Breakdown of Читая ленту, он одновременно пытался работать.
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
работать
to work
читать
to read
пытаться
to try, to attempt
Questions & Answers about Читая ленту, он одновременно пытался работать.
Could I use this same structure if someone else was doing the reading, like 'Reading the feed, his boss called'?
No, and this is the core rule of Russian verbal adverbs (деепричастия). The subject of the main verb (он) must be the exact same person doing the action of the verbal adverb (читая). If the subjects are different, you must use a standard subordinate clause instead, such as Когда он читал ленту, позвонил начальник.
Why use the imperfective verbal adverb читая instead of the perfective прочитав?
Imperfective verbal adverbs like читая describe an action happening at the exact same time as the main verb. He was reading the feed while he tried to work. If you used the perfective form прочитав (having read), it would mean he completely finished reading the feed before he started trying to work.
I originally learned that лента means 'ribbon' or 'tape'. Why is it translated as 'feed' here?
In modern digital contexts, лента (often short for новостная лента) is the standard term for a social media or news 'feed'. You can think of a timeline as a continuous 'ribbon' of posts that you scroll through.
Is the comma after ленту grammatically required?
Yes. In Russian, a verbal adverb phrase (деепричастный оборот) like Читая ленту must always be separated from the rest of the sentence by commas, no matter where it appears. This is a strict punctuation rule that learners often forget because English is more flexible here.