Driven to Distraction
My recent struggle with being a distracted reader
I used to read over 100 books a year. I would finish one book and move on to the next with no need for downtime. I would sometimes read one book and listen to a second one while I was driving. Reading was my break from real life and was very important to my mental health.
I noticed a drastic change when we were in the midst of the Covid lockdowns. I thought being a reader would make the lockdown a little easier. I even had a job where I could justify reading as work time. It should have been perfect. Instead, I found it harder and harder to focus on a book. I would get a book here and there that would hold my interest and keep me reading, but they became fewer and farther between.
I managed 71 books in 2020. Not a bad number, but way below my norm. Things got a little better in 2021. I read 89 books. Up from before, but down from my pre-lockdown numbers. 2022 is not going well at the moment. I set my goal on Goodreads at 75 books for the year and I’m already 4 behind schedule. Some of that can be attributed to the books I have chosen to read. I’ve read a couple of larger books and I’ve joined a book club where someone else is picking books for me to read. I am struggling with a book club book right now.
Most of it though still stems from this new problem of finding it harder to focus when reading. I read a few pages and my mind starts to drift. I might start thinking about something I need to do. My anxiety might creep in to remind me of the things that I should worry about.
These thoughts take me away from the story and it becomes too easy to switch from my book to things that take little concentration:
- Scroll through Twitter
- Scroll through Facebook
- Watch dumb videos on Tik Tok
- Play a game on my Ipad
- Watch cooking shows on Food Network
With all of that at my fingertips, it is easier and easier for me to move away from reading. The problem, though, is that none of the above gives me the mental health boost that reading did. In some cases, it does the opposite.
This is starting to creep into my writing life as well. My brain tells me everything I’m writing is garbage and no one will ever read it. It’s a waste of time, so why not waste my time with something like Tik Tok instead? I just took a break from this paragraph to look at my email and read a random article I saw on Twitter. It’s a problem.
Has anyone else noticed a change in focus since the lockdown? Has anyone found a way to combat it?
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