Waiting Rooms by Nancy J. Cohen

You’re sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office or waiting around an airport to board a flight. How do you pass the time?

In simpler days, we used to carry a book and spent the hours engrossed in reading. But now we have myriads of ways to kill time without cracking open a book. Let’s see some of the things you can do:

• Read email on your cell phone
• Play games on your cell phone
• Catch the news, weather, or social media on your cell phone
• Send text messages to a friend
• Read the brochures in your doctor’s office
• Read the magazines left by the staff
• Watch television in the waiting room
• Read a book

We have so many distractions today. As a writer, it’s hard to compete with all these choices for a reader’s attention. It’s critical to give people a love for reading early in their lives so it will carry through the many distractions in years to come. Avid readers are never without a book in one form or another. We’d rather read the print on an advertisement than sit there staring into space.

As for me, it depends on how long of a wait I’m anticipating. If it’s a lengthy one, I might bring my Kindle. Otherwise, I’ll play solitaire on my cell phone, catch up on email, or browse my social media. It’s rare that I will carry a print book when a Kindle fits so conveniently in my purse.

Which one are you—the cell phone junkie, the TV watcher, or the reader? If the latter, do you read on your phone or on an e-reader device? Or do you carry an actual print edition? What’s your activity of choice when you’re the one in the waiting room?

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