Spending Time with the Material

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

thomasjb

63 points

7 comments

robinsloan.comOtherstory

calmpositive

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ReadingDigital MediaHuman-Computer Interaction

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Reading

Digital Media

Human-Computer Interaction

The article discusses the importance of taking time to engage with physical materials, such as books, and how digital media can lack the same level of connection; the discussion highlights the unique qualities of physical objects and the value of slowing down to appreciate them.

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01Story posted
Sep 26, 2025 at 11:43 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Sep 29, 2025 at 9:42 PM EDT
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Sep 30, 2025 at 7:21 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (7 comments)

Showing 7 comments

gyomu

3 months ago

1 reply

> It comes down to speed: show me the simulated, high-res book with pages I can handle and access exactly as fast as the real physical book in my real physical hands, and we can begin the conversation. The video game players will want to say “easy, no problem”, but a moment’s reflection — how do I hold a book in my hands? What do I do with it? What kind of physical feedback does that require? — reveals that it is, in fact, a huge problem.

That's a part of the equation for sure.

The other one that I keep coming back to is how the object captures your attention, and what it does/doesn't do to steer it, and what affordances it offers for it to flit to something else.

On a digital general purpose device, you are always one swipe, one notification banner away, from jumping into whatever other activity you want. Closing a book, putting it away, grabbing the TV remote, turning on the TV inherently has much more friction than swiping right on the home bar out of a reader app and straight into Tiktok.

This is why single purpose devices like eReaders are compelling - while they do not address this first half of the equation the author mentions, they do address the second half.

(but of course a beautiful object of a book will always command attention more effectively than the exact same book, but in PDF form on a tablet)

To try and and attempt an analogy, it's like trying to cook a healthy meal when you have a fridge only stocked with veggies/fish, vs one that maybe has some veggies at the back but also tons of snacks and instant food at the front.

We like to think we are masters of our attention and willpower, but as many already know it's really the environment does a large chunk of the deciding for us. If you want to make more intentional decisions, your first order of business should be to shape your environment (a hack monks have known for millenia).

MarkusQ

3 months ago

1 reply

Another aspect that often gets overlooked is the sense of place, letting the physical world remember relationships for you. Put your finger on an interesting passage, flip back to where you saw something related...about this many pages, left side, near the top,... there it is! Flip back and forth, comparing the two...ah, interesting, there's a shift of perspective.

You really can't do that with digital media, letting your proprioception carry its share of the load.

lo_zamoyski

3 months ago

1 reply

The same can be said of code. Editors fail to exploit the spatial reasoning and intuition we have. Imagine if source code were presented spatially.

The file paradigm w.r.t. source code could be included here as well, as the concept of file is incidental to the logical structure of programs. The logical structure could also be expressed spatially.

sfn42

3 months ago

The problem is how? The only way I could imagine would be with something like apple vision pro and being able to place windows all around you. Sounds to me like more of a gimmick than a real useful feature.

I think we'd need to come up with something better than that. There is graphical programming like scratch and unreal blueprints etc, maybe that has some potential for taking advantage of spatial reasoning, but I still don't really see it being particularly revolutionary.

don-code

3 months ago

There's a certain meaningfulness ascribed to deliberately taking time for something.

I actively listen to a vinyl record when I cue it up. I let the radio sputter in the background while I work.

I actively read a book when I have a night or weekend to myself. I let Hacker News articles tend to go in one ear and out the other, even if I tell myself I spent some time reading before bed.

I actively figure out what's going on in the world when "what's going on in the world" becomes too dire for me to ignore. I fall asleep to the 10:00 news.

It surprises me _not in the least_ that I'd spend time with something that I want to make time for, and not just something I've allowed to become part of my routine.

swydydct

3 months ago

I really like browsing the non-fiction stacks of libraries for books like this. There’s a lot good stuff though it depends on a library; you need one that’s willing to keep things on the shelf for a few decades to get a really interesting selection.

patternMachine

3 months ago

Physical objects get added to our body schema in a way that digital documents do not. When we hold a book in our hands, our brains incorporate it into the subconscious of our bodies[0]. Digital artifacts can never hope for this level of connection, so it takes much more conscious effort to engage on the same level.

0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...

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