I used to read books all the time. I spent most of my waking hours as a teenager reading books. I’m 35 now and can barely hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a year if I’m lucky. Even on Hacker News I almost exclusively read and comment on the comments, not the actual article unless I see someone says “have you read the article?”
I don’t really know why. I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my iPhone, which isn’t even including my Mac and work laptop which I might browse HN on. I feel sort of lobotomized but most people I know are still way dumber, I’m muddling through my career and not getting negative attention. I’m not even busy. I’m just lost and exist mostly moment to moment, and am lucky enough to have developed enough skill to write code before all this happened to me.
However, I have mostly (60-80%?) retained my ability to focus on reading without distraction. But there has been something lost and sometimes it feels like an uphill battle to retain your ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. Would be curious what makes a difference here?
I did some conscious choices, not sure how they contribute but I have the impression that each of them helps a bit:
* Not using social media and treating messengers more like email. A real-time conversation may happen, but does not need to.
* I (mostly) avoid browsing news sites where there is endless scrolling / content. I try to mostly read and almost never comment (as this makes me curious on what the reactions on it are)
* I bought a Kindle to read without distractions. It's in airplane mode most of the time, too.
* I separate my work and private equipment
* Only play games casually and sometimes not at all for longer periods of time. I mention this, as games usually have "optimized" on (rather quick) reward feedback and I can imagine that this is very similar as social media in some sense.
Kindle also really ignited my love for reading again this year.
I think it tricks my brain a bit into thinking “oh, it’s an electronic device anyway” :D
Another thing that helped, was a bit of a challenge with my partner, reading books in bed together, and having reading dates, when we would just snug on the sofa reading each other their own book.
I really like the idea of a reading date but I also know that neither of us want to read or hear every detail of what the other is reading. Our book interests are quite divergent, although we do enjoy sharing an interesting passage or description of what we are reading every now and again.
Me and my partner have fallen into this pattern too, down to sharing interesting passages from whatever ebook we’re reading. I’ve read more books in the past month than I have the entire year!
It's funny you place games in the "bad" side of things, this hich need to be reduced. I group gaming with reading because the kind of games I play require a level of focus and engagement, and my brain rather spend hours scroll HN and Reddit. It really is an uphill battle.
Having said that, there are many games that are more respectful of the player, with quieter user interfaces without design dark patterns to keep you hooked.
Here are some suggestions:
*Microsoft Flight Simulator* - Fly around Earth, preferably at a low to medium altitude with a small airplane. It can teach you about real world flying procedures if you are interested, with things like Vatsim. You can play with others without worrying about griefing as there are no collisions between airplanes modelled. If you want to shoot, too, try DCS World or IL-2 Sturmovik. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250410/Microsoft_Flight_...
I find that keeping a physical journal, writing with a real pencil on real paper, while playing games, is good for my eyes and my mind, as is taking regular breaks and going for walks in the real world, every day.
PS. A childhood friend of mine started this website dedicated to relaxing games: https://yinindie.com/
The creators have revealed that the script of "Disco Elysium" consisted of roughly 980 000 words, and the 2020 rework "The Final Cut" was apparently even more massive, roughly 1.2 million words [1].
Its lead designer Robert Kurvitz is an Estonian novelist, and the development team largely consisted of members of a "small but loud" alternative cultural association. Another member of the team is Kaur Kender, cult writer and literary enfant terrible of late 1990s Estonia. I think his books are a required reading for Estonian high school students. It's a game made by poets, basically.
I'm not a gamer, but I think the game (entitled "No Truce with the Furies" during early stages of development) was largely based on a sci-fi and "proper literature" mashup novel by Kurvitz that imo gained a somewhat cult following in Estonia. The book pays remarkable attention to detail, and it took him about 5-6 years to write.
Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn, for investigations and memory and "human puzzles".
Manifold Garden, Opus Magnum (+ other Zachtronics game) for puzzle solving.
I had given up the hope of ever being as amazed by a game as I used to be as a kid, until I played Outer Wilds. It's truly a magical experience. And the soundtrack is amazing, it still gives me chills sometimes.
Kentucky Route Zero has been the most intellectual of journeys I went through in 2020-2021.
This game almost requires that I put it down every now and then to ponder and think. It calls for a glass of wine in a quiet place at 3am. I wish my friends would play it so I would have someone to discuss with.
