I feel this so hard, Hana. I used to read voraciously when I was younger, and then my twenties and early thirties happened, with all the life that comes with the years, and it just stopped. When I picked it back up only a couple of years ago, I was honestly shocked at how hard it was, like my brain had lost a skill I assumed was permanent. The way you touch on reading as a muscle makes so much sense in hindsight. It really does feel like trying to run again after years of not moving. Wish I'd had this protocol back then instead of just white-knuckling my way through it. Incredibly useful advice here!
Thanks so much, Quy! So glad it it can be of service. I myself fall into the "constantly reaching for phone" camp - that's what gave me the idea for this. And what am I reaching for, even?? I feel like so many of us are eager to get back to the reading skills of our youth...maybe we need to start a reading bootcamp! 😊
Yesss! Sign me up lol. I'm also the type of reader to just randomly pause in the middle of a paragraph to do something else or reach for something else. I've caught myself so many times too. Glad I'm not alone there.
Also random, but have you noticed how many classics are getting the live-action treatment lately: Little House on the Prairie, Lord of the Flies on Netflix? Feels like there's a whole cultural nudge back toward reading in disguise.
Not alone in the slightest. Welcome to the “we should know better” club lol…we are legion!
And YES, I’ve been noticing this too! I think Netflix even has a book category of some kind now, putting all of this together. I wonder if it speaks more to a dearth of original idea (in that they’re turning to time-tested classics with a built-in audience) OR that we now have the production quality available to really bring these books to life. Maybe it’s both? I think out of all of that crop, my most favorite adaptation so far has been One Hundred Years of Solitude. Just absolute poetic cinema.
I'll have to check it out! I actually never read that. I think it's a sign that there's less reading of the classics nowadays, and that series and movies are becoming another method to bring stories to the masses, kind of like what Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings did (two faves of mine). In a way, I think these adaptations can actually bring more readers back to the original stuff, not away from it.
I must admit that for me this article was very difficult to focus on - all the embedded hyperlinks were so distracting! It's like the mobile phone notifications :-)
Thank you for that interesting point, Pradeep! This one was particularly resource-rich, and I can see where you're coming from. I've been toying with the idea of including citations at the end instead of hyperlinking resources throughout the piece - would that make for an better reading experience?
Hana, why did you hide my previous comment? Are people not allowed to ask you about AI-assisted writing? It's one thing for us to have differences of opinion on whether it's a legitimate tool, but trying to bury questions and conceal information is pretty extreme.
Hi Severine! I was surprised to see this comment because I didn't hide anything, but after doing some digging I see your original post was automatically hidden by Substack for some reason. Yes, people are of course allowed to ask about AI-assisted writing. From my standpoint, it would be disingenuous of me to talk about AI literacy and how to use AI in helping us become smarter without actually using AI myself. Where it assists me is as a researcher and editor in my process - I'm often arguing with the AI about the points I'm trying to make, and it helps me see where my reasoning could be strengthened. I can understand how you might feel there's a simple prompt-to-publish pipeline, but that's not at all the case with the level of deep thinking and work that I do. To be honest, it feels grossly unfair of you to say that I'm "taking shortcuts" in your original post when you couldn't possibly see how I labor over every article for at least 12-15 hours...and some of the thornier ones, even longer. Anyone who calls using AI a shortcut demonstrates a perspective that they might not actually know how to use AI well. The ideas, vision, argument, thesis, words, tone, authorship - all of it is mine. You don't have to read my posts if you don't like the fact that AI is a part of my process (and again, as someone who teaches AI literacy, it would be false if it wasn't), but you also don't have to discredit the hours and hours of intellectual and physical labor that I do.
Thanks for the reply! I also didn't know that automatic comment modifications were something that happened on SubStack. After I first made my original comment, it did initially display normally, so I assumed you did it.
