09 June 2013

Sunday Salon: Audio books and e-books on No-Screen Day?

Every Monday this summer is going to be No-Screen Day at our house. I decided to do this to break our dependence on tech as a means of entertainment, at least a little. In particular, I want us to get back to reading more. For the past year I have been checking out library books and sending them back unread because I have been spending too much time on the internet and watching TV. I figured if I instituted a No-Screen Day for the entire house, it would be easier for all of us to get back into our non-tech hobbies.

My dilemma is this. I want to get some knitting done during our No-Screen Days but I normally watch TV while I knit. Would it be cheating to listen to an audio book? I'm going to allow the kids to listen to internet radio because terrestrial radio reception in this area is lousy. What about e-books? I didn't check out any novels during our last library trip, and crochet stitch collections don't make for scintillating reading. I do plan to play cards with the kids, but we can't do that all day.

QUESTION: Do you think that partaking of e-books and audio books would be cheating on a No-Screen Day? Do you ever take a break from your tech?

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Since we are halfway through the year, I thought it might be a good time to check in on my reading progress. 

I am about halfway through the Goodreads Reading Challenge. I set my goal for this year at 25 books. Right now I'm at 13 books read and eight of them were non-fiction. I want to add more novels to that total because I think that most people are talking about fiction when they tally how many books they've read. Counting cookbooks and health-related books in my total always makes me feel a little guilty.

My TBR list stands at 275 titles, or 420 titles if you count the ones on my "not at my library" list. This also doesn't count the 25 e-books on my iPad or the books on my wishlist at the NC Digital Library site. I feel like I'm just adding books to my lists instead of reading them. On my TBR list alone, I added 33 books this year which is 20 more than I read. I know that I can't read all the books I want to read in my lifetime, but I could be reading a lot more than I do. Time to fill my empty hours with purpose!

5 comments:

Melissa Wiebe said...

I think that should be fine because you are reading and not accessing something else.

MJ said...

Hmmm, I would think that audio was fine, especially as you are multitasking, but I would probably consider my ereader a "screen." Maybe try it without the ereader and see how it goes? It's your challenge though, so see what works best for you!

Anonymous said...

Great idea! Being OCD and quite literal, I would see e-readers and smart phones as part of the "No Screen Day". Perhaps set rules everyone can live by. Because if I was a teen and couldn't watch tv, play video games, or use my phone for games, I'd want to text my friends. Rather than seeing it as a "fasting" day, which is hard b/c everyone is just counting down the hours-why not choose that day to be outdoors? Like visiting parks, museums...let that be your family day. Just a thought. Great idea!

Amy said...

Great idea! (And as audio books don't need screens, you are not cheating!)

Amy said...

Great idea! (And as audio books don't need screens, you are not cheating!)