Last week, I watched a BookToker proudly announce she’d read 15 books in October alone. The comments were filled with readers either praising this achievement or sharing their own ambitious reading goals. Meanwhile, I’m still savoring the same book I started three weeks ago, and honestly? I’m starting to feel like a reading turtle in a hare’s world.
Social media seems to have exploded the pressure to consume books at lightning speed. Reading challenges push us to hit number goals, BookTok tells us we’re “behind” on the latest releases, and GoodReads reminds us we’re “2 books behind schedule.” It’s like we’ve turned reading – one of life’s great pleasures – into a competitive sport.
What happened to getting lost in a single paragraph? To re-reading beautiful sentences just to let them sink in? To sitting with a book for weeks, letting its ideas flow through your daily life?
Have we sacrificed depth for quantity in our rush to keep up with social media’s reading pace? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
