I wrote this note on my phone when first considering buying a Boox Palma. I wasn’t convinced that replacing my social media action with reading was necessarily the best option, but in the sort term, I can’t see any other way. Like a smoker that needs to find something to do with their hands, I to need to find something to occupy myself instead of doom-scrolling. So I jumped in, but this question still exists.

Of course, I did my research before buying. Read loads of articles and watched far too many YouTube videos on the Book Palma. Luckily, this is the new hotness and content isn’t difficult to find — just this week members of The Verge team were talking about it on The Vergecast and MKBHD made a video on it. The Boox Palma is a device I have been eyeing for a while since friend of the blog Kevin Wammer posted about his, and Craigmod began gushing. This sounds like some kind of weird justification for purchasing such a weird device, and in some ways it is — but I wanted it before it was cool, OK!

Due to this research, YouTube thinks I am some kind of e-Ink obsessive, which is annoying, but at times interesting. Devices like the Hisense A9 and the BigMe HiBreak infiltrated my feed. Think Boox Palma, but with worse software and a SIM card slot. Reviews are mixed on all of these pink phones, but they all feature b-roll of someone reading on their phone with activities going in the background. This was sold as something great, it’s a Kindle in your pocket everywhere you go, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I am missing the point.

Granted, reading won’t be working to distract me as much as social media is. It won’t be hacking my brain to ruin my attention span and possibly, my mental health. So it’s better. Reading is one of my favourite things to do, but if I will be reading instead of being present in the world, that can’t be as good as I think it is. Can it? Given the choice, wouldn’t it be better to simply learn to be bored a bit more?

I’d like to say I have some evidence to back this up. However, my attempts to see if I am replacing one distraction with another remain unanswered. There is some subjective information out there that reading is much better, but much of this is removal of doom-scrolling, not the activity itself. Adding my own personal take, one that is much too early to hold much weight, I would agree that having a device like this instead of my phone is nearly all benefit.

I say nearly because it takes some understanding of its limits to mould it to your use. I took some time to think about how I wanted to limit the ability of my Boox Palma before buying, and several conversations with Kevin. However, that hard work at the start has led to reading more, visiting social media less and general feeling much more balanced. Long may it continue.