Get Winfrotz for Windows or Lectrote under Linux/OSX and download Anchorhead, Spider and Web, Make It Good, Vicious Cycles, All Things Devour, Enemies and Slouch Over Bedlam from IFDB, they should be in Z5 or Z8 format. "Heroines" and "Enemies" are good, too.
I would recommend The Long Dark and Sable. Heavily focused on exploration and immersion. But really any game with an open world that doesn't hold your hand too much and lets you make your own choices.
I picked up Sable on a lark (also because I saw the Moebius-inspired art style and immediately fell in love). It's a fine game that you can tell was a labour of love by only a handful of people, for better and for worse. It hit that same vein of open-ended exploration that Breath of The Wild has and the same feeling of constant discovery the latter game has in its early hours. I do wish that Sable was less utopic, with dangers in the wild dunes from creatures or weather hazards, but that wouldn't work with the art style and doesn't make sense with the narrative. It's a great game, even if you can get around the often-janky flight model of the hoverbikes and bugs like occasional clipping into the environment.
Too late to comment, but I wanted to add puzzle games like Portal or The Talos Principle. The world building is stimulant, and the mechanics can be really hard on your first play. Their downside is the rapidly diminishing replay value, unless you collect achievements, which defeats the purpose of a casual game.
When I replay one of those, I do it for the story, because the puzzles are child's play when you know the solutions.
adding on some recs that aren't necessarily 'good for the mind' but great from a gaming as art perspective and not designed for addiction -
co op: terraria, Deep Rock Galactic, and Magicka
various interesting games: Subnautica, Transistor, noita, hyperlight drifter, control
Based on the context, it would appear that he is referring to mobile games like CandyCrush and their ilk, "games usually have "optimized" on (rather quick) reward feedback and I can imagine that this is very similar as social media in some sense". I don't think that refers to the NYT Crossword puzzle.
Ok, yes I see your point - I should have be more differentiated here. I can see that there are games which could also force you to keep focus. What I had in mind were more of the "almost instant reward" game mechanics.
For a long time I thought that my constant internet use was a symptom of my disinterest in other things, but more recently I've come to realize that it is, in fact, the sole cause of said disinterest. The quick dopamine hits you get on the internet have subconsciously convinced your brain that the internet is what matters, and that everything else (i.e. your life) is simply a distraction.
Don't take my word for it. You can test this hypothesis in ~2 hours. Hide and/or turn off all of your electronics, and wait. You'll sit on the couch, you'll eat a snack, you'll find that your phone has magically appeared in your hand (how?!?), but just put it back down. As you try to go 2 hours without any passive entertainment, and I can almost guarantee that you'll discover that your mind will begin to show interest in things like hobbies/reading. If you can't get online, a book sounds pretty nice.
There's the rub--if getting online is an option, it's always the best option. The only way to do other stuff is to carve out time where getting online (or, for me, passive entertainment of any kind) is not an option.
Fun fact: If you can forego passive entertainment for the week, you will see all of that junk for what it really is, to your horror and eternal benefit.
Even though I can see the value in what you’re saying and agree completely, I can’t help but feel like my attention span has been ruined by my casual internet usage.
I’ve been reading again, before I go to bed, and after months of picking back up the habbit I still only feel half as able to concentrate on novels as I was as a teenager.
I'm the same way. As a teen I'd sit down with a several hundred page book and spend an entire day reading the whole thing. These days I spend my spare time on reddit/HN or gaming (which I did in my teen years as well). Much less reading, although I aspire to read more and have a long backlog on my Kindle.
Maybe I'll commit to reading an hour a day or something. I certainly have the free time. In fact, I'll start now. Wish me luck.
My experience matches those of others in this thread. I barely read anymore and find it difficul to focus. Largely, my tastes have calcified and narrowed quite a lot. I used to be an adventurous reader and always tried random books I saw on the library shelves, but these days I find it difficult to get into something new, and if I do read a book I've probably read it before.
I think if I just start reading it'll come back to me. Starting is the hard part. So like you I may as well start now instead of browsing HN. An hour a day is more than doable given how much time I waste here and elsewhere.
One thing that seems to have helped some of my friends who have experienced the same issue of not wanting to read anymore is to find one particular book or style they liked before and go deep into that author's backlog or similar styles. And to add to that, don't be afraid of reading pulpy fiction; you're not trying to impress anybody with what you're reading, you're doing it for yourself. Enjoy it. Read young adult fiction, read Stephen King and James Patterson, read Beverly Cleary, whatever. As long as you're reading, you're building that bit of your attention span back, and you can move on from there to other things.
