this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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How do I read? [Serious] (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 days ago by lobaa@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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OK the title is a joke but the question is serious. A bit of backstory:

My parents failed to make me love books, because they also introduced me to a PlayStation 2, and I decided that I like playing vidya games a lot more than reading stuff. School didn't make me love books either because the literature they force you to read in my curriculum, is, in my opinion, better suited for adult reading.

Fast forward to now, I am a freshman in a prestigious university, but it turns out that it requires me to read a lot of stuff, but I don't really have enough willpower to sit through academic literature for more than an hour a day. And the fact I'm noticeably behind my peers in amount of books read makes me feel like I don't belong.

So my question is how to learn to love reading books, get immersed or enter flow state or whatever, and also retain information? Is it some kind of talent or superpower? I know a few of my peers who don't stop reading books and seem to not distract themselves with tiktoks and video games, and attend optional lectures in their free time which is kind of insane to me, but I respect it a lot and want to become like them.

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[–] MeetMeAtTheMovies@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My partner is a professor and has always preached 2 things about academic reading:

  1. Skimming (you get assigned so much reading that it would take up most of your waking hours to thoroughly read and consider every single word
  2. Annotating (this gives your reading purpose and also helps you retain information)

It’s not your job to be someone who enjoys learning so much that you attend lectures in your free time and will engage with the material as if it were a hobby. Some people are obsessed with their topic area and they tend to become subject matter experts whether they do that through academia or not. Most people aren’t like that and it’s not your job to pretend that that’s you if it’s not. Just get good at what you do and get through your schoolwork.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

I need to learn the art of skimming. Having to complete multiple 500 page dry ass historical texts every month on top of writing is murder.