I have lost the ability to sit and read....

[whaaaatishappening]

I was/am an avid reader. Love nothing more than getting anew book and settling down for a few hours to read.

Last year has been hectic, marriage break up, setting up new business so i have not had the mind space or time to really get involved with a book.

Treated my self to trilogy - massive book and I've found the moment i start reading I want to fall asleep. I am not even managing a page, just cant get in to it. Its not the book as normally would really enjoy this kind of book and style its written in.

Has this happened to any one else. Ive lost my reading skills!

I used to read loads as a child and young adult but less over the last few years. I blame it on my phone. I read a book recently called how to break up with your phone and have dropped my phone use by a quarter. It’s really noticeable now when other people are glued to theirs. I watch tv and pay attention and read more, even when up feeding baby overnight. I highly recommend the book, it felt daunting at first but now my phone mainly lives in a different room to me and all notifications are turned off apart from phone calls!

I was great up to the pandemic

It’s a side effect that I’d like to lose - I have started reading again, one of Ds’ books which he cares about as a show of solidarity

But my distraction levels are still quite high

@ForsythiaInBloom

It’s interesting what some of you are saying about Audio books. I listen to podcasts, Radio 4 and audio books, but always while doing other things - walking to the shops, doing housework, driving to work, gardening. It’s multi-tasking. But an audiobook is still not reading, is it?

However, enjoyable and escapist, it’s not the same as sitting down in a chair or in bed with a book and turning its pages with your eyes doing the work. I think it is a skill we are losing. I’m losing.

Of course Audiobooks are reading. You are consuming the words of a novel. It enters your head, you think about the story, the characters, the plot, I just the same way as if you were reading with your eyes. I'm vision impaired now, and rely a lot on audio books and always count them as having been read.

I'm exactly like this now, I always used to say my dream job would be to just sit and read every day, a good book I could easily do in a day.
First lockdown hit, I lost my job so although job hunting I thought great, all this spare time to read, within 2 weeks I was struggling to read a chapter of any book.
Since then I have read 1 book
I am gutted that I've seemed to have lost my love of reading.

I’m pregnant and have been like this since the first trimester, got a few books for Christmas so hoping to get back into it soon!

I lost my reading slot by staying up late watching CNN following political turbulence in the USA. I used to read in bed, but too late to do anything other than fall into bed and sleep.

For months I had new books by Mick Herron and Le Carre lying around unopened. Inconceivable in other times. As pps have suggested, start small. I found David Sedaris most manageable. Entertaining enough to want to read on, but easy to get back into after a short break.

My bedroom is a place I don't let the internet in. It's become a nice little haven where I read undisturbed.

I don't read as much as I'd like but actually read more last year.
I think this is because the news was so depressing that from about April onwards I put my ipad in the kitchen after tea so I wasn't just doomscrolling on news websites (and Mumsnet and Facebook).

[quote TeaspoonOfDoom]@Plantsandpuddlesuits

Yes it is Laurenandthebooks. I like her Channel- we have similar taste in books. I also like Jen Campbell, GettingHyggeWithIt, AllDBooks, DrinkingByMyShelf, LiteraryDiversions, GK Reads. I used to like Lauren Wade too, but since she had her baby she's barely posted anything. I hope she comes back to BookTube when she's ready to.[/quote]
@TeaspoonOfDoom yes I hope Lauren Wade comes back too I've resorted to watching her old vlogs! I also like your true shelf and one I can't remember the name of as she's changed it but used to be tired mama reads

I lost the ability to read like I used to but it is about creating some time and space away from your phone, any gadgets or the TV. I also found that a book club helped as it was a target date to finish a book by and this helps focus the mind!!! We used to meet in person but have done a few via Zoom which has still worked. I have just started a book that I have been meaning to read for over 10 years. It's a hardback and turning the pages has been a pleasure as I am so used to my Kindle! This evening I cannot wait to make a cup of coffee and start reading. No TV or internet browsing crap for me tonight!!!

I feel you! I'm an English teacher so have always had my nose in a book. The last 18 months I probably read one or two over a three month period (so so so unlike me

My head just feels so so busy! I have a lot going on personally and I can't seem to switch off.

It'll come - you never lose a love for books. Be kind to yourself and give yourself time to reconnect.

It's destroyed my attention span, my discipline and worsened my eyesight, yet I can't put the damn phone down.

Yep. I used to be a voracious reader as a child/ young adult
Would get so immersed that people would laugh that the house could be burning down and I'd be reading. Now it's just mindless scrolling and scrolling and the youtube rabbit hole.

Just get off the internet and reading the book.

There's no evidence, none, that using the internet permanently destroys your attention span or makes you forget how to read.

and read*

You can get it back. I've read more books than I've ever managed in my life this year. During lockdown in 2020 my head was in a spin and I could hardly concentrate on anything.

I'd start off with books which give you pure enjoyment, nothing too challenging or difficult. I found that doing a mixture of reading plus listening to the same book as an audio book or dramatisation while out walking really helped too. Formulaic books I found provided comfort in uncertain times, as did detective stories. Anything that would come right in the end even when the real world doesn't. So I ploughed my way through lots of book series.

Lately and this year I've managed to tackle some more literary and challenging reads.

@StarlessSea123

I’m pregnant and have been like this since the first trimester, got a few books for Christmas so hoping to get back into it soon!