I fear there is a big subconscious element to it in "smart people" circles where it almost feels bad to be reading without learning.
I strongly recommend this approach, it's exactly how I got myself back into reading. I started back by just picking up a super light read, then some fun novels from a couple authors I liked from back when I used to read a lot, and now I'm starting to branch out more again.
Like so many others in this thread I had completely stopped reading in favor of quick bites on the internet. One thing I've been surprised to notice with reading again is how deep the experience can be compared to an online article, even for a pretty light book.
So yeah, for anyone who misses books but is having trouble getting back to them, try picking up the first thing that looks fun, even of it's silly or easy compared to your favorite books in the past.
I started reading Brandon Sanderson with this mindset and I'm loving it. Before I would only really read nonfiction but I would easily get distracted and didn't read much in practice. Now I'm reading like 100 pages a day and hopefully it improves my concentration. Even if it doesn't I'm really enjoying the books
Stormlight Archives are his latest and greatest. I'd recommend those if you were a wheel of time fan, or you could start with Mistborn. They're set in the same universe but it's not really necessary to have that background.
May I suggest the Expanse series. It’s I think a good “split the difference” book series. Not too pulpy, not too intellectually straining that I’m struggling to hold my attention like a Neal Stephenson book either.
I wholeheartedly second this recommendation. After struggling to read last year, I picked up the Expanse series and managed to break my rut. And the final book was released last month so you won't have to go through the months of waiting like I did.
> I have an unreasonably large collection of 40k books, they’re ace.
Literally? That is, wasn't Ace the name of a "pulp" publishing house? Would be cool to have a collection of 40K of those... But I imagine even they never put out quite that many titles.
I had the same experience but my problem was from the sheer amount of games being released. I couldn’t pick one, became overwhelmed and then lost the drive to try something.
So I stopped worrying about the reviews, about length about all the details behind a game. I check out Steam 250 or SteamDB charts, pick one out and just try it. I have no expectations going in, and I’m happy to drop it if I don’t find it enjoyable, there is plenty more to try :) You also have to listen to your mind and don’t force it if you don’t feel like playing.
This has been a success with me trying out Timberborn, Dyson Sphere, Gunfire Reborn, Valheim as well trying out Minecraft again.
Nah, doesn't work for me. I know the games I like; they are all old and I know I love them. I don't follow the news on new games at all. I simply can't concentrate on the games I like for more than 15 minutes. I get distracted, I alt-tab out all the time, and eventually I close them. It's the same with movies or books. It takes a superhuman effort for me to sit still and watch a movie.
If anybody has any recommendations on how to proceed from here my fried brain and I would be eternally grateful :P
I feel related to this. I wish I had a way out to tell you but I can only provide comfort in the thought that someone else feels the same.
I think a big part is the constant dissatisfaction, that time is wasted, and I should be doing something more productive. I start a movie, I see where this is going, this is not even that great -> I should be doing something else... I play a game, I understand the mechanics, I see the grind ahead -> I should be doing something else...
It's a negative loop like doomscrolling a news site. Very few things are truly offline and I don't think about the time I'm wasting.
But computers, they give me the best, and they give me the worst of myself.
I find it helps a little to remember that learning and observation are skills and humans, like other animals, 'play' for a reason. Even if you didn't 'produce' anything, you practiced your skills of observation and deduction, which are survival skills.
I'm also someone who has to have a real 'reason' to do things. The best short-circuit I've found is finding the value in my own desires.
I'm 35, I'm an addict as well. I suffer from a grinding omnipresent feeling of wasting time.... I have a wife cery anti drugs. My cou try has legalized weed... Very rarely use it... Once a year maybe. But I have incredible rich experiences being stoned, being in the moment. Maybe to truly check out we need some form of drugs... Dopamime shots retain us, THC gives us temp relief?
(1) Try learning a highly complex game like Dota 2. You can't alt-tab (well, you can, but you'll likely die fairly quickly), and the sheer number of things going on at once will require your full attention... but there are still many small things that you can succeed at that will keep it fun while you're learning.
