Adrift in the Endless Scroll – Till a Simple Ritual Renewed My Passion for Reading

As a child, I consumed novels until my eyes blurred. Once my exams came around, I demonstrated the endurance of a monk, studying for lengthy periods without a break. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for intense concentration fade into infinite browsing on my device. My attention span now shrinks like a slug at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for enjoyment feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who creates content for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that made me sad. I aimed to restore that cognitive flexibility, to stop the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest vow: every time I encountered a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and record it. Not a thing fancy, no leather-bound journal or stylish pen. Just a running list kept, ironically, on my phone. Each week, I’d spend a few minutes reviewing the list back in an attempt to lodge the word into my memory.

The record now spans almost twenty sheets, and this small habit has been quietly transformative. The benefit is less about peacocking with uncommon adjectives – which, let’s face it, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I look up and note a word, I feel a slight stretch, as though some neglected part of my mind is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in dialogue, the very act of noticing, documenting and reviewing it interrupts the slide into passive, superficial attention.

There is also a diary-keeping element to it – it acts as something of a journal, a record of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been hearing.

Not that it’s an easy routine to keep up. It is frequently very inconvenient. If I’m reading on the tube, I have to pause mid-paragraph, pull out my device and enter “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to bump the person pressed against me. It can slow my pace to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much kinder). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), conscientiously browsing through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m preparing for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate maybe five percent of these terms into my everyday conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “Lugubrious” as well. But most of them remain like museum pieces – appreciated and catalogued but rarely used.

Still, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I find myself reaching less frequently for the same tired selection of adjectives, and more often for something exact and muscular. Rarely are more satisfying than unearthing the exact word you were searching for – like finding the missing component that locks the image into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our attention with relentless effectiveness, it feels rebellious to use my own as a instrument for deliberate thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d forfeited – the joy of exercising a intellect that, after years of lazy scrolling, is at last waking up again.