Help, I can't read books anymore

I've been a reader for as long as I can remember. I've always read a lot. And I keep reading. But for a few years now, binge-watching the internet has caused a side effect that I still can't explain very well: I can no longer read books.

Now, every time I pick up a book in my hands, I get tired quickly. If the text doesn’t “pack” right away, it takes a lot of effort to continue reading. And it’s not just with the paper book. The same thing happens with the digital book. It has nothing to do with the type of support. It has to do with the length of the text.

This situation has left me distressed. Did I unlearn how to read? Have I become lazy? Could it be that now I can only read short things and, preferably, with some links? I don't think so. In fact, I've never read as much as I do now. I spend the whole day reading. But I read shards, fragments.

Yes, the effect is known and was predicted years ago.

The record comes out, the music comes in.
The film comes out, the series comes in.
The series is out, the YouTube short is in.
Out comes the bar table, in comes Facebook.
The book comes out, the post, the article comes in.

Everything that was consumed in family packages, in tablets, is now consumed in M&M's format.

But why can't I read books anymore?

We already knew this was happening a long time ago. But what I hadn't yet felt was that this snack culture phenomenon would TAKE something away from me and PREVENT me from reading long texts. Because it's one thing for you to realize that there is a new way of reading (circular and non-linear) and start using it.

Another thing is that you lose your ability to concentrate.

I wanted to add the new way, but I didn't want to lose the old way.

The internet has caused me, and perhaps you, a decrease in attention, an effect similar to that of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD). Not that this difficulty concentrating is ADHD (which is neuro-biological and has genetic causes), but it has this characteristic in common. In fact, the ADHD diagnostic parameters themselves have been frequently revised precisely because of this change in behavior, especially in schools.

I've tried everything, I looked for those cool fictions, full of escapism, with trips to distant places, things that I devoured during my adolescence... but 10 minutes later what escapes is my attention.

I keep going back to the beginning of the paragraph, you know? I couldn't even finish Steve Jobs' biography.

I keep repeating to the author “go on, I understand, tell me straight away, stop messing around”.

This is another symptom: I became more factual and I easily lose patience with that phase of contextualization and involvement with the characters.

My Kindle currently has the ridiculous mark of 18 books started.

I'm doing the same thing with them that I do with the songs on my iPhone, which inevitably end up skipping after a few seconds (apart from Zappa's, which fortunately I still hear every note with pleasure until the end). Wow, I listened to those entire Pink Floyd albums… now that would be unimaginable.

I know this all sounds like something bad, but I'm not even sure about that.

Human civilization already went through this long before the internet, for example when we moved from exclusively oral communication and added writing. Putting content in writing freed our memory and allowed for much longer and more precise texts. Now we're back to short, but even more precise content. And, if one day we develop telepathy, words will certainly seem too inefficient. Different ways of exchanging content, stories.

Anyway, a somewhat conclusive post, more of a rant, to see if there are more people in this boat.

I'm scared that I won't be able to read an entire book anymore.