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Reading problems aren't a willpower issue – your brain got rewired

2 points by ccarnino ↗ HN
A few years ago, I was reading 15+ books a year. Last year? Maybe one or two that I actually finished.

For the longest time, I blamed myself. Lack of discipline, poor time management, whatever. But then I started noticing the pattern wasn't just me - friends who used to devour books were struggling with the same thing. Smart people, curious people, people who wanted to read.

The turning point came when I realized I could binge-watch a 3-hour YouTube deep-dive on Byzantine history without losing focus, but couldn't get through two pages of a book on the same topic. That's when it clicked - this isn't about willpower or intelligence. Our brains literally got rewired.

Think about it: we've trained ourselves on TikTok, Twitter, Reddit - constant stimulation, instant feedback, bite-sized content. Then we try to sit down with a book that demands sustained attention for hours, and wonder why we're re-reading the same paragraph five times.

I tried everything to get back into reading: audiobooks (mind wanders after a minute), AI summaries (forgettable), author interviews on YouTube (actually pretty good, but limited). Nothing stuck until I stumbled on something that worked.

Six months ago, I started uploading books to ChatGPT and prompting it to teach me through conversation - asking questions, giving examples, making me explain concepts back. Instead of fighting my shortened attention span, I worked with it. Suddenly I was spending an hour a day learning from books that had been gathering digital dust for years.

The technique is simple: turn passive reading into active dialogue. Instead of trying to force yourself through dense text, have the AI break it down, quiz you, give you analogies. It matches how our brains want to consume information now.

You can set this up yourself with ChatGPT, or there are tools that automate it (I ended up building one at https://thinktotem.com for myself because I was doing this so much). The point isn't the specific method - it's accepting that our brains changed and adapting rather than fighting it.

I'm back to learning from books I thought were impossible - Dante's Divine Comedy, The Art of War, dense philosophy texts. Not because I got more disciplined, but because I stopped trying to read like it's 1995.

Anyone else notice this shift in their reading ability? Curious what solutions others have found.

6 comments

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fasthands9
I definitely read less than I used to. I think in the past some books didn't need to be the length they are. I still like narrative non-fiction and for those the level of detail is the point.

It is harder to get back into reading, but think if you force yourself a little at first your brain gets "rewired" back to it just fine.

falcor84
You started this post as a story, but buried the lede in that you're advertising your service - you should be upfront about this. And it's funny that you said that you're "building one ... for myself", while asking $30/month for the cheapest plan. For that kind of money, I would expect it to include a book subscription - as a reference, Kindle Unlimited is $12/month.

As for the implementation - how can you ensure that the AI sticks to the book rather than going off-track to tell you about unrelated stuff in its training set, let alone going into hallucinations?

icedchai
Yes, I've definitely noticed this. I felt it got worse during covid times and never recovered. I can still read for medium-ish time periods (an hour or so say), but I have to feel very engaged. There's a high chance I'll get bored and leave the book unfinished. In the old says I could read an entire book in one sitting.
paulcole
> your brain got rewired

Rewire it back! You're acting like this is basically a one-way door when it's not.

Just read a book without picking up your phone for 30 minutes a day. It's not that complicated.

> Smart people, curious people, people who wanted to read.

If they wanted to read they'd be doing it.

msgodel
I think a lot of us also realized most fiction at least is just terrible and reading it at all is a net loss (if not a gross one.) I still read 5~10 technical books a year.