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Ellery-Queen t1_jdok8l5 wrote

You’re not alone OP. I’m an elder millennial. Elder enough to remember a mostly analog world. In my childhood and teen years, even my early 20s, I could get lost in a book for hours. I would be fully absorbed in it. I got my first smartphone at age 26, and after a year or two that definitely changed, and now in my late 30s it’s worse than ever. Just like you, it doesn’t matter if I’m reading a dry Victorian novel or a fast paced modern thriller or horror novel, I cannot stay focused on it. Even if I love it. I do a lot of the same things. Checking to see how many pages are left in a chapter, etc. I’ve tried doing “digital detox” before but I can’t seem to stick with it very long. I used to read 20 or more books a year. Now I’m lucky if I get through 4. It’s somewhat embarrassing and also makes me kinda sad. At the end of the day we’re just monkeys chasing dopamine hits. I don’t think our brains were “built” to contend with unlimited high speed internet access at our fingertips 24 hours a day.

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Mandalorian326 OP t1_jdolgyp wrote

Definitely, this new entertaining system is highly incompatible with traditional reading habits (at least for people whose attention is not great)

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Ellery-Queen t1_jdom7qf wrote

My attention span was far better than that of most of my peers all through school. It’s been totally destroyed lol

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