Don't worry I was like this in the first trimester too and I'm an avid reader. I was so thrown in the first trimester I couldn't do anything but sit and watch friends... I soon got my mojo back and I'm about to finish book 62 of the year (I think in the first trimester it was well well below half of that).

Oh thank GOD you started this thread, OP.

I'm very embarrassed to say that I gave up my job as a school librarian partly because I just lost interest in reading as much as I needed to, and I got fed up of trying to get teenagers to read who had no interest in it either. In 10 years it completely changed, from kids getting excited at the latest book in a trilogy arriving, to actually vandalising the books and just sitting thrown them around. It was so sad.

Despite what some of you say, I DO believe that smartphones and ipads etc HAVE affected our attention spans. Right this minute I'm watching Sandi Toksvig on holiday in Norway. But I'm also on here too. We all just flit from one thing and the next too much, and back again, not just focussing on just one thing at a time. We don't persevere with something because there is a world of choice online so if something doesn't capture our interest immediately we switch to something else.

I used to read a book a week, even when the children were young. I'd read in bed for an hour every night. Then I got an iphone. That changed everything because if I have a question in my head about anything, I can find the answer immediately. Before I had such easy access in my hand to a world of information, I'd just ponder it for a few seconds and then usually forget about it, and open my book and start reading. But now, my brain is like "oh, I wonder where Sarah Beeny's dress is from? )Google/online shopping) I wonder where that Norwegian lodge is and how much it costs to go there? (Google, online banking) Actually, how long DO wolves live for in the wild? {Google, and then go off piste to move onto other animals for half an hour). Oh, I'd better move my holiday savings to an account with a better rate. (Moneysavingbloodyexpert, online banking). Random lyric comes into my head - where IS that song from? (waste another 20 mins on youtube) Oooh, I wonder what the COVID stats were today if i'm thinking about holidays.....(open BBC News app). Actually I wonder if we should just go back to the hotel we went to before COVID (opens Tripadvisor)."

Gets too late, book goes back down unread.

Awful.

I know I have not lost my love of losing myself in a good story or biography as I rattle through audio books, but I listen to them while doing other things.
If I actually stop and read I fall asleep.

This Xmas has been unexpectedly relaxing (no hosting or travelling) and I am well rested so I am hoping once we're back in school/work routine I'll be able to read more.

I've just started Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter and won't let myself see the film until I've finished it.

I don't think social.media and internet cause the inability to concentrate. I think it's like alcohol or drugs, they numb you when your brain is in overdrive

Perfectly put. I developed the problem with reading before the smartphone/devices era, when I was exhausted as a junior doctor. A combination of tiredness and having so much to process mentally from my work meant that I couldn’t quiet my mind enough to read.

I need a cure. I’m already going to need to live to at least 130 to get through my To Read list.

I'm the same as you CurlyHairedAssassin. Any old shite that comes into my head, I google it and fall down the rabbit hole. My search history probably resembles that of a 12 year old boy with some kind of attention span disorder.
Which would win fight tiger vs crocodile
Win fight tiger vs lion
Lion hunting Africa
Dentist famous lion killed
Cecil the lion image
Harambe image
Do gorillas kill people
Do gorillas get covid
...and on and on. I'm not really educating myself with it either. "Chantelle and Rory's teeny tiny creatures" on cbeebies is more structured, in depth, lengthier, more educational and intellectually challenging on a given subject than my internet grabbing at glitter.

The rot set in in the 3rd trimester of my first pregnancy when I was waking hourly and too knackered to read more than a column in a magazine. Couldn't even process a double page spread. All my SPD ridden legs, and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome ridden hands and soggy brain could cope with was playing computer games.

The internet on phones came about during my babies' long night feed years and the backlight was so handy in the night.

Motherhood and that constantly being "on" has a lot to do with it.

I read much better on holiday.

It's harder to create my atmosphere to read these days and a hard habit to restore around my family's routines and noise.

Well I have a suggestion and it's not usually met with much enthusiasm in my experience for a number of reasons - it's this - try reading some poetry - most people who haven;t read contemporary poetry really haven't got a clue what poetry actually is - I certainly don't mean the archaic end-rhyming "on bended bough" inpenetrable cr*p that makes my skin crawl - no I mean stuff that is really easy to read and understand - that might sounds like something for primary age kids - I promise you it isn't - it's got depth and is written, not cleverly - as that sounds esoteric and pretentious - it's written with great thought, reflection, focus and attention - I'd recommend Ted Kooser - "Delights & Shadows" or "Winter Morning Walks" (great story behind that one) for instance. The thing is - most poems are less than a page and a collection is 50-100 poems and you can dip in and out - they are like interesting postcards, photographs or diary entries - short but self contained and meaningful - it may just turn you on to reading again.

I find reading long chunks of text or watching long videos difficult now.

About 6 months ago I gave up screens in the bedroom. no laptop. No tablet. No phone. Just an old fashioned book and a book light.

At first I couldn't read more than a page at a time. But now it's built back up and no I'm reading whole chapters even outside the bedroom!

(I do sit there reading and suddenly find myself moving my arm to try to copy and paste bits into google to look them up though. Surprises me every time when I realise what I'm trying to do!)

I agree about contemporary poetry!

But also agree it’s not a suggestion that garners much enthusiasm!