat with colleagues, and overcome hunger. And what gives you the opportunity to «be on the phone»? What is so stubbornly «muted» by a finger quickly flipping through the tape? Maybe it’s the fear of loneliness, inner emptiness, the fear of being alone with yourself and hearing the voice of reason?

The good news is that overcoming addiction is a great pleasure in itself. As he writes in the book “The Biology of Desire. Addiction is not a disease.» Cognitive neuroscientist and former addict Mark Lewis: «It’s effort, intense introspection, and most importantly, courage and the ability to rediscover life’s perspectives.»

Want to check likes? So the book worked!

If while reading we start to get bored, this does not mean that the book “did not go in”. Rather the opposite!

A book can evoke in us a variety of feelings — from hostility and anger to boredom. But it can be difficult to realize them because of the protective mechanisms of the psyche. And immersion in the phone can become one of the defenses, and therefore an obstacle to understanding the book and oneself.

We may consider a book to have failed if it evoked negative feelings in us. If we were too worried about the heroes, we experienced the same fear, horror, jealousy as they did. And then defense mechanisms come into play — for example, crowding out. “It seems like a good book, but I read and don’t remember anything.” And now and then I remember about the phone. Familiar?

The process of repression is the rejection, forgetting of unpleasant thoughts and experiences. This defense mechanism helps us survive unpleasant events and endure them, block them. Everything would be fine, but as soon as you press on the overgrown scar, the painful sensations return, and the consciousness tries to “turn off” again. As Carl Jung said: «Forgotten is doomed to repeat.» This means that we do not have the opportunity to deal with the situation: as soon as we come closer, consciousness, like a clever hypnotist, “turns off” us.

The book provides an opportunity to reach out to these our experiences, it in itself is a chance to talk to yourself about exciting problems at a safe distance. The experiences of the characters are both fiction and something that is remotely similar to what is happening to us.

Try to pay special attention to fragments of the book, while reading which the hand reaches for the gadget, and the brain is looking for excuses: I will only check my mail once. Especially in the event that the annotation of the book hooked something and you chose it yourself. Important are those fragments of history that for some reason cannot be remembered, from which one wants to be distracted. With their help, you will be able to capture something important and meaningful about yourself and your life.

Subtotals

1. The state of boredom is not only natural, but sometimes necessary. It provides an opportunity to take a break, take a break and even discover a new source of creative energy. Sometimes, to take a breath of fresh air, you need to push off from the bottom.
2. We cannot imagine our life without gadgets and experience acute discomfort when we forget our phone at home. This means we are addicted. How to deal with it? Understand what secondary benefits it brings and how it can be useful to us. And then — try to get this very benefit with the help of a more productive activity.
3. If, while reading, the desire to pick up a gadget begins to overcome, this does not mean that the book is boring and needs to be slammed shut in an instant. Maybe everything is quite the opposite — what is described in the book got on our spiritual wounds and we wanted to hide behind the phone display.

What to do?

Train yourself to analyze what you read. Is a book boring? Explain why. Or, on the contrary, complete delight? Again — why? What metaphors resonated in your soul, coincided with what is happening in life?

Try to understand how you feel. There can be a whole ball of them: anger (for example, that the hero behaves this way with his wife), shame (for the heroine that she allowed such behavior), fear (that this will happen in your life), guilt, and so on.

When we learn to relive the «boring» moments of the book and control the call of the dopamine gadget, we gain something more — the ability to accept the routine of life. A long swim in the ocean of life is possible not only when we row with might and main. Sometimes we all need a break, a chance to slow down and rest.