(2) Consider doing some "concentration training" where you engage in a non-media activity (that's still enjoyable) in order to improve your concentration. For instance, for me, this is programming - unlike a movie (which I also get bored while watching), I can dedicate my entire brain to programming and still not be bored - but it's still enjoyable for me, and doesn't feel like work.
Only for specific personalities. I'm somewhat prone to Dota addiction, but 14 out of the 15 people I play with are not, and in both my case and that 15th person we've managed it with some difficulty.
For most people it won't be an issue - you're far more likely to not enjoy the game at all.
Maybe the real question, why do you want to do thise things? Because games and movies don't matter that much, really. Nor do books, really.
You dont need to force it. Try something else. Try different hobbies to spend time with.
And also, old games are not as good as nostalgia has us remember. Maybe you are alt tabbing, because the books you ate picking, movies you watch were good for past you. And now your interests changed and they don't fit you, actually.
You make a good point, and I think there is fear in that the hobbies that we used to enjoy get replaced by something less substantive, even less “productive” - scrolling for endless content, engaging in short-term meaningless comment threads like this, consuming information that the brain forgets within hours.
Meditation. Unironically. I haven't kept up with it because I'm a lazy person who's been too busy having a mental breakdown, but I find I often end up pulling something up when my attention wavers or I have a stray thought that pulls me out of the moment. When I meditate, I'm more aware of my thought patterns and can notice stray thoughts as stray thoughts (as opposed to boredom or disinterest; they're surprisingly hard to differentiate sometimes, at least for me.)
>I know the games I like; they are all old and I know I love them.
>I simply can't concentrate on the games I like for more than 15 minutes.
Maybe you should try playing something different. A new challenge might encourage you to concentrate more and/or build neuroplasticity, and you could find some satisfaction there.
go visit an arcade. crazy enough there are still companies out there making new arcade hardware and the benefit of being out of your home, in a place dedicated to gaming, will help you concentrate.
> I had the same experience but my problem was from the sheer amount of games being released. I couldn’t pick one, became overwhelmed and then lost the drive to try something.
Yeah, I don't even pay attention to what is coming out anymore. If something is worth playing, it'll reach me through the grapevine.
Altough, I only really play very few games atm. Dead cells, payday 2 and warframe in this case.
Maybe it is not such a bad thing. We spend 8+ hours a day doing concentrated work. Then we drive cars some more time and spend some more time learning. Not doing concentrated work afterwards makes sense. It makes sense to do less concentrated hobbies after - sport or crafts or whatever.
If your work is boring and unchallenging or if you have as much free time as students or kids, concentrated hobbies makes massive sense.
I kinda feel like we were trained to be maximally receptive in an era when information was just recently proven to be the most valuable thing, but also was still kinda rare. And then they just fucking dropped the information hose into our livingrooms and... now I'm blinded.
I think information is no longer the most valuable thing. Attention is. That said, I too am struggling. The dopamine response to new content is addictive, and I rarely keep the promise to myself to go back and extract the substance from the resources I discover.
YouTube and Instagram search (each of which make a concerted effort to derail your search with dozens of shiny examples of viral content) is a good example of how difficult it is to maintain focus against tools optimized for their own benefit (engagement).
Yeah. As somebody who's always had a strong interest in archiving, information organizing, and information persistence, this is certainly... an era. It's so hard to stop, and it's a lot harder when my personal life is so intertwined with the things I'm professionally/intellectually interested in.
For example, I'm fascinated by how people on TikTok conceive of the algorithm and the mutual push-pull of category definition. How the hell do I explore that without spending 2 hours derailed by fun history facts? Answer: I do not.
> How the hell do I explore that without spending 2 hours derailed by fun history facts? Answer: I do not.
Actually, the answer is "train your brain". Nobody's forcing you to get distracted and start clicking/tapping on other things - you're taking the actions yourself.
Now, of course, TikTok is designed to pull you in as much as possible, but ultimately it's still completely manageable. The maximum addictiveness of the internet (and adjacent things) is still not even comparable to that of hard drugs, and people can quit those.
It can be hard (depending on brain chemistry and how deep you're in), but it's doable, just like starting an exercise habit, quitting smoking, or learning to control video game use or eating habits.
I was being facetious, but yes, this is the actual answer.