To be clear, I am not saying that using AI as part of the research and preparation process is a problem necessarily. I think AI has a place when used well, and can be used to support and enhance learning and make more ambitious work possible. But...I also think it can be used as a shortcut that churns out just-okay pablum at volume while atrophying the ability to think critically and engage in hard work without hand-holding. I have to assume you agree about the huge benefit/risk spread between intelligent and unsophisticated/lazy AI usgae, or you wouldn't be writing posts about how to use it well. I think we're actually on the same page here.
So naturally, yes, I think it depends heavily on how it's used, the tasks it's entrusted with, and the preservation of the separation of research support and tool usage from true authorship, analysis, and decision-making. I also think transparency is very important, and I value when authors are open and honest about how they use AI and why.
My red line personally is with writing, which I do think should be completely done by the author even if the research was AI-assisted. Obviously, my standards are my own and don't necessarily apply to anyone else, but that's my personal view. I want to hear an author's ideas and perspectives, and I don't feel like that truly happens if there's an AI entrusted with any of the writing, or is even given too much power in editing beyond fixing typos and other true errors.
In case you're curious what my original comment was based on: first, your posts sometimes read to me as having a voice extremely similar to Claude (which I use a great deal at work), right down to various turns of phrase and stylistic tics. If this is the result of editing support or developing your argumentation through back-and-forth with AI, fair enough, but to the extent that you're interested in user feedback, you now have one data point that such techniques are showing up in your writing style.
Second, as I mentioned, I ran the new SubStack AI-detection tool, and it said 100% AI-written (not AI-assisted, which is another possible finding, but AI-authored). If that was an error, then you should probably look into that with SubStack, as I am sure I will not be the last to run the analysis tool on one of your posts.
Obviously, the reason I am following you at all is that I find the topics you cover interesting and worth spending time on. I just also feel very strongly about supporting human writers. If you'd be willing to discuss your process in more detail and disclose what roles AI does/doesn't play in your work, perhaps that would be a good post on its own.
I didn’t steal this idea from anyone else, as reading programs have been a part of a librarian’s toolkit for decades. To be honest, I had never even heard of Naomi until she posted a comment the other day (would checking my URL history prove it to you?). And no, I did not write this entire article with an AI prompt but rather an original idea I had about wanting to read more seriously. I also find it astonishing that it’s incomprehensible to some people that others might arrive at similar ideas as themselves - the narcissism required to claim ownership over such a thing is wild. Ma’am, where are YOUR morals to spread such nastiness and baseless accusations? I truly never understand people who take the time to spout such vitriol! I’m just a librarian who wants to help people read, and here you are with such ugliness. Sigh.
Hana, it doesn't matter if you used AI, Ai is there to improve our lives. I have always wanted to be a good writer but disvovered I couldn't. So I enjoyed your article, and keep generating more, whether you write them or not. They are good.
Great post! I read “Reader, Come Home” this summer and have been thinking about it daily since. I appreciate your perspective and always get excited when something new pops up from you!
Very useful Hana, thank you. I also appreciate your writing in fully developed paragraphs rather than the list of short sentences style which seems to be what some think we want to see.
This is beautifully argued article. The finding that does the most work here is the one where screen readers overrated how much they'd absorbed, because it explains why the problem resists willpower.
The faculty you'd use to notice your comprehension slipping is the same one being fooled, so the deficit hides inside the feeling that you're fine. That reframes your method-over-motivation point: it isn't that people won't try, it's that the ordinary self-check is compromised, and a structure that measures minutes gives you the external signal your own judgment can't.
I've been doing a version of this myself on my own the past couple of months. I've known for years that if I'm reading anything where I need to flip back and forth, check footnotes, etc. - my research writing - I need to be reading from paper; online reading of anything longer than a couple pages just doesn't work for me. I even print out hardcopies of journal articles. Light fiction is ok on an e-reader, but I still prefer paper.
But what I've missed the last ten years or so is fiction! I never gave it up altogether, but considering I used to have a book-a-day habit I'd lost a lot of my capacity. So the last couple of months I've been picking new fantasy and sci-fi that I haven't read, and taking the last hour before bed as my reading time each night. It took several weeks but I'm able to focus much longer now . . . and I'm giving myself a good half-day each weekend as well for longer stretches. I'm up to a solid book a week now, on top of my news sources, and I'm feeling a lot better about myself.
