mix Buzzfeed‘s “23 Things that Prove Society is Doomed” with Salon‘s “War & Peace on the Subway: How Your iPhone is Saving Literature,” then angle it through my publicists’ rose-colored glasses, and you end up with something a lot  like:

1. Sitting together and reading still counts as socializing:

2. It’s considered polite not to read over your date’s shoulder:

3. Fill the steps between class and the bus stop with a book:

4. Books, for all the many time-outs and half-times of the sporting events you attend:

 5. “There’s such a glare in here, we’re all having to hold our phones at odd angles to see the pages of these books”:

10. Sometimes chivalry is a race. She’s trying to gift him the book before he can buy it himself:

11. Sure, Thomas Cole is good, but if you want zombies, you’re going to have crack a book open:

 12. When you don’t know what to say, maybe a book can help:

16. They’re reading so fast it’s making their faces blur:

18. He’s putting a bookmark in his audio novel:

19. It’s not considered ‘time-out’ if you’ve got a book. With a book, you can still escape to anywhere: