Pocket

We are all creatures of habit. Some of our habits help us achieve lofty goals; others we’re constantly trying to ditch. What does science tell us about how to change stubborn habits—or how to start positive ones? Here are three engrossing reads about why habits exist and how they can be reshaped.

The Power of Habit
Charles Duhigg, Slate

How the history of toothpaste explains why you can’t lose weight.

The Simple Secret to Creating New Habits That Actually Stick
Joel Pavelski, GQ

The key to success is not to steel your resolve. It’s to promise yourself less.

Why Willpower is Overrated
Brian Resnick, Vox

Psychologists increasingly think that effortful restraint is not the key to the good life. So what is?

Now your Pocket is full of articles about habits and how to form them. Hopefully reading or listening to articles in Pocket is already one of your healthy habits. (If not, read above to learn about cues, routines, and rewards!)

Do you have a favorite article in your Pocket about habits or achieving goals that you’ve found valuable? Tweet to us and share your recommendations.

It’s been an exciting year here at Pocket, and we want to say thank you for continuing on this journey with us. There is so much incredible content on the web today—articles that inform and inspire us, stories that move and motivate us, and videos that make us cry with laughter and push us to be better. And we know there’s so much you want to read, soak up, and learn. We’re honored and grateful that you’ve made Pocket your place to spend time with all of the things that matter to you.

At the end of each year, we pull together the “best” stories of the year—the items that people are Pocketing, reading, sharing, and hanging on to for the future. This list represents the most-read and most-watched of the 283 million unique items that people saved in Pocket this year. As you’ll see, Pocket users had an eye for sharp writing, great storytelling, and powerful journalism in 2018. We think you’ll love this collection of stories to save and read in Pocket.

And in case you missed anything this year, keep reading below for new product highlights—and for a way to show your Pocket-love.

The Pocket team has been busy this year, and it feels great to know we’ve improved something that many of you tell us is an essential part of your life. In case you missed it…

• We launched a new version of Pocket with an updated look and feel, an uncluttered reading experience, and an enhanced dark mode for nighttime reading. And best of all, you can listen to all of your saved articles with a human-sounding voice. Try listening while you do your holiday prep and put your ears to work while the rest of you is busy.
• Pocket now has an Alexa skill. Get it started and ask Alexa to read your Pocket articles while you’re cooking or doing chores around the house.
• We also added our two most-requested features earlier this year—highlighting and estimated reading times.
• Are you a Slack user? Add Pocket to your Slack workspace, then capture all the great content being shared by your colleagues.
• Do you have an Amazon Fire TV device? If you download the Firefox for Fire TV app, you can watch Pocket-recommended videos from places like YouTube and Vimeo.
• Pocket also powers the article recommendations in the Firefox browser’s new tab. If you’re not a Firefox user yet, start 2019 right with more privacy, speed, and incredible Pocket content recommendations.

So what’s coming next year? Continued investment in the things that power you, fuel you, and feed your mind. Pocket will surface and share even more content that’s worth your time and attention. And we will continue to update the Pocket app so you’ll always have an exceptional reading and listening experience across your devices.

Please tell a friend about Pocket in 2019. Or tell the world right now by tweeting @Pocket and tell us the role Pocket plays in your life.

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to you and yours from all of us!

– Team Pocket

Top Reads
Save these great stories—and read, watch, or listen to them in Pocket!

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)
Tim Urban, Wait But Why

The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have about Eating Right
Mark Bittman and David L. Katz, Grub Street

Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble
Steven Johnson, New York Times

Great Listens
Save these stories and listen to them in Pocket.

A Kingdom from Dust
Mark Arax, California Sunday

It’s Story Time
Joel Embiid, Players Tribune

The Most Adventurous Eater in America
Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker

Top Videos

Jordan Peterson Debate on the Gender Pay Gap, Campus Protests, and Postmodernism
Channel 4 News

This is America (Official Video)
Childish Gambino

Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke
The Late Late Show with James Corden

As we all know and have experienced, a family can take many forms. As we move through life, sometimes unseen forces conspire to pull people together in ways that are unexpected and surprising, but deeply satisfying—and we’re often better for it. These stories, surfaced by Pocket users, bring new dimensions to the idea of family and where it can be found.

Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry
Elif Batuman, The New Yorker

Family relationships are fluid. Sometimes they are wonderful and at times can become strained. Japan’s Yūichi Ishii has found joy in helping others create the family and relationships they miss.

How Friendsgiving Took Over Millennial Culture
Ashley Fetters, The Atlantic

Friends are the family we choose. As Millennials have aged into adulthood, they’ve been choosing to spend their holidays with their friends. And perhaps if you really think about it, Dennis says, you could conceive of Friendsgiving as a way of bringing Thanksgiving back to its roots.

A Toy Monkey That Escaped Nazi Germany And Reunited A Family
Uri Berliner, NPR

A boy, a toy monkey, and a journey to meet an unknown family across the world. By giving up what was once a prized possession, the Berliners gained more than they could have dreamed of—a larger family.

If you live in the U.S. and are going to be getting ready for Thanksgiving and the arrival of “family,” save all of these stories to Pocket and listen to them while you do your prep work. (First, you’ll need to download Pocket if you haven’t already.)

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the Pocket Family!

Where does inspiration come from? How does the creative mind work? How can we refill our own creative well or get unblocked? It’s National Novel Writing Month, so in the spirit of creative productivity, Pocket has bubbled up three articles that illuminate the creative mind and how it works. Explore how to foster your own creativity, understand how inspiration arises, and discover sources of inspiration for notable artists, writers, and thinkers.

Oliver Sacks on the Three Essential Elements of Creativity
Maria Popova, Brainpickings.org

Having some writer’s block? Are you doubting your creativity? Oliver Sacks, the late neurologist and writer, would tell us it’s all part of the process. But, contrary to the archetypal myth of the lone genius struck with a sudden Eureka! moment, this chaos doesn’t occur in a vacuum.

The slow death of purposeless walking
Finlo Rohrer, BBC

Walking for any distance is usually a planned leisure activity. Or something to help people lose weight or maintain their fitness. But there’s something else people get from choosing to walk. A place to think.

Secrets of the Creative Brain
Nancy Andreasen, The Atlantic

Take a peek inside the mind of a creative genius. A leading neuroscientist who has spent decades studying creativity shares her research on where genius comes from, whether it is dependent on high IQ—and why it is so often accompanied by mental illness.

So, you’ve made your way to the end. You’ve taken a break from what you’ve been working on and are hopefully feeling inspired to move forward with your own project. Be sure to add these stories to your Pocket for when you’re seeking inspiration or trying to overcome a creative block.

And did you know you could actually take a walk and listen to all these articles from Pocket? Try it out and kill two birds with one stone. (First, you’ll need to download Pocket if you haven’t already.)

Tweet to us @Pocket and tell us how you overcome a creative block or find inspiration.

The spookiest day of the year is just around the corner, when little witches and ghouls stalk the streets and adults willingly scare themselves witless. In honor of this haunted holiday, we’ve pulled together three great reads about Halloween’s surprisingly romantic history, the origins of your favorite monsters, and the joy at the heart of Dia de Los Muertos. These stories may not chill you to the bone, but they are sure to get you in the spirit.

The Origins of 25 Monsters, Ghosts, and Spooky Things
Sonya Vatomsky, Mental Floss

Ever wonder why we carve jack-o-lanterns or go trick-or-treating? Or where the legend of the headless horseman or a witch’s flying broomstick come from? The story behind these and other ghoulish customs and creatures might surprise you.

Boo? Halloween Used to Be About Finding True Love
Niraj Chokshi, The New York Times

Halloween wasn’t always so scary. A century ago, the holiday was less about fright—and more about flirtation.

Top 10 Things to Know About Día de los Muertos
Logan Ward, National Geographic

Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is not a Mexican version of Halloween. While Halloween is a dark night of terror and mischief, Day of the Dead festivities unfold over two days in an explosion of color and life-affirming joy.

Now that you’ve read up on your ghosts and goblins, tell us: What’s your favorite part of Halloween? Tweet us @Pocket and share your favorite Halloween stories.

It’s October, which in the U.S. means it’s time to put away the triumphs and the heartbreaks of Major League Baseball’s regular season and get excited about the playoffs.

Maybe you love the crack of a home run ball against the bat or the the suspense of extra innings. Maybe you’re just into it for the hot dogs and peanuts. Whatever the case, it’s America’s pastime.

Whether your team is still in the race to be World Series champs or you just want to know what your stats-obsessed friends are talking about, we’ve got you covered with these three great reads about America’s game.

The Essence of Velocity
Jason Turbow, SB Nation

Perry Husband has a theory that could revolutionize how baseball pitchers throw the ball. His interest lies not in how fast a given pitch travels, but how fast it appears to a hitter. But first he has to get someone to listen to him.

A Team of Their Own
Jessica Luther, Bleacher Report

Most girls who play youth baseball are steered away from the sport before they reach double digits in age. Girls Travel Baseball wants to change all that.

The Website MLB Couldn’t Buy
Ben Lindbergh, Grantland

Since 2000, Major League Baseball Advanced Media has conducted a stealth campaign to take over every team web domain. Meet Durland and Darvin, the Hummer-driving, rock-and-roll-playing, real-life twins keeping Twins.com out of Minnesota’s baseball mitt.

Get the new and improved Pocket today in the Google Play or App store and transform the way you read.

At Pocket, we want to help you feel rested and ready for the week which is why we’re starting a new series: The Sunday Reading Ritual. We’ll bring you vibrant, interesting, and illuminating reads. The world is moving faster than ever before and with Pocket you can catch-up and read, distraction free. Each week, we’ll share some of our favorites, trends from the internet, and articles that you may not have otherwise seen or discovered on popular topics.

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Up this week: let’s rediscover the joy of reading and begin a ritual—together.

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Who else loves the feeling of finishing a book? Or reading a long article from start to finish? Closing the last page, getting to the end and reeling in a sense of accomplishment.

Let’s face it, the way we read has changed. We spend more time with content being thrown at us from all angles and the constant stimulus can feel overwhelming. Unplugging from the noise, slowing down and feeding your mind is a form of self-care, one we at Pocket fully support.

In curating Pocket Hits every day, we come across a lot of fascinating pieces. Here are three articles to help you refocus your attention and rediscover the joy and benefits of deep reading.

1. How reading rewires your brain for more intelligence and empathy – Derek Beres

“Hard glutes are one thing. Novel reading is a great way to practice being human.” We’re all pretty conscious of the benefits from physical exercise. But have we explored how reading exercises the brain? Next time you’re on the elliptical, try opening that book you’ve been meaning to read.

2. Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read – Julie Beck

If you thought you were the only one who can’t remember the entire plot after reading A Game of Thrones, you’re not alone. “Sana says that often when we read, there’s a false ‘feeling of fluency.’” Now is as good a time as any for you to learn how to make your literary adventures stick. So the next time you binge watch Season 1, you’ll be able to catch the changes from the book to the television series.

3. How My Smartphone Revived the Purity of Reading – Jason Parham

For our book-bound, novel-reading purists, this one’s for you. Try something new and see how you can enjoy mobile reading when you forget your book on the coffee table.

Now that you’re ready to dive into reading, tweet us @Pocket and tell us what topics you’d like for us to cover in the Sunday Reading Ritual.

*Get the new and improved Pocket today on whatever device you have.

Since we launched Pocket in 2007, millions of you have made Pocket your place to hold onto the best of the web and come back to it when you’re ready. We’ve also learned that Pocket’s your place to really dive in and absorb things—a welcomed part of your day where you can take in ideas, inspiration, or knowledge in a place that’s free from the distractions of the internet.

We want to help our users be able to read more—and more comfortably—on Pocket, even when on the go. How? Today we’re excited to announce Pocket’s updated listen feature and an enhanced reading experience.

Pocket’s improved listen feature lets you listen to the articles you’ve saved, from anywhere. Enjoy your saved Pocket items at the gym, driving, walking, in the tub, when you’re settling down for bed, whenever. Since Pocket is on all of your favorite devices, you can listen to Pocket while you’re out for a walk with your phone. And coming soon, you can even download the Alexa skill and listen in the kitchen.

The new Pocket is about giving you a place to capture and collect the things you find all across the web that fascinate you. A space that is yours, filled with what interests you. With our latest version, we’ve created a calmer, cleaner corner of the internet for you to enjoy each day.

We redesigned Pocket to make reading more comfortable. The new typography and user interface are designed to make long reads easier on your eyes. For night owls, the dark theme is designed for better night reading.

Whatever you are doing, Pocket fits into your life. Whatever your need is—to learn, grow, be informed, get inspired, or just read a great story—Pocket’s your personal space to spend time with the content you love.

Get the new and improved Pocket today on whatever device you have and let us know what you think!

– Team Pocket