Meditation helps me a lot, but the key to cutting out addictive habits for me has always been replacing them with something else, and nothing so far has quite scratched my intellectual itch like studying people online except grad school, and that doesn't count because that's part of what I was studying anyway. Usually, people are encouraged to do other things, but I think for those of us who are genuinely fascinated by the Web, it can be difficult. Imagine if you were genuinely really interested in the medical effects of hard drugs but the only way to study them was to do them.
Your approach of "replacement over removal" (of bad habits) is a solid one that I've had some success with myself! Better to distract yourself from the bad thing than just leave a void there...
And, you make a really good point about people who are actually interested in the Web, as opposed to just consuming a lot of content there. I'll have to give that some thought...
It might be interesting to see how humans solve this. Maybe it will prople some denser / easier way to explain things. Or maybe we'll just stop the flood and go back to calm learning with the good old material.
I also agree #1 is big, BUT a lot of sites are platforms now so ideally you'd have something that just throws out the particular parts of the platform that train you for dullness, etc. My method is rss/atom feeds whenever possible, basically use alternative channels to get to the same information.
As for #4, I have a place where I charge my phone out of sight. I normally have mobile data turned off, so I can switch off internet access by disabling WiFi without having to worry that I can't be contacted in case of a real emergency. This perhaps works better because I also implemented #3.
#1 is a big thing - delete your links to FB, reddit, whatever it may be. Diminish your portals to the engineered attention sucks out there.
I aspire to a separate personal phone vs work phone. Have a lightphone but have not set up separate numbers for work & personal so I can't yet fully unplug from work when desired.
I would give you more credit and say the landscape of how content and news is delivered has changed. Many articles are written in a way to generate engagement first and then inform. I don't feel bad about not wasting time on clickbait or sensationalized articles. The comments section is a good litmus test to see if something is worth spending my time on. I imagine you've learned the same habit.
When you were younger, I imagine books were the primary way in which you learned new things. Now there's fantastic blog posts, articles, video summaries, and discourse about basically everything. Multiple people don't have to independently spend energy distilling the same article over and over in order to have a meaningful conversation about it. With a place where I trust the people discussing something, I don't have to spend energy verifying their conclusions myself. That frees up time to do other things.
This was the exact realization that I had. At one point I noticed that when I was 16 I could sit down with a 500 page book and read it in one sitting while as an adult I can't concentrate even for 30 minutes.
Feeling stupider than my teenage hormonal self was honestly so embarrassing I just forced myself to read an hour per day without distraction and only work with everything else turned off except for music. It's better now but I still feel like years of constant internet multitasking and browser tab-switching have fried my brain somewhat
> I used to read books all the time. I spent most of my waking hours as a teenager reading books. I’m 35 now and can barely hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a year if I’m lucky. Even on Hacker News I almost exclusively read and comment on the comments, not the actual article unless I see someone says “have you read the article?”
I used to be this way too. Then I just started reading again and now I can't stop. The trick for me -- which might be circumstantial and not related at all -- is an e-reader I always carry on my person, and an unlimited free books policy from my employer.
Sometimes I only get a few minutes of reading here and there. Sometimes there's a few hours at a time. But it's on the level of when I was a child and teenager again.
I mean, I still don't, generally read the article because the comments on HN are often higher quality. But the books I read are even higher quality.
And the things I've learned from mathematical, financial, systems theoretical, organisational, political, anthropological, and technical literature has really taken me places.
> Sometimes I only get a few minutes of reading here and there. Sometimes there's a few hours at a time. But it's on the level of when I was a child and teenager again.
So I dunno about everyone else, but thinking back on my teenage reading habits (which, like plenty others here, I could sit and read for hours and never find time nowadays), I didn't only read for hours at a time. I always had a large book in my backpack I could read a few pages of between classes, a smaller book that would fit in a pocket outside of school for similar short waiting times, and a third book sitting next to my bed where I'd read one full chapter each night. Then the full-day reading times would usually be if I found a fourth book where I couldn't help myself.
I brought back the one-chapter-per-night thing several years ago and I've been getting through books fast enough I no longer feel like I'm missing out. It's still rare that I sit for hours reading, but so many times I've had to make myself stop and go to sleep I no longer feel like it's out of my reach.
> I used to be this way too. Then I just started reading again and now I can't stop. The trick for me -- which might be circumstantial and not related at all -- is an e-reader I always carry on my person, and an unlimited free books policy from my employer.
