I Kicked My Screen Addiction And Fell Back In Love With Reading – Here's How
It's a refrain I hear so often, both among friends and on social media.
'I loved reading as a child,' former voracious bookworms wail, 'and now I can't finish a novella.'
I can't judge them – I am them. I used to tear through titles as a kid, ravenously reading through entire series of books in a week.
It did not feel good to realise that, like lapsed bibliophiles before me, my childhood habit had been replaced by short-form video and 'doom scrolling.'
A particularly damning Saturday this month saw me spend seven hours and twenty-seven actual minutes on TikTok (I am as mortified as you'd be). I was sick at the time, but that doesn't justify a 12+-hour screen day, does it?
Seeing that stat made me realise something needed to change. Namely, I needed to 1) touch grass and 2) turn page.
Speaking to BBC Science Focus, Dr Peter Etchells, an expert on the psychological effects of digital technology, had some good news for my beleaguered brain.
'To the best of my knowledge, there isn't any good science to support the idea that short videos are specifically or uniquely bad in terms of effects on the brain,' he said.
But that's only one half of the equation. There's not much proof it's good for me, either; while reading books has been linked to higher dementia defences, boosting confidence and self-esteem, and even living longer.
Personally, I've felt my ability to follow through with a chapter fade over the years while my capacity for hypnotically 'okay' clips became enormous.
In short, I'd had enough, and knew I had to rekindle my love for reading.
I am not joking when I say that last year's attempt to reconnect with reading started with George Eliot's notoriously lengthy Middlemarch.
This was, as instinct should have told me, a terrible idea. I thought my love for the author would help, but – as with running, or eating more fibre, or any good habit – starting small is key.
This time around, I started off with George Orwell's short stories, and I made a conscious effort to set myself time limits, too.
Twenty minutes before bed, I'd open the pages and settle into the story; over time, that became half an hour, and I began reading on my lunch break too.
It's crucial to pick a book you really enjoy, not just one you feel you 'should' read. Your child self wasn't looking to impress an imaginary audience of literary peers, after all – you probably just really liked Jacqueline Wilson.
Once I'd finished the shorter books, I got going on another, longer novel (Adam Bede, which is by George Eliot but is shorter than Middlemarch, as most books are).
The reading minutes shrank again at first; I went back to 20-minute, pre-bed slots as the denser writing took its toll.
But removing the pressure of having read at a certain pace – though I had marked myself as reading the novel on Goodreads, I felt alright finishing it ten pages at a time if I had to – was key.
Paradoxically, that easygoing approach brought me back to the lights-under-the-blanket keenness I remember feeling as a kid. By the end of last Saturday, I was breathlessly tearing through the pages, ranting about the plot to my bemused boyfriend like I was sharing family gossip.
And for what it's worth, I'm now dawdling through Middlemarch. My TikTok time last weekend was a measly(ish) hour and a half.
Go slow. Too much, too fast, will put you off restarting; enforce time limits if you have to.
Choose authors you like. We don't stick to things we hate; no need to suffer through that tome about economic theory if you don't want to.
Mix accountability with permissiveness. Telling a friend, a book club, or your Goodreads account you're working through a novel can be helpful; accepting that you might not finish it at the speed you expected, or even at all, is key.
Build reading into your routine. I now can't sleep without reading (incidentally, my sleep has gotten better since I quit late-night TikTok binges).
Embrace the smug. I am a lover of deeply smug hobbies, like running, pointlessly baking food I can buy better versions of for less money, and now, reading. From my experience, The Smug is fuelling, sustaining. If bragging about reading more gets you through it, post those 'aesthetic' storiesof you reading all you like; or, as I did, force people to read a whole article about it.
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Yahoo
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Jaime Hamilton can't keep up with the hundreds of heartbreaking messages she gets every day. 'What do you do when someone hits you in the head every day even tho you have told them to stop (7th grade)' 'My son was choked by another boy in school/lunchroom and nothing was done by principal.' 'I lost my 14-year-old son to suicide (stemmed) from bullying.' 'They called my daughter a stupid Barbie. She's in kindergarten.' A communications expert in Utah, Hamilton often spends hours sifting through messages like these. Through her viral TikTok account, which now has more than 315,000 subscribers, she's made it her mission to equip kids with language that disarms bullies and disrupts the power dynamic. Although she can't respond to all of the messages, their weight stays with her. 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It also revealed that nearly 9 in 10 students had experienced some form of online victimization, and the frequency of cyberbullying — not demographics — was the strongest predictor of trauma symptoms. 'Bullying affects all aspects of their life: it affects everything, in the immediate and in the long-term. It affects their mental health, their physical health, their academic achievement, their sense of self,' said Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt, a professor of psychology who studies bullying at the University of Ottawa in Canada, in a recent podcast interview. 'It changes who they are fundamentally. And not only that — it lasts a lifetime.' And yet the impacts of many anti-bullying laws and programs have been mixed. In light of these troubling statistics, Hamilton believes there's one powerful intervention in combatting bullying that we often overlook: equipping kids — and parents — with the right words. One day, while teaching communication studies at Florida State Community College — now called Florida State College at Jacksonville — Hamilton asked her students: What's the worst thing anyone has ever said to you? Many of her students came from lower-income backgrounds and struggled academically. She soon learned that bullying was another, albeit less visible challenge, they were facing. Multiple students told her they had been told 'Go kill yourself.' Some students said they heard that phrase every day and they didn't know how to respond to it. Hamilton wanted to help. Bullying involves 'unwanted, aggressive behavior' and a 'real or perceived power imbalance,' according to the national bullying