If you read on the subway, I want to talk to you

What your distraction of choice while commuting says about you

If you’re looking at your phone or wearing over ear headphones while you’re out in the world, you’re making yourself unavailable. You’re signaling that the present reality is not enough for you.

This idea came from

August Lamm

, author of the viral “You don’t need a smart phone” pamphlet on “downgrading” to a dumb phone. Here are some notes I wrote down during a lecture she gave:

We spend a lot of our lives moving between things. We commute to work, to friends, to the store, to dinner, to book club, to lectures about pamphlets, then back to our homes. We spend so much time commuting, but we only ever view it as a literal means to an end. We don’t view the time spent commuting as inherently valuable. I’m not talking about finding just the right podcast to make the commute “productive.” I’m not talking about repurposing the commute. I’m talking about rediscovering it. A subway ride could be a time to decompress or a place for chance encounters. But no. We step outside and put on our headphones. We sit down on the subway and pull out our phones. In these liminal places between places, we disconnect from the present and go somewhere else.

Me right now

I found myself nodding along for most of August’s presentation. It doesn’t take much to convince me that my phone is ruining my life. And it’s not a hot take that we’re too online, too distracted, too busy rushing around.

In an effort to be more Available and to prove to myself that my Reality is Enough, I realitymaxxed my commute on the L train. No phone. No music. No book. Just me and my thoughts.

In brief: Reality was not Enough. August, I failed you.

I was Available to such chance encounters as a man offering me a drag from the cigarette that he lit somewhere between Bedford and First Avenue and a breakdancing performance that went financially unacknowledged by the entire subway car.

After a painful hiatus, I’m back to using my phone on the subway. But I’m not finished overthinking this.

The way we choose to distract ourselves matters. If I’m not smoking with strangers underneath the East River or Venmoing a breakdancer… I have to do something on my commute.

Now when I ride the subway, and I look up from my phone, and I see everyone else on their phones too, it’s a break-the-fourth-wall moment for me like– wait, what are we all doing!? Would this moment be changed if everyone was alone with their thoughts or reading (or at least pretending to read) a slim, chic paperback reprint? Like .. kinda yeah!

There are so many versions of reality to experience, and we’re choosing the one with the one with phones!?

Today’s reminder about the figs and the realities we choose, or don’t choose, for ourselves

I thought more about reading. People who read on the subway take a lot of heat. Some of it is deserved. If you’re a man reading The 48 Laws of Power on your morning commute, your picture might up in our Substack chat.

If you read on the subway, yes it’s kind of performative, and yes you’re inviting yourself to be perceived, but now I think that’s sort of the point…

Someone sent this to me unsolicited while I was writing this essay.

So here’s what I think your distraction of choice while commuting says about you:

Using your phone doesn’t say anything about you – at least nothing out loud, to me. Your algorithm describes you, of course. It was made by you, for you, of you. Our phones are black mirrors in our hands reflecting ourselves back at us, but crucially, only to us.

If you’re reading a book, the book you’re reading says something about you. But it wasn’t made for you. It was made for all of us.

I have complicated feelings about viral books, but there is something to be said about thousands, maybe millions, of people reading the same thing. (I run a book club; making reading a shared experience is a personal and professional fixation of mine). Reading a book is an exercise and attempt at universality.

Seeing other people on their phones makes me feel more alone; seeing other people read makes me feel more connected. If you’re reading on the subway, I want to talk to you.

Somewhere between scrolling, reading, or staring straight ahead, I'm trying to find a middle ground to stand on while commuting. Available, but not too available. Entertained, but not engrossed. What do you think? How would you want to see me on your commute?

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P.S. I wrote this with my sister, Natalie. We had a lot of fun working on it, so we’ll probably do this again soon :)