The other benefit is that reading a printed book before bed gets me off my device and as a result I'm sleeping better - which also means I'm waking up more alert and refreshed in the morning.
I think I’m going to do this but due to many limitations, most of my reading is on a kindle on my phone. I do have my phone set to do not disturb mostly all day and I don’t use social media outside of substack. I also keep a book journal on obsidian. Downloading your PDFs now and gonna experiment!
Excellent essay! I’ve been a lifelong voracious reader (thanks mom) but after experiencing a trauma a year and a half ago, my ability to read was blocked. I was in a state you described in the number one example. Initially, I resorted to audio books. It’s only been in the last two months that, after extensive therapy, I’ve been able to start reading again. The method you describe is very similar to the way I rebuilt my ability to read with focus and comprehension. I started with very short sessions on topics that appeal to me. Slowly, the duration has been expanding. I’m still working on getting back to the marathon level ability I once had, but it feels so good to be able to enjoy reading again.
I do agree with you that scrolling on social media has decimated the ability to read deeply. Thank you for sharing these techniques. I sincerely believe that the ability to read with depth and critical thinking is needed now, more than ever before.
Oh, how I needed this! I'm an older, formerly voracious, passionate reader, who now struggles. I blame much of my difficulty on the generalized anxiety of the early pandemic years, and now, by the chaos of our current situation. I'm going to try to use your method (Track 1) to regain custody of my focus and take back my pleasure and enrichment. Thank you!
Hello Lee, just after your first paragraph, I had already fallen in love with the narrative. I have downloaded a lot of books on my phone, novels, mags, articles, offline. I haven't started. But your article has motivated me to begin
I feel this so hard, Hana. I used to read voraciously when I was younger, and then my twenties and early thirties happened, with all the life that comes with the years, and it just stopped. When I picked it back up only a couple of years ago, I was honestly shocked at how hard it was, like my brain had lost a skill I assumed was permanent. The way you touch on reading as a muscle makes so much sense in hindsight. It really does feel like trying to run again after years of not moving. Wish I'd had this protocol back then instead of just white-knuckling my way through it. Incredibly useful advice here!
Thanks so much, Quy! So glad it it can be of service. I myself fall into the "constantly reaching for phone" camp - that's what gave me the idea for this. And what am I reaching for, even?? I feel like so many of us are eager to get back to the reading skills of our youth...maybe we need to start a reading bootcamp! 😊
Yesss! Sign me up lol. I'm also the type of reader to just randomly pause in the middle of a paragraph to do something else or reach for something else. I've caught myself so many times too. Glad I'm not alone there.
Also random, but have you noticed how many classics are getting the live-action treatment lately: Little House on the Prairie, Lord of the Flies on Netflix? Feels like there's a whole cultural nudge back toward reading in disguise.
Not alone in the slightest. Welcome to the “we should know better” club lol…we are legion!
And YES, I’ve been noticing this too! I think Netflix even has a book category of some kind now, putting all of this together. I wonder if it speaks more to a dearth of original idea (in that they’re turning to time-tested classics with a built-in audience) OR that we now have the production quality available to really bring these books to life. Maybe it’s both? I think out of all of that crop, my most favorite adaptation so far has been One Hundred Years of Solitude. Just absolute poetic cinema.
I'll have to check it out! I actually never read that. I think it's a sign that there's less reading of the classics nowadays, and that series and movies are becoming another method to bring stories to the masses, kind of like what Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings did (two faves of mine). In a way, I think these adaptations can actually bring more readers back to the original stuff, not away from it.
Very sensible and reasonable!
I must admit that for me this article was very difficult to focus on - all the embedded hyperlinks were so distracting! It's like the mobile phone notifications :-)
Thank you for that interesting point, Pradeep! This one was particularly resource-rich, and I can see where you're coming from. I've been toying with the idea of including citations at the end instead of hyperlinking resources throughout the piece - would that make for an better reading experience?