I was facing similar challenges and I'm doing something similar and I can see my interest in reading gradually going back up (I bought an Onyx Note 3 e-reader and the fact that I can checkout books from the local library is doing wonders for me and my daughter). I'm hoping this sticks and would recommend trying out this approach.
Usually this kind of literature are however more similar to university textbooks for which I prefer to read them as PDFs on the iPad as my Kindle tends to mess up the formulas and figures if you get them in an Amazon Ebook format.
Sometimes you get a PDF from Amazon to begin with, for which I find the the Kindle a subpar experience.
I've come to dislike the pdf format more and more with time. It's great for printing, it's great to show documents really as they are, and it's bad when it comes to... Well, about anything else?
I feel it has become an standard of document viewing when it should have never gone beyond document sharing.
I totally see what you mean. For the most part, I have no trouble deciphering the garbled equations on the Kindle based on context and general understanding and subsequent description. When I do struggle, I tend to fall back to the PDF to clear the confusion up.
PDF is my favorite book format. I like the idea of reflowable text, but my experience is any book with pictures, tables, or math looks pretty terrible as an epub or kindle book. Books that would be suitable for Kindle (usually fiction), I find listening to as an audiobook much more convenient .
I have started to dislike pdfs a lot more since I bought an e-reader. A lot of them are basically scans of pages and basically there is no reflow; I just have to constantly zoom and scroll which is a major put-down.
It's not really my choice. My employer threw a Kindle at me on my first day, and then I e-mail my Amazon receipts to an administrative person at work who makes sure I'm reimbursed as part of my next salary payment.
Kobo Libra 2 is nice. Easy to hold, has a warm toned backlight (I switched from kindle to kobo for that reason alone) and with Overdrive it’s really easy to check out library books.
I used to read voraciously as well. It's very time consuming. Looking back, I spent at least one university summer simply reading every day, rather than doing a boring internship to get me a high paid job out of university. Reading is ultimately a leisure activity, like watching movie or listening to music. It may occasionally cause you to think, but it is another form of consumption. Reading HN has done more for my career than any books I read.
Not saying that is bad though - honestly I miss those carefree days of my youth terribly. I hate the rat race I live in now and the modern TC driven tech culture.
Lots of what you describe sounds to me like symptoms of depression and burn out, which is something I'm familiar with. Could be you need to change jobs or change something else to get yourself out of the rut.
As a similar-yet-different anecdote: I used to read all the time as a kid and I still read a lot as a 34 year old. I never stopped the habit.
I usually spend 8+ hours a day in front of my PC and I still read 50+ books a year (mostly fiction).
The internet didn't replace my reading habit though it did replace my TV time. I haven't spent more than a couple minutes in front of a TV in years.
Also don't sell yourself short. Whether you read books or not does not make you dumber. It's just another way to spend what time you have.
My friend, you just described a form of depression.
Not inferring anything from an online comment, but you may want to tackle the issue from a different perspective.
All the best. If you’re fine and happy, I’m sorry for my comment.
Try the Black Lotus app [0]. It has well-researched, applied framework called RARE to help you gain back your control on attention, build concentration and mindfulness. It's basically exercising of the brain/mind which we usually tend to ignore. The founder is an expert meditator and he has demonstrated voluntary activation of any region of the brain just by one-pointed concentration, under lab conditions [1].
I am similar age as you and I finished almost 25 books this year, and similar number for the past few years. It's had an amazing impact so far. Hopefully this can motivate you.
What you need is a habit change, which begins with an identity change (becoming a reader, or book club member). That will have long lasting effect, but identity change is not easy to begin with. So you setup systems and structures in place to encourage reading. The easiest way I think of is to download audio books that you would like and go for a walk. Other examples: You can uninstall distracting apps. You can publicly announce how much you want to read, or commit to writing some article that requires you to read something.
These ideas are outlined in Atomic Habits. So the solution to your problem of not reading lies in reading this book :)
I think much in the same way that heroin makes the ordinary pleasures life of life seem completely irrelevant by comparison, the supernormal stimulus of the web browser does the same thing for books.
Tbh, this sounds like a cry for help. Have you consulted a professional? If it's not a health issue, can I recommend changing your surroundings a bit and make it conducive to reading? FWIW, I keep my phone in 0 notifications mode and I don't have FB/Insta/TikTok etc. In addition, I keep some books and magazines lying around so it's easy to grab a quick read every now and then.
