I Can Read. But I’d Rather Not.

I’ve stopped reading.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still scroll. All day long. Reports, news, emails, that endless river of text that defines modern existence. I just don’t… read it. Why would I? It’s so much work. All those sentences, one after another, demanding focus. It feels so analog, so inefficient.

My dealer—the little sparkle icon in my browser—does it for me now. It’s a wonderful service. I feed it a link, a document, a whole conversation, and it gives me the good stuff, pure and uncut: five clean bullet points. A single, perfect paragraph. The dopamine hits just right. My brain stays smooth, unwrinkled by the friction of complex thought. It’s a clean high.

Who has time to wade through thousands of words anymore? You get the gist, and that’s all that matters. You see a headline, you ask the chatbot if it’s true, and it tells you. Quick, easy, no cognitive load.

I find it hard to imagine how we lived before this. Did people really just… stare at pages? For hours? It sounds exhausting.

The good stuff

Wait. Who am I writing this for? You’re not reading this, are you? Of course not. You’ve probably already highlighted this whole page and right-clicked “Summarize with AI.” You’re already on the bullet points, you magnificent junkie.

I get it. It’s smart. Why waste precious energy deciphering nuance when the machine can do it for you? It’s the ultimate life hack. You can “read” ten articles in the time it used to take to read one. You can form an opinion on a political scandal in seconds, just by mainlining the AI’s summary. Some people worry about this creating a new kind of slopaganda where we just swallow pre-digested outrage, but they’re just afraid of efficiency.

My detox, you ask? My little methadone program is this: for one hour a day, I turn off Wi-Fi and open a physical book. It feels weird, like holding a brick. The goal is to get through three pages without my thumb trying to scroll down. It’s my little nod to sobriety, and if that feels too extreme, you can always check out tools like the Light Phone to find your own baseline.

But who are we kidding? The first hit is always free.

So, what did your summary of this article say? Tell me I’m right.