Have you ever had a long period in your adult life when you stopped reading books?

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

For whatever reason (health issues, family concerns, lack of interest, lack of time and so on). By a long period I mean at least a year, not days/weeks/months (as most people have probably had those).

This is something I've read in several posts here, but never experienced myself. For as long as I remember, I've always read books. At most there have been a couple of days I didn't read, but not longer. But then I've lived a quiet life and have no family or kids.

Gosh no. Probably the longest might be a day or two and even then, I've almost certainly read SOMETHING, even if it's just a news article. Not reading in an actual book on a given day happens from time to time, I get busy with projects. I don't think I read a lot when I had Covid for the first time last year, as I was tired and slept mostly and Covid also got into my eyes, which was painful. There've been a couple times pre-ereader device where I was recovering from surgery in the hospital and wasn't reading, but those didn't lasted long.

E-readers only made it easier to pick up and read. I've been known to haul a reader out of my purse while standing in line at the grocery store. Or sitting in a car wash. I often grab a bit of reading even when only for a very few minutes.

Reading feels like breathing to me, it's hard to imagine not doing it regularly, even as I approach the age where one never knows about that.

[Frogm4n]

I've read on and off for years, but there wasn't usually more than a week gap at the longest. Then, I came down with multiple rounds of COVID-19 and have lasting effects including brain fog. At times I simply can not read without constantly losing my place on the page or becoming suddenly exhausted. There's something about long form that is especially taxing, be it books or articles or movies or a TV series. It's quite a contrast in that long form reading is difficult, but random things like forums, short form news, social media, etc. aren't especially taxing.

On good stretches I can read and read and burn through a few books. If I get too much mental or health stress then I'm only going to be good enough to watch YouTube videos and space out. I'm very sure I've lost IQ points from it, but I get to wait for a(n upcoming) medical evaluation to confirm how poorly it's gotten. I've started using a phrase that sounds silly, but is effective at communicating a bad day: "Sorry, I couldn't brain enough to get X done today."

What I find also interesting is that I was a tutor for adult students with learning disabilities/TBI when I was in college. I'm now experiencing exactly what some of those people were.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Frogm4n

I've read on and off for years, but there wasn't usually more than a week gap at the longest. Then, I came down with multiple rounds of COVID-19 and have lasting effects including brain fog. At times I simply can not read without constantly losing my place on the page or becoming suddenly exhausted. There's something about long form reading that is especially taxing, be it books or articles or movies. It's quite a contrast in that long form reading is difficult, but random things like forums, short form news, social media, etc. aren't especially taxing.

On good stretches I can read and read and burn through a few books. If I get too much mental or health stress then I'm only going to be good enough to watch YouTube videos and space out. I'm very sure I've lost IQ points from it, but I get to wait for a(n upcoming) medical evaluation to confirm how poorly it's gotten. I've started using a phrase that sounds silly, but is effective at communicating a bad day: "Sorry, I couldn't brain enough to get X done today."

What I find also interesting is that I was a tutor for adult students with learning disabilities/TBI when I was in college. I'm now experiencing exactly what some of those people were.

That's very interesting. I have an acquaintance who's going through perimenopause with its classical symptoms (hot flashes etc.) and she has also described such a brain fog. Her solution was to turn to audiobooks instead of written text.

I'm (presumably) going through perimenopause as well (I don't have any particular physical symptoms, though, so it's only a guess based on my age) and while I'm not experiencing a brain fog, exactly, my ability to focus for long periods has taken a considerable hit in recent years. I can still focus, but for shorter periods than I could before; I get impatient, put my ereader aside and do something else, then pick the reader up again. Oh, I miss the times when I could read for 10 hours nonstop! The only consolation is that hopefully this is not permanent. Audiobooks are not a solution for me, as I don't enjoy listening.

[Tarana]

Yes, had a traumatic brain injury and had to relearn how to read. Couldn't get any help. So 6-7 years of no reading. It's not that I couldn't read the words, but comprehension didn't work right. Still have trouble with it, but have learned to just avoid those books with complex plots or too many characters.

[Katja_hbg]

I am reading a lot every day since I am a child. But I stopped for about 5 years.

It seem I felt too much with the protagonist and become sad or angry when he/she did something which I could not agree. So I stopped reading which was realy not easy but after some months I felt better. After several years I start reading again. Being older I understand that novels are only imagination of the author and I can enjoy them or stop that book.

[ekbell]

As far as I can remember I haven't gone a day without reading but it hasn't always been in the form of books. There have been points where I just read stuff from the internet, instead of formally published books.

Even now I read a lot more fiction in the form of free stuff off the internet (both original works and fanworks) then I do published fiction. On the other hand my consumption of published non-fiction has increased immensely as I've aged, partly due to the fact that I can find much more of it at accessible prices.

[PeterT]

Does reading the back of the cereal box count?

[j.p.s]

^ I assume books means, well, books. I did massive reading of trade magazines and cereal boxes during my decades of book non-reading.

[Sirtel]

Yes, books. I'm assuming the situation where an adult human reads literally not a single word in any form for at least a year is very, very rare (mostly due to a serious physical or mental disability or illness).

Audiobooks do count, however.

[DrNefario]

I wax and wane on most of my hobbies, as they steal time from each other - I haven't played any videogames this month, for instance - but reading has always been a constant. I kind of have ringfenced reading time - I read every night when I go to bed - and it's been something I have always done. I'm fairly sure I even used to read when I rolled in drunk at 2am when I was young enough to do that. I probably didn't take much in.

I've probably missed the odd day here and there, but I've never had a sustained period where I didn't read, presumably since I learned how.

[artig]

After 70-odd years of predominantly non-fiction book reading I have found in the last few years that I'm only reading newspapers and articles of interest in magazines such as The Atlantic, New Scientist, NZ Listener, The Economist, The New Yorker, Wired, Philosophy Now, and 25 or so others. All of them courtesy of Readly and Magzter Gold subscriptions and PressReader from the local library. I have purchased books and ebooks in recent years, but only technical books used for reference, so I can't claim to have read any books for about 4 years now. However I'm spending more time reading now than in my book-reading days.

[Alfirin]

I'd say yes.
I've got mental health issues and before it gets stable(-ish) there was some periods of time with bigger worries. I was at the university (mathematics) at the time and I remember I couldn't concentrate on basic algebra textbook. At the end of the paragraph I had forgotten the beginning, which happened during a period of stress.

So books... at the time, forget it. I was reading during teenage years teenage books.

After that there was a long pause until summer 2014 when I picked up the last Stephen King out because I was bored and knew the name but had never read this author.
Now I guess I've read half of his work maybe
Still, there are periods of time when I can read a lot (a few books per week) and then nothing during two month when I'm down.

[leebase]

That's an interesting question. I think i may have stopped reading novels in collage and afterward until I go married (at 25). I think I was just too busy. But I may be having faulty memory of 30+ years ago.

[iNeedScissors61!]

I went 5 years without reading a book from the time after my first child was born. Now that he is much older, I have more time to myself to actually read.

[ZodWallop]

I seem to remember that I mostly stopped reading during my early twenties when I first moved out on my own. I was a young, single person in Southern California and had other things on my mind for a couple of years.