Finally, I have a goodreads reading challenge on and it's a nice kick to keep getting closer to the goal. This year's goal was 22 books and I did it recently :)
I’ve been through many addictions and nothing will happen until you look at yourself and the negative effects it’s having on your life and mental state and say “enough”.
1. Join a book club. Even with just two other friends. It holds you accountable and will force you to read most days. I often find myself aimlessly watching YouTube and reading Reddit comments at 8:30pm. It’s that bored stage of the daily social scroll where I’m not getting any novelty or pleasure. Then I realize I can read my book instead.
2. If you have a significant other, trying reading a short story out loud at night. My wife and I did this for a while and it’s awesome.
Hmm, I have both now. During the day, I build up around 4-5 hours of screentime on my phone, but at night, I have basically 3 options.
Read, Play games/program (e.g. boot up my PC) or Sleep.
If I start with any of them I won’t get to do the others any more (not because of any concious decision on my part, but because they all suck me in to such an extend it’s 2am by the time I’m done).
Can you get absorbed in a movie or binge watch a TV show? If so, I suspect your attention ability is still intact. You just need to re-practice consciously directing it again. I still struggle with it too, but was able to "get lost" in a book again. It was key though to move my phone way out of the room, and was hard to get started.
> Can you get absorbed in a movie or binge watch a TV show?
As a fellow 34 year old, no. Most movies these days are way too long and boring. Most shows it's tough to watch even a full episode in one sitting. Let alone binge a season.
I think, for me, it's because there's just too many things on my mind. And a lot of stuff just feels like it isn't worth my time. Why am I sitting here watching a dumb thing that kinda bores me when I could be working on any of the multiple dozens of tasks on my plate?
The only thing that works is getting a little high. Because you do need to give your brain a rest.
For reading books, audio and going on a long run is great. I read dozens of books per year that way. It's great and far less boring than shows.
Dont' watch modern media. Dive into old films that stand the test of time. Anything by Godard, Kurosawa, Fellini, etc.
I have awful attention spans, but I find that if I challenge myself by watching stuff out my comfort zone, I'm able to pay attention to it so well. If I know it's a great work of art, I find myself paying attention to just about every single shot, the composition of the frame, etc. It's incredibly rewarding, and it definitely makes watching most modern content impossible now
(That being said, I absolutely loved Pig and The Green Knight from this year)
I read at bedtime as well and I kind of wish I never started that. I've trained myself that reading means sleep. At any time of the day if I start reading something long, in ten minutes I'm starting to drift off. Any time I pick up my book to read, I have to step back a few pages and start there because I was in the process of falling asleep and don't really remember the last bit of what I read.
I was worried about that, but I find it doesn't happen to me unless I'm lying in bed, or I'm already tired. As long as I'm reasonably awake and sitting up, I can read for as long as I like.
One comment about only reading the HN comments and not the article. I usually do the same. I think that's the nice thing about HN. The commentary can be more interesting than the article. Also some articles are way too long to read when you're browsing HN and not really in "read mode".
> ...spent most of my waking hours as a teenager reading books. I’m 35 now and can barely hold attention on anything, I read maybe 3 books a year if I’m lucky.
Additional anecdata: 57, maybe 8-10 books a year nowadays (if that?). Which was a (low-end) monthly ration up through my twenties, into my thirties.
You’re comment resonates a lot with me. I used to read many books and now just mindlessly browse the internet. I feel like a zombie at times.
At the same time, I’ve never read as much as today. I get inspire by people like you living at the other side of the world. This new world we live in has definitely pros and cons.
This sounds a lot like my experience as well. Like I'm just waiting for the rest of my life to go away so I can look at my phone. It's terribly unsatisfying, like a diet of only Doritos, but moment to moment that's what I want.
Try listening to books and articles. Worked great for my I’ve past 370 trash novels this year. I listen to everything at 2x and slow things down when I hit a new concept.
Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (August 2021)
The book «explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world».
> Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. ... She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations
> In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke ... explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain... and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check
--
I am curious about how and how much discipline overrides the practical need for this theoretical field.
I don’t really know why. I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my iPhone, which isn’t even including my Mac and work laptop which I might browse HN on. I feel sort of lobotomized but most people I know are still way dumber, I’m muddling through my career and not getting negative attention. I’m not even busy. I’m just lost and exist mostly moment to moment, and am lucky enough to have developed enough skill to write code before all this happened to me.