13 ms·
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 may
by wincy 5y ago
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.
- whodunnit 5y agoSounds like you might have burnout. Get checked out. It reduces your emotional and intellectual energy resources.
- bentcorner 5y agoI'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.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoMy 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. Good luck!
- jimmygrapes 5y agoOne 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.
- viceroyalbean 5y agoI 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
- christophilus 5y agoWhich books? I’ve only read his Wheel of Time books (the last 3 of the series). They were great, but I never picked up any of his other works.
- throwyuno 5y agoHis Mistborn series is a good place to start. Helped get me back into fantasy/sci-fi after a 15 year hiatus.
- viceroyalbean 5y agoI'm currently reading the Stormlight Archives series, planning on continuing with Mistborn when I'm done.
- 5y ago
- najqh 5y agoThese days, I can't even concentrate in games or media such as movies. I wish I could, because I remember having lots of fun playing games. Oh well.
- klohto 5y agoI 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.
- najqh 5y agoNah, 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
- keyle 5y agoI 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.
- l8nite 5y agoAre you me?
- knaik94 5y agoI 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.
- anoncow 5y agoSomethings that helped me - 1. Delete frequently visited websites in chrome on Desktop and mobile and populate it with websites that you want to visit more frequently. 2. Create a new profile on YT and subscribe to channels you like that add value. 3. Keep a separate work phone. 4. Keep your personal phone away for certain times of the day 5. Read a book that you have been waiting to read on a dedicated Kindle or in a physical copy. Ask yourself what the problem is and try to find a solution that works.
- senortumnus 5y ago#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.
- distances 5y agoIn the same spirit: * Block time sucking websites in .hosts file, or in uBlock Origin custom filter. Latter works well for Android * Delete mobile apps, or add strict usage timers (at least Android supports this) * Never take phone to bed. Leave outside of bedroom or by the door where you have to get up to reach it
- marto1 5y agoI 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.
- roeles 5y agoThanks for the list! #3 was a big thing for me. 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.
- Barrin92 5y agoThis 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
- Fannon 5y agoSo I come from where you come from. 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.
- camillomiller 5y agoVery relatable list. 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.
- brewdad 5y agoI 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.
- camillomiller 5y agoLet me clarify: we just snug together reading our respective books in silence with a cup of coffee :)
- kqr 5y ago> 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.
- zero_ 5y agoUsually 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.
- Levitz 5y agoI'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.
- noisy_boy 5y agoI 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.
- 5y ago
- baxtr 5y agoYou’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.
- redisman 5y agoThe first step is to admit you have a problem. 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”.
- tinyhouse 5y agoOne 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".
- camillomiller 5y agoMy 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.
- bee_rider 5y agoI 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.
- agumonkey 5y agoIt 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.
- sul_tasto 5y agoI 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.
- petra 5y agoAttention is rare, definetly. But some types of good information are very valuable too. Surely it's available somewhere today, but finding it can sometimes be very difficult.
- subpixel 5y agoYouTube 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).
- Mezzie 5y agoYeah. 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.
- 0x008 5y agoYou might be interested in the book „dopamine nation“
- dTal 5y agoCan it be condensed into a HN comment I won't get bored of halfway through?
- 0x008 5y agoShe is on the joe rogan podcast where she explains most concepts.
- mdp2021 5y agoAnna 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.
- wccrawford 5y agoI also used to read a lot more books when I was younger, and for a while, I read only a couple a year as well. And then I started reading at bedtime. Sometimes that's 10-15 minutes, and sometimes it's an hour. However long it takes to get sleepy. Now I read about a dozen books a year, and if a book really grips me, I'll read it during the day at times, too.
- criddell 5y agoI 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.
- wccrawford 5y agoI 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.
- nvarsj 5y agoI 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.
- Brybry 5y agoAs 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.
- Aeolun 5y agoHmm, 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).
- vmurthy 5y ago>I’m just lost and exist mostly moment to moment 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 :)
- newsclues 5y agoI’m in the same spot and found that using screen time limits on the phone have been a large improvement on my mental ability.
- theNJR 5y ago1. 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.
- lr4444lr 5y agoCan 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.
- TheAceOfHearts 5y agoI can't stand most modern media, the only way it's tolerable is by watching at 2x speed.
- stnmtn 5y agoDont' 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)
- Swizec 5y ago> 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.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
- TriNetra 5y agoTry 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]. 0: https://blacklotus.app/ https://blacklotus.app/ 1: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8717094./authors https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8717094./autho... (An EEG based Quantitative Analysis of Absorbed Meditative State, IEEE, 23 March 2019)
- andai 5y agoI 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.
- Apocryphon 5y agoI call it hypermedia dependence.
- sosuke 5y agoTry 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.
- madiator 5y agoI 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 :)
- marcusverus 5y ago> I have 8+ hours a day screentime on my iPhone. 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.
- szundi 5y agoTried that and worked. Started programming :) Did anyone else try?
- chrisandchips 5y agoEven 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.
- CRConrad 5y agoI regret that I have only one upvote to give you (@dang: Where's the "Pin this at top of page, stat!" button?) He wrote, on his phone, in bed, pursuing his HN addiction.
- maxfurman 5y agoThis 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.
- CRConrad 5y ago> ...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. :-(
- mayormcmatt 5y agoIt's like someone else has inhabited my brain and written precisely what I'm feeling now...