TBH I am not sure really - there is merit to both the ideas. I for one can’t resist the idea of digging deeper immediately, but that is me :)
I'm the same, haha, hence the hyperlinks! I want as much information as immediately as possible
True education trains the mind to recognize greatness before fashion tells it what to admire.
Hana, why did you hide my previous comment? Are people not allowed to ask you about AI-assisted writing? It's one thing for us to have differences of opinion on whether it's a legitimate tool, but trying to bury questions and conceal information is pretty extreme.
Hi Severine! I was surprised to see this comment because I didn't hide anything, but after doing some digging I see your original post was automatically hidden by Substack for some reason. Yes, people are of course allowed to ask about AI-assisted writing. From my standpoint, it would be disingenuous of me to talk about AI literacy and how to use AI in helping us become smarter without actually using AI myself. Where it assists me is as a researcher and editor in my process - I'm often arguing with the AI about the points I'm trying to make, and it helps me see where my reasoning could be strengthened. I can understand how you might feel there's a simple prompt-to-publish pipeline, but that's not at all the case with the level of deep thinking and work that I do. To be honest, it feels grossly unfair of you to say that I'm "taking shortcuts" in your original post when you couldn't possibly see how I labor over every article for at least 12-15 hours...and some of the thornier ones, even longer. Anyone who calls using AI a shortcut demonstrates a perspective that they might not actually know how to use AI well. The ideas, vision, argument, thesis, words, tone, authorship - all of it is mine. You don't have to read my posts if you don't like the fact that AI is a part of my process (and again, as someone who teaches AI literacy, it would be false if it wasn't), but you also don't have to discredit the hours and hours of intellectual and physical labor that I do.
Thanks for the reply! I also didn't know that automatic comment modifications were something that happened on SubStack. After I first made my original comment, it did initially display normally, so I assumed you did it.
To be clear, I am not saying that using AI as part of the research and preparation process is a problem necessarily. I think AI has a place when used well, and can be used to support and enhance learning and make more ambitious work possible. But...I also think it can be used as a shortcut that churns out just-okay pablum at volume while atrophying the ability to think critically and engage in hard work without hand-holding. I have to assume you agree about the huge benefit/risk spread between intelligent and unsophisticated/lazy AI usgae, or you wouldn't be writing posts about how to use it well. I think we're actually on the same page here.
So naturally, yes, I think it depends heavily on how it's used, the tasks it's entrusted with, and the preservation of the separation of research support and tool usage from true authorship, analysis, and decision-making. I also think transparency is very important, and I value when authors are open and honest about how they use AI and why.
My red line personally is with writing, which I do think should be completely done by the author even if the research was AI-assisted. Obviously, my standards are my own and don't necessarily apply to anyone else, but that's my personal view. I want to hear an author's ideas and perspectives, and I don't feel like that truly happens if there's an AI entrusted with any of the writing, or is even given too much power in editing beyond fixing typos and other true errors.
In case you're curious what my original comment was based on: first, your posts sometimes read to me as having a voice extremely similar to Claude (which I use a great deal at work), right down to various turns of phrase and stylistic tics. If this is the result of editing support or developing your argumentation through back-and-forth with AI, fair enough, but to the extent that you're interested in user feedback, you now have one data point that such techniques are showing up in your writing style.
Second, as I mentioned, I ran the new SubStack AI-detection tool, and it said 100% AI-written (not AI-assisted, which is another possible finding, but AI-authored). If that was an error, then you should probably look into that with SubStack, as I am sure I will not be the last to run the analysis tool on one of your posts.
Obviously, the reason I am following you at all is that I find the topics you cover interesting and worth spending time on. I just also feel very strongly about supporting human writers. If you'd be willing to discuss your process in more detail and disclose what roles AI does/doesn't play in your work, perhaps that would be a good post on its own.
Thanks again for the response.
