Maybe it's too early for me to say, but I noticed that with this book I've been reading recently, I've felt less of an urge to drop it and I have a better time remembering that it's there because I actually grabbed this book off the shelf at a bookstore.
So, for a lot of context (this post is going to waffle on and go on long tangents) I hadn't really done much reading since I was in my early teens, where my attention span got worse and worse over the years as I got more addicted to social media and especially YouTube. Only until late last year did I really get back into reading novels. I binged the Baccano! light novel series and those inspired me to get into writing myself, which is why you might have seen me talking about the various novels that I'm working on.
So anyway, I usually read digitally and I have an issue with dropping books, even the ones I'm thoroughly enjoying. Some examples for great books that I've dropped have been THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS and LEVIATHAN WAKES. I really did enjoy both of these books a lot but before I could finish them, my attention span went to other interests like other books, movies, shows, YT series.
But as I said in the beginning, I was in Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago after getting my eyes looked at and I was looking around for any books I might have wanted to read, and I saw the name CHUCK WENDIG on the shelf. I was like "oh yeah didn't that guy write Halo books or something? This should be good." Well turns out he wrote Star Wars books, and the book I picked up, WANDERERS, ended up being kinda bad. I read the first couple chapters in the store to be sure it was something I would be into, because the premise sounded really cool and down to earth which is my thing, I liked what I was reading and brought it home. And then I read the third chapter and I was like "oh my god this sucks".
Since then, I have had a weird relationship with this book, which I'm almost done reading. I've discovered that the bad parts are strangely entertaining in their own way, and that I actually benefited a lot from reading stuff I thought was bad because it inspired me to write stuff that I actually wanted to see. I think something can be said about the beauty of the imagination when you're bored, it's like your brain is so desperate to have fun again so it starts firing on all cylinders in order to feel some sense of excitement again.
And WANDERERS isn't all bad, it's just a bunch of stupid stuff happened near the beginning and it was really hard to take seriously. It still is, but it sort of balanced out with some pretty cool stuff actually. I don't know if I'm going to write a review or anything about this book because frankly I have other projects I'm working on that I'd rather be talking about, but I certainly have thoughts.
So to get back to the main point of this post, I noticed that it's easier for me to be immersed in a physical book (even if it's one I'm not a huge fan of) because I feel more disconnected from the internet and social media and the things I'm frankly getting sick of seeing all the time, even the things I like. I'm just bored of being on the internet all the time and I'm trying to find other hobbies that work with my disability to pass the time, and reading is good for that. More than that I think reading physical books is great for me because I don't get distracted by notifications on my phone popping up or looking at the + icon in the tabs section of the browser and feeling tempted to scroll through YouTube without even realizing I did it.
I think bsky is pretty good but in general I'm just trying to get away from things that damage my attention span. Like I don't look at controversial stuff on social media and I don't watch garbage on YouTube, the stuff I consume is actually very interesting for me but the problem is the constant hopping from content to content and not just focusing on one long thing. (Unless I'm watching a long essay).
That's why I created this website, and why I want to start reading more books so I can practice being more focused and experience less instant gratification because I feel much more healthy and balanced mentally when I'm not online all the time.
I'm not gonna jump the gun and completely go physical, however I see some potential benefits and I'm gonna see how I feel about buying another book after finishing WANDERERS. Unfortunately I can't make going to the bookstore or the library a frequent thing because of my disability, so I'm gonna have to order most of the stuff I want to read. I would love to just completely get away from the environment I'm in 24/7 and go to the library and just read books but I don't have the energy for that anymore. I can on some days but it's rare.
With this post I'm not trying to say "YOU SHOULD DO THIS" because this is just a silly rant and I'm just trying to comprehend my thoughts on my very specific issue that very specifically applies to me by writing about it.
So yeah, this wasn't really anyone's business but I figured I'd actually use my website for something and try to use it to escape social media like I was inspired to do when I originally created it.
Rant about physical versus digital reading