Thread by @satya_kalluri

Reduced reading span is a hazard for knowledge seekers. We gotta fix it right away. Here’s my thoughts and story. 👇🧵

RIL (Read It Later) has cut short our reading-span and we became skip-junkies. We are loosing out on knowledge and have become merely good-content-collectors, that’s all.

A page in a book was earmarked to indicate “read again later” to gain different/more perspective, be motivated again.

Browser Bookmarks were intended to save favourite, important and frequently-accessed websites/pages.

Up until here, the purpose of Bookmarking was always “revisit”, So, bookmarking was a a suggested habit.

Social media Information overload led to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). The anxiety of how good that next post could be tricked readers into distraction from what’s read now.

10% into the article (15 seconds) and voila - adrenaline and cortisol kicks in. This blog, this video, this thread is of the past. Our brains urge to move on because there’s gold further down in the timeline. 🤦🏼

We became headline and first-paragraph readers. More of TimeLine-skimmers and skip-junkies than focused and ardent readers. That’s a massive negative shift in #Reading habits.

And to save from the shame, we convinced ourselves into “Read it Later”. It’s not “Read again later”, it’s “Hopefully finish it in lifetime”.

Anything without a threshold is always harmful. Our RIL lists have become infinite. Here’s how our reading habit has evolved into:
• Get inspired by the head line
• Read few seconds
• Bookmark with aspiration to read it later
• Forget it.
• Repeat

How to fix this? Habits, good habits. I’ve stopped distracting notifications and limited my urge to skim through timeline. I convinced myself, I’m actually missing out MORE by not reading through one article fully than not browsing the entire timeline/catalog.

I’ve started prioritising my @Pocket list than social media timelines.
“0 unread articles” is as important as “0 inbox”.

Keep a threshold on how many articles I bookmark for later read. I won’t cross 10, I won’t let it pile up.

My average reading span has increased multi fold. I’m back into reading long articles, and no more a skip junkie.

I’m hoping - this helps you become a better reader than being a skip junkie. You’ll have better knowledge than a headline consumer..

If this helped you, please consider Retweeting the first tweet and help your friends become good readers too.

Cheers 🥂

How do you keep your reading intact? Share tips and insights with peers. Let’s evolve together.