light of the mind

As I wander about, I see many, many posts from people lamenting they’re not reading as much as they used to.

As a reader and writer both…. ah, how times have changed. The media landscape is fragmented and no single one medium dominates. Books don’t have the same impact either, as I reminisced in a previous entry.

Our current media situation is more democratic, but also more dispersed. We retreat to echo chambers with curated social media feeds and individualized playlists instead of sharing cultural moments.

(As an older Gen X, I remember what a national level impact Star Wars made when it debuted Memorial Day weekend almost 50 years ago.)

As much as I’ve loved the internet, as Very Online as I’ve been, I also made time for reading… until very recently. Back the old days, internet time was limited and even a long distance call, so doom scrolling for 12 hours a day simply wasn’t an option. Even when social media became a thing in the 2010s, I was still reading, probably because I was hanging out with other readers.

I read through the pandemic, too, for comfort. Yeah, I was pretty good about keeping up until 2023. A few things happened that year:

- I started playing more games.

- I became more aware of the entshittification of the internet and social media. Being online began to irritate me in a way it hadn’t before and that affected my mood.

- Short form video. YIKES. That destroyed my attention span.

Grumpy and unable to pay attention is no way to get through life (Animal House riff, there.) Last fall, I made the decision to read more and get back in the habit of reading for an hour before bed.

So far, so good.