I didn’t steal this idea from anyone else, as reading programs have been a part of a librarian’s toolkit for decades. To be honest, I had never even heard of Naomi until she posted a comment the other day (would checking my URL history prove it to you?). And no, I did not write this entire article with an AI prompt but rather an original idea I had about wanting to read more seriously. I also find it astonishing that it’s incomprehensible to some people that others might arrive at similar ideas as themselves - the narcissism required to claim ownership over such a thing is wild. Ma’am, where are YOUR morals to spread such nastiness and baseless accusations? I truly never understand people who take the time to spout such vitriol! I’m just a librarian who wants to help people read, and here you are with such ugliness. Sigh.
Hana, it doesn't matter if you used AI, Ai is there to improve our lives. I have always wanted to be a good writer but disvovered I couldn't. So I enjoyed your article, and keep generating more, whether you write them or not. They are good.
Great post! I read “Reader, Come Home” this summer and have been thinking about it daily since. I appreciate your perspective and always get excited when something new pops up from you!
Very useful Hana, thank you. I also appreciate your writing in fully developed paragraphs rather than the list of short sentences style which seems to be what some think we want to see.
This is beautifully argued article. The finding that does the most work here is the one where screen readers overrated how much they'd absorbed, because it explains why the problem resists willpower.
The faculty you'd use to notice your comprehension slipping is the same one being fooled, so the deficit hides inside the feeling that you're fine. That reframes your method-over-motivation point: it isn't that people won't try, it's that the ordinary self-check is compromised, and a structure that measures minutes gives you the external signal your own judgment can't.
This is a wonderful essay. The irony is that we all are on Substack. Albeit more long form, it remains a social media platform.
I've been doing a version of this myself on my own the past couple of months. I've known for years that if I'm reading anything where I need to flip back and forth, check footnotes, etc. - my research writing - I need to be reading from paper; online reading of anything longer than a couple pages just doesn't work for me. I even print out hardcopies of journal articles. Light fiction is ok on an e-reader, but I still prefer paper.
But what I've missed the last ten years or so is fiction! I never gave it up altogether, but considering I used to have a book-a-day habit I'd lost a lot of my capacity. So the last couple of months I've been picking new fantasy and sci-fi that I haven't read, and taking the last hour before bed as my reading time each night. It took several weeks but I'm able to focus much longer now . . . and I'm giving myself a good half-day each weekend as well for longer stretches. I'm up to a solid book a week now, on top of my news sources, and I'm feeling a lot better about myself.
The other benefit is that reading a printed book before bed gets me off my device and as a result I'm sleeping better - which also means I'm waking up more alert and refreshed in the morning.
I think I’m going to do this but due to many limitations, most of my reading is on a kindle on my phone. I do have my phone set to do not disturb mostly all day and I don’t use social media outside of substack. I also keep a book journal on obsidian. Downloading your PDFs now and gonna experiment!
Excellent essay! I’ve been a lifelong voracious reader (thanks mom) but after experiencing a trauma a year and a half ago, my ability to read was blocked. I was in a state you described in the number one example. Initially, I resorted to audio books. It’s only been in the last two months that, after extensive therapy, I’ve been able to start reading again. The method you describe is very similar to the way I rebuilt my ability to read with focus and comprehension. I started with very short sessions on topics that appeal to me. Slowly, the duration has been expanding. I’m still working on getting back to the marathon level ability I once had, but it feels so good to be able to enjoy reading again.
I do agree with you that scrolling on social media has decimated the ability to read deeply. Thank you for sharing these techniques. I sincerely believe that the ability to read with depth and critical thinking is needed now, more than ever before.
Oh, how I needed this! I'm an older, formerly voracious, passionate reader, who now struggles. I blame much of my difficulty on the generalized anxiety of the early pandemic years, and now, by the chaos of our current situation. I'm going to try to use your method (Track 1) to regain custody of my focus and take back my pleasure and enrichment. Thank you!
Hana, your essays are my training ground!
I am writing a book and your essay is fodder for an exercise suggestion.
As always, thank you.
Hello Lee, just after your first paragraph, I had already fallen in love with the narrative. I have downloaded a lot of books on my phone, novels, mags, articles, offline. I haven't started. But your article has motivated me to begin