The Belevskii-Zhukovskii Collection of manuscripts, photographs,
drawings, books and printed ephemera
Vasilii Andreevich Zhukovskii family album:
Girl (Alexandra) reading a book (1846)

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Art & Architecture Collection, The New York Public Library.
"Girl (Alexandra) reading a book" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed January 31, 2026. (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/0a3ba380-6a47-0135-7c5f-1dfb8ba095ee)

"I will revert to the literary for a change."

Unscrolling seems to demand alternative activities. If I’m dedicating myself to at least reducing my scrolling, to what might I reasonably assign the time I gain from the shift? Modern life has always insisted upon some attention being directed toward visual engagement. This might include anything from theater to ReadingBooks, but are either of those occupations really any different than scrolling? I mean, they can both serve as distractions and might well become problems if over-engaged in. Right? Television, in its infancy, was feared for its addictive trance-inducing qualities. Theater, too, might serve as an escape from rather than into anything useful. I contend that scrolling social media serves a unique and as a uniquely dangerous purpose, wholly unique from any of its analogue precursors. It’s different.

Social media scrolling seems to be an infinite activity. It lacks beginning and ending. One inevitably enters into the middle of something to find they’ve missed the start. In this sense, scrolling always carries a sense of playing catch-up, and a kind of catch-up, one eventually finds, that cannot be resolved. One thing bleeds into another, and though one might have entered with some definite intention, the swarming distractions often leave one stumbling for any exit, having forgotten why they entered. Maybe you were seeking information about that big snowstorm back east, but ended up stumbling upon a video of some sovereign citizen’s arrest for driving without a license. When did that become a thing of interest to me? An hour later, I’m no wiser.

ReadingBooks seems much more intentional. The very nature of a book tends to focus the reading experience. Unless one is skimming through an encyclopedia, the pace of ReadingBooks seems relatively ponderous, leaving adequate space to actually ponder. My mind wanders when ReadingBooks. It might manage to maintain adequate focus to make progress through the material, but I’m also more aware of my physical surroundings in ways that I never seem to maintain when scrolling through social media. I feel much more present and accounted for, even when I’m just tearing through some second-rate detective novel. I sense my boundaries expanding when I’m ReadingBooks, as if I’m inhabiting some places I’ve never physically visited. Social media might provide a window through which I might witness fleeting experiences, while ReadingBooks provides a more convincingly immersive inhabiting experience; it’s expansive.

ReadingBooks can produce real changes. I cannot claim that anything I ever saw on my social media feed changed my life. I have shelves full of books that permanently shifted my focus. Furthermore, I’m capable of returning to revisit those sources in ways that social media never allows. Social media scrolling enforces the separation between self and experience. ReadingBooks encourages connections.

I have returned to my local library since I started creating this series, figuring that I might rekindle my old, pre-social media reading practice. I’ve long insisted, as many better writers had before me, that ReadingBooks seems to be the single most important contribution to any writer’s education. Well, that and the essential New Yorker subscription. ReadingBooks recharges whatever spring original writing flows from. It’s not plagiarism or in any way mimicking when a writer finds encouragement or inspiration in another’s writing. Perhaps we find reassurance that what we’re doing might eventually amount to something besides random collections of phrases on pages. Social media seems much more like that random collection: entertaining, but toward what end, to what beneficent purpose?

I return the latest pile of books to my local library triumphant, feeling as though I’ve genuinely accomplished something. I’ve probably influenced my writing engine in the process, too, and feel wealthier for the experience. I immerse myself in the promise of the Recently Acquired shelf to find a few old friends, one I’d completely forgotten existed. I check out my upcoming experiences, then return to The Villa warmly anticipating becoming productively and enjoyably distracted from my social media feeds. I won’t completely forget to check my Facebook and my email, but that effort won’t so dominate my upcoming days. I will revert to the literary for a change.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Unscrolling, #PureSchmaltz