thinking reading

content/thinkings/2021-1-21-thinking-about-reading.md

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+---
+title: Thinking About Reading
+date: "2021-1-21"
+template: "thinking"
+draft: false
+slug: "thinking-about-reading"
+category: "Thoughts"
+description: "Truth be told, I don’t read enough books anymore."
+socialImage:
+---
+
+Truth be told, I don’t read enough books anymore. When I was younger, I read before bed every night. I was always reading a novel, for school or for fun, but I had bookshelves full from end to end. I can recall getting the new Harry Potter books and reading them as quickly as possible, although definitely not as fast as some of my classmates. Heck, I would re-read all the preceding Harry Potter books before a new one would come out. I really enjoyed fantasy, probably in part due to the fact that a well constructed fantasy world is very easy to get lost in.
+
+Now I ponder why I don’t read to that extent anymore and it isn’t too hard to find the causes. Up until I was in college, there weren’t endless options of things to read on the internet. There were forums I would frequent for some video games, but back then everything was chronological and it was quite easy to see there wasn’t really anything new to read or respond to. Today I can choose from any number of Facebook (not too often), Instagram (fairly often), Hacker News (often), Twitter (too often), or Reddit (far too often) to easily find something to scroll through or read. I notice the habits that I’ve formed but at this point I don’t think they’re detrimental to anything besides my lack of reading books. On the other hand, I’ve definitely gained a lot of perspective on different topics and things happening outside my bubble by interacting with these different sites. Then some nights I spend time working on this blog or just randomly reading about new programming things, although these things usually end up keeping me awake longer than I prefer.
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+All said, I’m not sure that it’s a bad thing that I don’t read as many books as I did before, but obviously my reading is at a much shallower level. Finding a balance between the two would probably be for the best, but those habits have been formed and as we’ve been told, they hit the dopamine receptors to keep you coming back for more. I’ll end by saying that I’ll add what book I’m reading to the end of my thinking posts and it may end up being the same book for long periods of time.
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+Currently Reading: A Promised Land - Barack Obama