Comment by Brajeshwar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brajeshwar | Hacker News Reader

I used to buy and read a lot of physical books. Around 2013-204, I started moving to eBooks, and Amazon Kindle played a significant role in my journey. But a couple of years later, I had an epiphany while discussing books with my daughter, “I never see you read books. You are just reading on your computer (kindle) or the phone and are not reading.”

Since then, I have returned to reading physical books with an approximate ratio of 1:5 against digital ones. I have kinda rule/understanding with my daughters -- you have unlimited access to books that you can read, and you also get extra pocket money for reading them. Of course, it is OK not to finish a book, but in that case, a few cool-down days before buying another one.

Yes, buy and read physical books. I believe, the return is a magnitude higher for everyone than the loss it does to anything. If you have kids, read more physical books in front of them. Encourage them to read physical books. They are less distracting and help the kids focus.

Five years ago, I wrote a story about it. https://story.oinam.com/2018/why-physical-books-matter/

> If you have kids, read more physical books in front of them.

I think this part is so important. I want to show my kids that reading is fun, but instead what they see is me looking at my phone all the time. There’s nothing differentiating reading on my phone from watching youtube videos from their perspective. Ereaders help to some extend, but only a bit.

> They are less distracting and help the kids focus.

That’s such an incredibly personal preference though. It’s far easier for me to read with an ereader when I don’t have to have 2 hands holding a heavier hunk of paper wants to close itself if I let go for a moment. I have a huge book collection but I’ve switched almost entirely to ebooks because I find the ergonomics so much better. Physically fighting with dead tree media is more distracting than my ereader.

It happened to me multiple times that I bought a real paper book, but the ergonomics was so bad, I've pirated the book and read it on my kindle instead (since I bought it I feel entitled to get the e-variant). Especially paperbacks are bad - tiny letters, yellow low-contrast paper, difficult to hold open.

Reading good night stories to children is even more challenging, since it's usually dark. Bringing some extra light is annoying and distracting for the child.

i grew up with books around me, both my dad and my granddad were collecting books, and our walls were lined with bookshelves and i loved it. though most of the books i read myself came from the library.

but as a digital nomad myself, physical books were just not practical anymore. i remember a friend of mine when he moved from europe to asia, he shipped several containers full of books. that's a move you only do once in your life (and only if your employer covers the cost). so all my books stayed in my parents home.

then i also didn't have time to read anymore until i discovered audiobooks and audio drama. i am now listening to about 3 books worth of audio per month (including audio drama and short stories) but my kids would not know.

and there is no way to fix that. the books that i would want to buy are not available locally and would need expensive international shipping, and every time we move i'd have to discard my collection because books are just to heavy to be carried in a suitcase.

i'd love to show my kids how much i enjoy reading, but i just see no way to do it. it's a conundrum that i don't know how to solve.

i used to read a lot but buying paper books was a real pain for me, i read hundreds of books on the kindle but figured out i could just slap a video on my phone and actually sleep.

since then i've read maybe 15 books in the last couple years and my kids never see me reading, however we've read to them and had them read to us for their whole life and they now both read independently for fun. i don't think leading by example is anywhere near as important as reading with your kids

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