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Comment by cyberferret | Hacker News Reader

I am amazed at how my brain's ability to focus on long term tasks has been diminished over the past few years. I used to be a voracious reader, but lately have struggled to read (offline) more than a few pages at a time. I won't blame smartphone usage entirely, but it certainly has been a large contributor to that.

This year, I've begun a concerted campaign to reduce my phone time. The latest iOS screen time tracker ironically, has been a help. I look forward to the weekly reports that say "Your screen time has been reduced by x minutes per day". So far this year, the downward trend has continued.

I spent the weekend just gone reading a lot more, and also taking up painting again after a nearly 3 decade break from it.

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Yeah, I've noticed this too. I used to be able to finish pretty long books in one sitting and be completely absorbed in them, but now I struggle to finish a chapter.

It could also be that you've grown older, and have more responsibilities now, so you just don't really have as much time in continuous blocks? I used to be a reader in my teens as well, but in adult life, with work, social life and the tons of other activities that I have access to, it just isn't a priority. Slightly older friends of mine who are married/have kids have even less time. So it seems like free time reduces throughout adulthood until around retirement/kids-go-to-college, and then starts increasing again.

Yeah, it's probably somewhat that, though I usually do most of my reading before bed and I'm still not able to concentrate nearly as much as I was able to.

I wonder whether there's something deeper going on here in the world. The explosion of content on the Internet in the past 15 years has resulted in a great deal of high quality articles and long form journalism becoming readily available. Perhaps books were what we put up with when there was just less quality writing within reach. But now with heightened expectations we grow tired with the occasional rambling, repetition and longueurs that previously we would just power through out of habit.

I'm not arguing this is the case. But it's something I've wondered about as a possible explanation for why books are less appealing to me now.

I don't think that's necessarily true. The quality of writing hasn't change, but the formatting has been perfected. The short burst of dopamine we get from completing 10-30 minute videos, articles and the like are much more achievable, and therefore we naturally spend time consuming that, even though in hindsight it often doesn't make us as happy as reading a book does.

Same here. Still thinking about this Nietzsche quote: “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” [That I consider a valid explanation of why Twitter is so damn great!... [1]]

[1]: ... once you have curated your perfect list of "following".

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