[Jeff Bezos via Flickr]

Great quote from a Portfolio.com interview with Jeff Bezos discussing one of the reasons why the Kindle is so successful:

The No. 1 feature is that it disappears. When you’re in the middle of reading, you don’t notice the ink or the glue or the stitching or the paper—all of that disappears, and you’re in the author’s world. Most electronic devices today do not disappear. Some of them are extraordinarily rude. Books get out of the way, and they leave you in that state of mental flow.

I couldn’t agree more. In today’s hyper-connected world there are times when you want to relax with a good read and the last thing you probably need is to be distracted by the fact that you are holding a computer.

In my “focus group of one” that is exactly how I feel about magazines vs. their online counterparts. For example, I am a subscriber to Portfolio magazine yet seldom visit their website.

On the other hand, I struggle to remember the last time I read a newspaper yet I visit their websites regularly as a news junkie. I guess that links to not seeking to achieve “mental flow” when catching up with the news but I do need it when chilling.