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Comment by sdevonoes | Hacker News Reader

For me, reading used to be a way to enjoy part of my free time.

Nowadays is still that but it’s also a way to relax. Even though I don’t have accounts in the main social media networks (instagram, fb, twitter, youtube, etc) I still consume them indirectly on a weekly basis (e.g., i like to watch videoclips in YT, a friend sends me a twitter link, etc). It makes me anxious. I’ve realised that consuming in tiny bits (short videos, ads, stories, tweets, private messages, even going to those stores where everything is under $5) doesn’t suit me well, therefore reading regular books for at least 1-2h per day (plus other activities like working out alone, or going for a walk to a park) is becoming essential for my wellbeing.

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I'm afraid I am addicted to short-form video and wish I could go back to spending more of my free-time reading books.

Have you also run into the attention deficit effect of all these short forms of media? Overriding my brain's desire to put a book down after a couple pages is certainly not my favorite pastime.

Part of that might be your book choice.

I found that when trying to rekindle my reading habit, book choice had a big effect. Some books are like vegetables you know you should eat but really don't want to and other books are junk food. Empty calories that you love.

Pick from the latter pile at first and rebuild the muscle.

Yep. When I need to get back into reading again I usually start with some easy to read pulp.

My go-to is “trash” military sci-fi. Usually from authors who pump out a book or two a year in the genre.

Honor Harrington (Honorverse) is my general go-to, although these days I’m caught up so I’ve started a few others like it.

Nope that's not it for me, but appreciate the discussion!

I suggest blocking all platforms that provide short-form video and firmly deciding not to consume such content for a set period of time (e.g., 2 weeks). For me, this is the only way to stop once I fall back into the habit.

Doing this enabled me to spend more time developing and pursuing my own ideas, which is invigorating.

Or even just setting up a timer, I've set up a 20 min timer for myself recently, once it's done I do stick to it, I did get to do some things I've been pushing away, I still get some value out of these but... I get a lot more by not spending an hour on them.

The Brick has been helping me with phone overuse. getbrick.com (I have no association with the company)

On your laptop, route those sites to localhost.

very cool, probably gonna get one, ty!

It's funny, I signed up for tiktok when I was curious about the hype, explored a bit for the science / history / educational content I normally watch on youtube and found there was almost nothing, and what little there was was of much lower quality.

I deleted my account after about 15m of looking, and hilariously enough, a tiktok researcher reached out, and actually paid me ~ $200 to understand why I bounced off the platform.

Short form video is disturbingly addictive.

I generally refuse to engage with it. A while back I started scrolling some YouTube shorts. Hours later my brain felt fried and… it was hours later? It was kind of shocking and frightening. It felt like I had no memory of the past three hours, like it was a true state of hypnosis.

I realized this recently as well, on how much social media has started affected me. I've made some changes to how I use my phone now but haven't seen a lot of improvement overall, basically because I've found that there is "Social Media" everywhere I go. I removed all the Meta apps from my phone and found myself spending more time on LinkedIn. Removed that and I end up on Reddit. I do feel better about not being on FB and Instagram anymore though which I found were the biggest source of my wasted time. I'm not able to fully limit all the apps, and that may just come over time with better habits.

The positive upside to all of this has been that I've been reading more in general. Finished 2 books last month, and almost done with a 3rd one. Not having any of the main apps on my phone just has meant that I end up reaching for a book or something physical to occupy my time, which in general has been a better use of my time.

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