I love to read books.
Nonfiction. Fiction. Biography. Business. Memoir. Self-Help. You name it.
I like to read in the morning during a walk (a practice becoming more difficult with the beginning of the school year and my inability to peel myself out of bed).
I like to read before I go to bed at night, and I like to read when there’s down time during the day.
My mental health has greatly improved since replacing nightly doom scrolling with a dose of Fredrik Backman, and my nerves much calmer since replacing facebooking with books that talk about the craft of writing.
The biggest winner of all has been my attention span. Which had been so neglected for much of my adult life that it might as well have been on life support.
Filling my time with reading helped me feel lighter.
Which has made hitting the ground feel more like a thud.
Despite my best efforts, the allure of the algorithms come calling. Pulling me into the latest trends or my friends’ most recent updates. Before I know it, I’ve squandered my reading time. Sacrificing my attention span and mental well being on the altar of quick dopamine hits and targeted ad hooks.
Lying in bed or sitting on the couch, I give my sacred reading time back over to scrolling. Feeling a bit heavier with each double tap and swipe. “I really do want to finish my book,” I think to myself before switching over to Instagram to start the process over again, pulling to refresh to see if there’s anything else, other than my book, that I’ve missed.
I haven’t figured out what exactly draws me back in. I don’t know if it’s the dopamine. Or the validation. Or the FOMO. Maybe it’s a little bit of it all.
Maybe the algorithms have figured me out.
Maybe they know me better than I know myself.