I mentioned a while back that I was trying to shift my screen time to books, and thought I’d share how that’s working out.

For starters, I realized that as much as I don’t want to be on my phone, it’s something I always have with me, so to be truly effective in avoiding social media, reading books on my phone is the easiest way to really avoid the Facebook or Instagram button. Otherwise I have to find a book or my actual Kindle before I hit the toilet or when I go to bed, or whatever activity gives me five minutes to myself. “What about leaving a book in the bathroom?” I have some stocked in there, but the continuity suffers: this may be TMI but I’m usually fairly quick in the bathroom, so I literally get through a page or two at a time. It’s a lot of stop and go for a story.

So, on the Pro side of using my phone to avoid social media: using my phone to read books ensures that I’m reading and not scrolling through social media on those down times.

On the Con side: I realized I don’t want my kids to see me on my phone all the time, even if it IS reading. They don’t do e-books yet, so I think to them it’s still a screen, which we really try to regulate with them, albeit unsuccessfully. So I’m trying to shift to actual books when I can, or my Kindle.

A note on physical books: after I depleted my Christmas Barnes & Noble gift card, I realized buying physical books could get pricey (not to mention paying for Audible and Kindle books…). This set me back a few months while I debated what to do. Then it hit me: THE LIBRARY! Not the gentlemen’s club (doubt anyone could get much reading done there), but the actual brick and mortar library that I take my kids to every now and then. I could check out books for ME. It was a ridiculously obvious revelation.

Then I realized I could also check out books electronically from the library (ding, ding!). I tried Hoopla, a free app, for digital library downloads but I found it to be a bit difficult to read through it and the book selection available was a bit sparse. It also wouldn’t save my spot, and the font wasn’t as easy to read as Kindle.

Someone recommended Libby and I found that to be much better. I haven’t read directly on the app yet because you can filter through Kindle only books available…AND CHECK OUT A BOOK TO READ ON KINDLE! *mind. blown.*

So I’m back on the reading band wagon and happy to share that my last three reads have been completely free. I did recently purchase Bomb Shelter with a gift card (I’ve been wanting to read this one for a while, and have a feeling I’ll want to hold on to it), and I do want to to continue to buy and support authors as often as I can, but it’s so nice to be able to read a plenty without the financial burden of paying for a book every time.

So for now, I’m hoping to hop back and forth between hard copy books from the library, and reading books through Libby on my Kindle and, hopefully not as frequently on my phone.

What medium do you use to read books and what do you like/dislike about it?