My Word | Has the phone outsmarted the book?

I mean, a proper book.

A solid 500-page fictional doorstop of a window into another human being’s life, like Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina.

Or a five-book epic fantasy like Game of Thrones, even a big Aussie crime drama like The Dry.

If you’re like me, and I suspect a lot of contemporary readers are like me, your reading habits have changed over the past 10 years.

They’ve become less.

The ability to sit down and read a book used to depend on two things; where you were and how much time you had.

When I lived in London during the 1980s, I faced a 45-minute commute into work every day on the train.

This was perfect for getting lost in the world of moral decay and excess, as captured by The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Some commuters read newspapers, others listened to their Walkmans and inflicted the tinny beats on the rest of us — just as phone-using listeners do today.

Still others stared vacantly out of the window into the existential void of another London morning.

But quite a few of us read books.

In my lunch hour, I would sit in the corner of a café off Fleet St and disappear once more into the ugly ambition and greed of 1980s New York.

I reckon I read two or three books a month on the London commute to work.

Now I’m retired, you’d think I would have even more time to escape into the endless world of well-written fiction, but it’s not the case.

The act of sitting down and reading a book now depends on three things; space, time and distance from your smartphone.

When a ticker message appears at the top of my phone screen reading CNN Breaking News, Donald Trump says riots will be... I just can’t help myself.

I may be on the cusp of discovering why Anna Karenina ruined her life, but whatever Mr Trump has to say comes first.

So I start scrolling.

Why is that woman shouting at that man in the supermarket?

Good grief, look at the size of that oil tanker smashing into the wharf of an African port; and that crocodile eating an entire antelope; and that cat smacking the big dog in the face like a boss on cocaine.

Anna Karenina can’t compete with that.

Nothing can withstand the tsunami of flotsam that comes our way as soon as we tap into the event horizon of the black hole in our hand.

I now make sure my phone is another room entirely if I want to sit down and read a book.

Reading demands a surrender of the immediate, real sensory world and a gradual immersion into another, equally as real but fragile world of fleeting moments, landscapes, conversations and ideas.

It's always taken stamina to read a book, especially a really big tome like Lord of the Rings or War and Peace.

You have to continually find time and space to immerse yourself in the imaginary world.

It always was a pleasurable experience, but today it is one tinged with guilt and fear of missing out.

Reading a book is harder than scrolling or watching a film adaptation because it demands active concentration and commitment.

I also think the immersion into a world created by words on a page is deeper and has a more profound and long-lasting effect than film and social media.

Anyway, here we are, a quarter of the way into the 21st century — and the smartphone is here to stay in some form or another.

Has the phone has outsmarted the book?

There’s a whole 10-part novel series in that idea.

John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.