Dear Readers, I came across an interesting article by author Naomi Alderman last week, and it made me think about the difference that mobile phones in particular, and the internet generally, have made to our ability to concentrate. I know lots of people who don’t use their phones a lot (well done those folk) but for many of us, myself included, it’s become a kind of default activity – on the train, when I’m having a break, it’s so easy to just look at the phone. And there’s always something new and bright and shiny to attract my attention, be it the news, or social media, or yet another round of Mahjong. So I was interested by Alderman’s concept of doing a ‘couch to 5k’, not for exercising the body, but for exercising the mind, and I was also intrigued by the way the whole concept of getting back into reading has taken off. So many people feel that their lives have become much more distracted and fragmented, and that they have lost their ability to focus. I remember several articles about how the author can no longer just sink into a nice fat Victorian novel, or a complex piece of non-fiction, because their phone seems to call to them.

Alderman’s approach is interesting – she outlines three ‘tracks’, one for people who just generally want  to get back into sitting down with a book for half an hour at a time, one for people who are generally time-poor and want to use their limited spare time to read rather than doom scroll, and one for people who want to dive deeper and get back into reading seriously. Then, you build up over eight weeks, in much the same way as you would for a 5k run but without the blisters.

Phone apps are deliberately designed to be addictive, and I sometimes feel the same way that I used to when I’d ‘reward’ myself with a cigarette when I’d done something tricky, or was bored, or just had some time on my hands. But although I’m not actually doing Alderman’s course, I did decide to set myself a reading challenge this year. I used to read the Booker longlist every year – I’m not a great reader of modern fiction, so this was a real chance to catch up with what was going on. And this year, I’ve already got stuck in. I’ve read Elizabeth Strout’s ‘The Things We Never Say’ which is a moving exploration of loneliness – probably not her best book, but one of those where a few words say an awful lot. And now I’m reading ‘The Vivisectors’ – fortunately not about actual vivisection, but instead set on a strange university campus. It is very atmospheric, and from a slow start it is beginning to draw me in. As usual, the one that I most want to read (by Marlon James, who won the Booker in 2014) won’t be published until the beginning of September. I’m looking forward to the range of books that I’ll be reading, and I hope that by the end of it I’ll have weaned myself off of the phone to such an extent that I’m all I’m doing is my Duolingo and an occasional check of my Whatsapp. I’ve taken Facebook off of my phone (though I do still check Bug Woman daily) and dropped Twitter/X ages ago.

So, Readers, what do we think? Have you balanced the undoubted convenience of the mobile phone with retaining an ability to focus? And what are you reading? Do share!