When I set out in early 2023 to rebuild my book-reading habit using the Tiny Habits method,  I looked forward to, along with the pleasure and enrichment that comes from books, the prospect of replacing most of the time that I spent on social media or binge-watching with time-spent reading books, e.g., I hoped, roughly, that for each leisure hour that I spent scrolling or watching something on Netflix of Prime video, I would spend that same hour reading books instead.

This was not at all realistic for me for many reasons – even though I did substantially increase my leisure book-reading time – and I want to be honest about that, as well as about the fact that falling short on this has been somewhat disappointing, frustrating and humbling. BUT, I haven’t given up on the goal of further shifting my ratio of time spent reading books vs binge-watching and social media, and think that I now have more realistic expectations about the process of replacing bad habits with good ones. And I want to encourage everyone else who has similar goals to be realistic about that too.

Why immediately replacing most of your social media or binge-watching habit with book-reading might not be realistic for you

It seems pretty common to see people saying on Reddit, Facebook and similar sites that it was possible for them to just make a decision to get off social media or stop binge-watching and instead spend their time in more positive ways, including reading. Kudos to anyone who finds it easy and straightforward to replace their social media or binge-watching with book-reading, but I really don’t think that will be the experience for most people.

Fighting uphill against algorithms and design decisions

It’s well-known by now that social media sites have been engineered by big-brained people to keep you locked in

Solution:

Be realistic

Use props and tools

Track

Reading is harder brain work than scrolling or watching TV

Reading is an active process that uses more brain power than passively scrolling or watching TV

Solution

Breaking bad habits is harder than creating new and positive habits

For one thing, it is much harder to break a bad habit than it is to establish a new one. (link to tiny habits quote). This can be discouraging news but on the upside, forming new and positive habits is very much an important part of the process of breaking bad ones – it’s just that it’s not enough in itself.

Solutions

Finding community

Delete day

Getting internet sober