Adrift in the Infinite Scroll – Till a Small Practice Restored My Passion for Books

As a youngster, I consumed novels until my vision blurred. Once my GCSEs came around, I demonstrated the stamina of a ascetic, studying for hours without a break. But in lately, I’ve watched that capacity for intense concentration dissolve into endless scrolling on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the tap of a thumb. Engaging with books for pleasure feels less like sustenance 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 mental elasticity, to stop the mental decline.

So, about a year ago, I made a modest vow: every time I came across a term I didn’t know – whether in a novel, an article, or an overheard discussion – I would look it up and record it. Nothing elaborate, no elegant notebook or stylish pen. Just a ongoing record maintained, amusingly, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few minutes reading the collection back in an effort to imprint the word into my memory.

The list now covers almost twenty sheets, and this tiny habit has been subtly transformative. The payoff is less about showing off with uncommon adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the cognitive exercise of the practice. Each time I search for and note a term, I feel a faint expansion, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “eidolon” in conversation, the very act of noticing, logging and reviewing it breaks the drift into passive, semi-skimmed focus.

Additionally, there's a diary-keeping aspect to it – it acts as something of a journal, a log of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been thinking about and who I’ve been listening to.

Not that it’s an simple routine to keep up. It is often very inconvenient. If I’m engaged on the subway, I have to stop mid-paragraph, pull out my device and type “millennialism” into my digital document while trying not to elbow the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a frustrating crawl. (The Kindle, with its built-in dictionary, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I often neglect to do), conscientiously scrolling through my growing vocabulary collection like I’m studying for a word test.

Realistically, I incorporate maybe five percent of these words into my daily speech. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” as well. But most of them remain like exhibits – admired and catalogued but rarely handled.

Nevertheless, it’s rendered my mind much keener. I find myself turning less often for the same overused handful of adjectives, and more frequently for something precise and muscular. Rarely are more gratifying than discovering the exact term you were searching for – like finding the lost component that snaps the picture into position.

At a time when our gadgets siphon off our focus with merciless efficiency, it feels subversive to use my own as a tool for slow thought. And it has restored to me something I feared I’d lost – the pleasure of engaging a mind that, after years of slack browsing, is finally stirring again.