If We All Love Reading So Much, Why Aren’t We Actually Reading? Pt. 1

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My whole life, I’ve identified as a reader and a lover of books (the term “bookworm” is a bit dorky for me). Back in elementary school, I used to check out 14 books from the library every week. Every night after finishing my homework I’d sit on my purple bean bag and read until my mom inevitably yelled at me to go to bed. Still today I love bookstores, libraries, the smell and feel of new books, bookstagrams… So why the f--- haven’t I cracked open a book in ages??!

To be fair to myself, I do read more than the average American adult. According to this random article I googled that I don’t entirely trust, the typical (median) adult in the U.S. reads 4 books per year, and my yearly Goodreads stats will prove I am beating that soundly, some years more than others. But if you were to take a deep dive into the books I’ve logged, you would see it's primarily made up of YA fiction and graphic novels for various ages. There’s nothing wrong with YA or graphic novels, and many of them are remarkably innovative and informative, but to be quite frank I am an adult whose reading level is much higher than the intended audiences of most of these books. I am not being challenged, nor am I even trying to challenge myself. 

Beyond the actual content of the books, there’s this nagging feeling that I wish I were reading more and maybe I should be reading more, but instead I’m trolling the internet, and that’s what bothers me. So here are some possible explanations I’ve come up with for why I’m not reading as much as I wish I were, and whether I actually buy these reasons:

• We read a lot for work (maybe scientific articles for me, maybe legal documents for you) and so our brains can’t deal with any more reading comprehension

• I don’t know what the science behind this would be… fatigue? 

• Trouble focusing/concentrating due to stress or anxiety

• I believe it ✓

• Competing responsibilities such as school/work

• I don’t entirely buy this because this doesn’t explain why I’m still watching a whole bunch of stuff and on Twitter all the time

• We are so used to instant gratification from social media that we become reluctant to take on anything that takes a modicum of effort (i.e., why read when our fun fun phone is right there).

• I believe it ✓

• Competing fun stuff. We’re in the golden age of streaming 

• True… When we were kids we had to go out and rent videos or wait for the TV to run something interesting; we couldn’t just watch *anything in the world* at a moment’s notice. 

• We don’t actually like reading that much. Yeah, I don’t really believe it either.

• I actually am reading a ton; I’m just not reading “serious” LIT-rah-ture so it feels like I’m not really reading. There’s a lot of pressure to read serious adult literature so if you enjoy light fun stuff like YA or graphic novels you feel shame about it, just like I shamed myself a few paragraphs ago.

• Clearly I’m doing some mental gymnastics as far as what qualifies as what’s “worth” reading and, per usual, I need to chill. 

Stay tuned for part 2, in which I generate some use value beyond me complaining and provide some solutions for overcoming these problems!