Bookstagram Made Me Hate Reading

I’ve loved reading ever since I was little. It all started with my mum and dad reading to me before bed. My dad read from a red, hardcover book about girls in a boarding school — I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was called though. And neither can he. My mum read to me Harry Potter. My passion for reading kept growing all through school and into my worklife. That was when I found a little, growing community on Instagram. This little pocket of the social media app was called Bookstagram.

Books + Instagram = Bookstagram. That equation is the easiest way I can describe what Bookstagram is. It’s a community of people who all have a love for reading and wish to share the books they’re consuming. Opinions are shared, as are fictional crushes, and fandoms go wild. I can’t remember the exact year I joined Bookstagram but I believe it was around 2016. For the first couple of years I enjoyed it. My favourite part was setting up photographs and then editing them. All the photos on my profile fit an aesthetic, as was common in the Bookstagram community. This, however, would later become toxic. You’d spend weeks trying to perfect your profile, then you’d hate it, then you’d change it. It was a never-ending cycle.

I spent a lot of time on Instagram, posting content and scrolling. But I soon came to realise that not a lot of time was actually spent reading. I was focused more on taking photos and videos in order to get likes and follows. It all became about the numbers. And in order to get the numbers, you had to a) be posting consistently, and b) be posting what was trending. This meant, instead of reading books I wanted to read, I had to read books that were popular at the time. This was the beginning of the downfall. I wasn’t enjoying reading anymore, I was doing it so that I could ‘get the numbers’. I spent money, too much of it, on books I didn’t really want. I’ve since donated them all to charity in a hopes that someone else will find joy in them.

Realising my own experience with Bookstagram had become toxic, I swiftly departed. Left before anyone had time to blink. I then took a year break from reading, and it was seriously needed. When I finally picked up a book again it was because I wanted to, and I haven’t stopped reading since. But more importantly, my love for reading has been rekindled. I’m currently consuming Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and it’s been an intriguing delight to read, so far. I’m allowing myself to read slower and savour each sentence and word; something I couldn’t do on Bookstagram as it was always a competition to see how many books one could read in a month.

Living slowly has been my goal since last January and I’m pleased to say I’m keeping up with it. It’s been refreshing taking time with my hobbies and allowing my mind time to breathe. Let me know if you were, or still are, part of the Bookstagram community.