App-session: The Pocket problem

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The action has become a compulsion: A click on a URL, Ctrl + C, a second click on a tiny '+' sign, then Ctrl + V and the save button. Relief washes over me as the steps are completed and the sense of urgency passes. I can relax now — the article is safely saved in my vast list of stories to read later, courtesy of bookmarking app Pocket.
And then!

A moment later a new article scrolls across my Tweetdeck feed or Facebook scroll or Slack channel and the cycle begins anew: I must read this new extremely interesting link! I want to know all about Russian witch house, and productivity tips, and the @veteranas_and_rucas Instagram account, and why all hipsters look alike. I really, really do. Just, you know, not right now. Someday, in a magical place with a comfortable chair and a cold drink, I will sit down and read all of these links. I will. I swear. I...hold on, I need to save this Buzzfeed article on the 28 Picture Tweets Guaranteed To Make Absolutely Everyone Laugh. (Spoiler alert: I laughed.)

From informative to funny to opinionated to entertaining to scientific to GIFs of puppies cuddling with baby lions, I've got it all. I've got them all saved, tagged for easy filtering, and protected in Pocket, the app that rules my life. That's not much of an exaggeration by the way — I spend what is likely an inappropriate amount of time bookmarking and categorizing articles that I simply don't get around to reading until days or weeks or months later. And there are a few reasons for that: like reading more than I like most things, I am interested in a wide variety of topics, and I am a recovering packrat/collector who has made the shift to hoarding digital (rather than physical) media... Although, I still acquire plenty of physical media as well.



Much like how the release of the iPod became the vital answer to my unwieldy music collection of 1000+ CDs, Pocket has become the solution to what was previously a collection of hundreds of bookmarks in Xmarks. However, unlike Xmarks, Pocket was easy to both access and to add to from my smartphone (or any app running on my smartphone) which made it immediately indispensable.

I can easily add an article URL to Pocket from Twitter, or Facebook, or Safari, or Chrome, or Flipboard, making it relatively effortless to amass a stockpile of articles. With it's latest update, Pocket even added a "Recommendations" tab for stories it thinks I may like to read — and yes, yes I would like to click a button and read that article on 7 Simple Meditation Methods to Help Improve Your Daily Life. And the American History of Anger. And Star Wars. Jury duty. Being unattractive. Click, saved, click, saved, click, saved.



By the end of the day, I've added roughly 15 links for every link I read; meaning that in an average day, I'll add roughly 40-50 links and read maybe two or three. My reading list is a task of Sisyphean proportions; realistically, I'm not sure how long it would take for me to get through them all but suffice it to say it would make a serious dent in my vacation days. But that would require me to stop adding to my list first and... well, I'm not going to do that.

Some part of me — the collector part — can't fathom letting go. I am, in all honesty, not going to stop using Pocket, saving links, or compulsively collecting articles with the best of intentions to read them sometime....later. How bad is it? So bad that on the very rare occasions that Pocket has been down, I have experienced genuine anxiety at being unable to add or read my links. An app — running or crashed — has never made me uneasy before, but the times that Pocket has been inaccessible resulted in me restlessly refreshing the browser or app and tweeting at support staff until the service resumes.



I think that some part of me is comforted by the knowledge that even if I never, ever read any of these links they're always waiting for me in my own secure list. I can, at any time, access them. They're saved, hence they're safe. And that's somehow incredibly reassuring, to have all the pieces of my collection in a single place, personally cultivated, nicely categorized and conveniently accessibly anywhere. In much the same way that we put things we desire into an Amazon wish-list, feeling content with the intention to buy them "one day when we get enough money," my growing list of URLs is my way of holding onto the idea that one day there will be money to buy all the things in my wish list. One day there will be enough time to actually read through all these links. There will be, I believe it. In the meantime, I keep clicking, keep collecting, knowing that when that day comes, all these links will be here, waiting for me.

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