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

2 points by ccarnino 322 days ago | 14 comments

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.

falcor84 322 days ago |

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?

ccarnino 322 days ago | |

To guarantee that it does not illuminate and stays on track, I pass the relevant chapters in the context window, I pass the topics to cover, the ones already covered and the latest messages exchanged. So highly relevant content as input and a refined prompt do the trick.

falcor84 322 days ago | | |

But context is only additive. You can give it the book content, but I don't think there's anything you can do to prevent it from bringing in unrelated info, unless you have a separate non-AI layer (e.g. connected to the RAG) that gives the user the particular snippets from the book, but even then you can't control what the AI bring to its interpretation of these snippets.

One thing that I think could be nice is if you could have it always keep the book in view, and just scroll to the appropriate place it is referring to, and then somehow highlight the specific snippet it is currently referring to, so that I could visually verify that it's giving me "grounded" information. Does your system do something like that?

icedchai 322 days ago |

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.

ccarnino 322 days ago | |

I used to read half an hour before going to sleep and an hour on the commute. Now in the eve I have zero will and I feel I get carsick on the commute... I even struggle with articles... This conversations seems to be the only thing that works for me lately.

fasthands9 322 days ago |

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.

ccarnino 322 days ago | |

Yes, unless it's diagnosed adhd, it's a skill that can be improved. There are serious exercises to train the attention, which help with reading attention. but they're not fun...

chistev 322 days ago |

Found your Reddit crosspost

https://old.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/1lo7r2u/unpop...

paulcole 322 days ago |

> 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.

ccarnino 322 days ago | |

I mean yes. It can be rewired back. But I think twitter (specifically for me) is required for my industry. I try to limit it to 30 min a day, but still I cannot cut it completely.

There are concentration exercises that can be done, but they are demanding...

paulcole 322 days ago | | |

> There are concentration exercises that can be done, but they are demanding...

Well you get to decide what you dislike more, having a terrible attention span or doing demanding concentration exercises.

PaulHoule 322 days ago | |

... and if you read to the end they seem to be producing yet another AI summarizer that nobody wants despite Big Tech shoving it down our throats and two or three "Show HN(s)" a day... Which this post should have been.

msgodel 322 days ago |

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.