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Comment by bentcorner | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

Good luck!

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 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

Which 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.

His Mistborn series is a good place to start. Helped get me back into fantasy/sci-fi after a 15 year hiatus.

I'm currently reading the Stormlight Archives series, planning on continuing with Mistborn when I'm done.

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.

> And to add to that, don't be afraid of reading pulpy fiction;

Amen. I have an unreasonably large collection of 40k books, they’re ace.

> 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.

Games Workshop have their own publishing arm called Black Library, so ace reading but not published by Ace.

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.

These 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.

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'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?

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 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.

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.)

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 may just need to change genre.

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.

Yes, but also it can be signal that old hobbies are not right for changed lifestyle, changed experience and so on.

> Because games and movies don't matter that much, really. Nor do books, really.

Games and movies, sure. But books?!? Oh yes they do!

Yeah, I know, weird. Dunno why I think that way. But I do.

For the same reasons as TFA, I guess.

Two suggestions:

(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.

> Dota 2

Don't do that, highly addictive.

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.

> 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.

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