Stab a Book, the Book Won’t Die — by Craig Mod

though a body is still while reading, the mind is active, telepathy is happening, and a sense of self-betterment and hope pervades as we turn the final page.

Browsing Netflix is an endless sensation of falling forward into ever more content. Previews auto-play. As soon as one episode in a series ends, the next begins before credits finish rolling. If there’s no other episodes in the series, random trailers begin to play.

The very design of Netflix itself is constructed to reduce your ability to:

think about what you want to do, or
step away from the service
It’s designed to be a boundless slurry of content poured directly into your eyeballs. In a way, it’s training us to never step back or even consider, say, reading a book or going for a walk. The binge is dopaminergic to the max, satisfying the completionist instinct.

Habits and identities are intertwined. Increased self-awareness around media contracts makes it easier to convert the identitiesof wanna-be readers into full-fledged bag-o-books readers. Our goal is not to get someone to read a single book, but become a reader.

We’re amicable to calling ourselves readers for the same reason we want to identify as rock climbers or marathon runners or exceptional parents or selfless children or humanitarians or folks who’ve written thoughtful and considered books — because these activities carry with them an implicit sense of self-betterment, typified by being active (as opposed to passive).

We’re amicable to calling ourselves readers for the same reason we want to identify as rock climbers or marathon runners or exceptional parents or selfless children or humanitarians or folks who’ve written thoughtful and considered books — because these activities carry with them an implicit sense of self-betterment, typified by being active (as opposed to passive).

Choose active media, set yourself up to succeed by building systems to cultivate positive habits, but most importantly: Take a second to think about the contracts you’ve entered into as you go about your day. Are those contracts you’re happy with? Did you realize you had entered into them?

— Read on craigmod.com/essays/media_accounting/