Life-streaming vs. Blogging — It applies to reading as well

There has been a lot of discussions about the shift away from blogging to life-streaming. Instead of writing long and thoughtful blog posts, many bloggers now spend the majority of their time tweeting, sharing links and writing shorter (but more frequent) posts. It’s like skipping meals to have more snacks.

I realized today that this shift in behavior applies to my reading consumption too. I’ve been spending more and more time at Twitter, Friendfeed, etc., and less time doing serious reading. Last year I read 21 books — actual novels and non-fiction books. So far this year, 9 months into 2009, I’ve only read 12. My goal for this year is 24. I highly doubt I can read 12 more books in less than 100 remaining days. Is this a bad thing? I certainly have been keeping up with the latest technology news from all the tweets I read (up to the minute!), but Twitter has no equivalent to the books I plan to read. “Life of Pi” and “Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” are just two books that I’ve been wanting to read. You just can’t find that kind of literature on the web (with all due respect to the world-class bloggers out there).

What do you think? Should I step away from the keyboard and pick up more books?

Posted via email from And You Wanna Be My Latex Salesman? | Comment »