Why Reading Feels So Hard Now
6/26/202647 min
Do you wish you could read more books? You’re not alone. These days, fewer people are reading for pleasure, and even those who do tend to struggle with distractions. Is this a literacy crisis, or has our attention just been warped? And what can we do?
In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” John Paul Brammer joins Charlie Warzel to talk about how he managed to ditch the allure of his screens and social media and rewild his attention. This is a conversation about how to reignite your curiosity, what deep reading does to your mind, and how anyone can learn to love to read again.
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This episode of “Galaxy Brain” was produced by Renee Klahr and engineered by Miguel Carrascal. Our theme is by Rob Smierciak. Hadley Robinson is our senior supervising producer. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsKarla Lalli0:00
I'm Carla Lalli, cookbook author and snack enthusiast. Do you have a sweet tooth? Check out Sweets Unwrapped, a podcast from Ferrero and Atlantic Rethink, The Atlantic's creative marketing studio. Together, we're celebrating the traditions that make life sweet. Tune in now.
Charlie Warzel· Host0:17
[dramatic music] I see you.
Speaker 30:20
Avatar: Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Yeah. Go, go, go, go. A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.
Charlie Warzel· Host0:30
This is the only pure thing in this world.
Speaker 30:33
Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick. Avatar: Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13.
John Paul Brammer· Guest0:48
I was just such a dire case of brain being addled by social media that I knew on, like, a sort of intuition level that I needed to find a way to make myself hungry for books.
Charlie Warzel· Host1:00
Right.
John Paul Brammer· Guest1:00
Because I knew that if I wasn't hungry for them, it was simply not gonna happen. It's like giving yourself homework as an adult. As long as the option is there to not do it, you probably just won't do it.
Charlie Warzel· Host1:10
[upbeat music] I'm Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today we're gonna talk about rewilding our attention and maybe, just maybe, getting a jumpstart on the summer reading lists. Outside of hosting this podcast, I'm a writer. And as a writer, I've often harbored a