prevention website. Hamilton, who lives in Draper, adds that bullying isn't just being mean to others, but repeated behavior that harms 'self-concept,' the perception that individuals have about themselves. To assert this dominance, bullies send verbal and non-verbal messages. Hamilton asked her students how this behavior made them feel and they tried to deconstruct the interaction. But what stood out most to her was how unprepared they were and how few tools they had to respond. That moment sparked something. She began thinking about simple, effective strategies that her students could use in response to bullying. As a communications professor, she realized there was an entire body of research in her field that she could tap into for effective strategies. At the core of Hamilton's messaging toolkit is what she calls 'neutral messages' — phrases and words that can defuse the power dynamic and prevent escalation. Some of her favorite neutral messages are: 'Nope' and 'I don't care,' and even something random and out-of-context, like just saying 'pizza' or 'pancake,' could be an effective response, too. Although neutral messaging was originally applied in the context of relationships, Hamilton found that some of these concepts could work for bullying. Blending academic theory with the lived experience and the needs of her students, she came up with a set of tools designed to not just fight back, but to help kids hold onto their sense of self. 'Bullying is nothing more than a power struggle, and it's an act of dominance,' she said. Instead of sending a submissive message affirming the bully's power or responding with another domineering message, Hamilton says the neutral messages are 'one-across' messages that don't carry any power and often leave the instigator at a loss and curb the bullying. 'Unfortunately, we will never be able to get rid of all bullies — whether play is supervised or not. So what we can try to do is teach kids how not to be victims (per 'bullying expert' Izzy Kalman)," Lenore Skenazy, author of 'Free-Range Kids' and co-founder of the nonprofit Let Grow, recently wrote. Kids should be taught what Skenazy calls 'social jiu-jitsu' — the ability to respond to verbal bullying with humor or indifference to defuse conflict. One of Hamilton's first viral videos was inspired by an interaction with a kindergartner in her neighborhood who came to her in tears, saying the kids on the school bus called her a 'baby.' 'I looked right at her and said, 'I want to tell you what to say,'' Hamilton remembered. 'She goes, 'What?' I said, 'You look right at them and say: 'Nope.'' They role-played the scenario together. The next time the teasing happened, the girl used the line — and it worked. That moment led Hamilton to make a video sharing the tactic. The response was overwhelming — and heartbreaking. 'People flooded the comments: This is happening to my kid. Can you help?' Hamilton said. 'That's when I realized parents are desperate for tools they can give their kids.' She knew, of course, that no one-size-fits-all answer exists. Especially for neurodivergent kids, who might struggle with eye contact or verbal processing, off-the-cuff comebacks aren't always realistic. But Hamilton believed there was still a need for people to learn how to apply the tools of communication theory to everyday situations like schoolyard bullying. One clip she made stirred a debate. In the video, she introduced what she called the 'bear tactic' — arms extended to create space, a loud clap to grab attention, and a calm, cutting line like, 'Do you feel better now? I hope so,' followed by a confident walk-away. Hamilton acknowledged this strategy wouldn't work in every context — in some situations, turning your back on someone aggressive could escalate risk. 'There are two very different meanings to one nonverbal cue,' she said. 'That makes it a controversial message.' She followed up with a breakdown of where and when such a strategy might be appropriate, using her academic background to explain the nuance. Sometimes the replies she suggests are disarmingly simple, almost absurd. To 'Go kill yourself,' she suggests: 'No thanks, I enjoy living' or just a flat: 'Nope.' When a parent asked what her son, who stutters, can say to people who mock him, Hamilton offered a non-verbal response: 'Look them right in the eye until they look away.' Another option is to give them a confused look, as if you don't know what they're saying. 'The neutral message really carries no power,' she said. 'It shows that it doesn't affect the person.' Hamilton believes the current messaging around bullying is overdue for a refresh — including the content on the national bullying website, which is widely used in schools to develop anti-bullying curricula. 'I'd love to help with that,' she said. One outdated piece of advice she thinks needs to go? The 'just walk away' tactic. 'When you ignore somebody who is being mean to you, we teach our kids to be passive in conflict and that's not necessarily great,' she told me. In overcrowded classrooms where teachers often lack the time or resources to intervene, Hamilton believes kids need to be equipped with the right words. 'We want to teach kids how to be assertive, not aggressive,' she said. Simply walking away, she explained, can reinforce a harmful power dynamic — signaling to the bully that his target has no defense. Unlike face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying — which plays out in digital spaces like phone group chats and on social media —presents different challenges. It's harder to escape and can be even more emotionally draining, she said. In these cases, Hamilton teaches that kids need to know they can reject and reframe harmful messages. 'When kids are cyberbullied, they can either stop reading the messages or learn not to internalize them,' she said. 'We need to teach them to ask: Why am I letting a stranger define who I am?' That kind of inner dialogue, she said, is essential: ''Don't care' needs to be part of their mental repertoire.' She also encourages parents to be active participants in their children's lives — volunteer in classrooms, document bullying incidents, and, if necessary, advocate for school changes. Whether the bully sits across a lunch table or behind the screen, Hamilton's overarching goal is raising emotionally resilient children who know who they are and who aren't easily swayed by outside voices. To shift that dynamic, Hamilton is reviving her YouTube channel, which will be dedicated to bullying awareness and equipping families to use words, gestures and face expressions to stand up to bullies and curb bullying behavior within their communities. She's thrilled to have recently gotten a book contract to write about bullying. Meanwhile, with her own kids in junior high and high school, she's never short on real-life inspiration: 'I've got years and years of content for videos,' she said.
