I want to ask this specifically of the older users on PB!

I am an elder gen-z, so I grew up not using the internet much, but it really started to take hold during my childhood and social media began to take off before I became a teenager. I was a tumblr teen™️ and then later fell victim to addictive algorithms in my early twenties.

As a consequence (potentially?) I associated an immersive, carefree reading experience with childhood. Recently though, I’ve been cold turkey from algorithmic-driven social media for several months. I’m currently reading I Capture the Castle and I feel like a child. It feels like I’m truly there and the world around me melts away. I’m enamoured with the story and the setting and the characters.

This has me wondering. How much of my inability to feel this way in my adulthood is because of growing up, and how much is because of the digital age?

For those who grew up before the internet: how did your reading life shift between childhood and adulthood?

ETA: I never stopped reading! The experience just didn’t feel as magical as it previously did. But I’m hoping I can get some of that back the longer I’m off social media

I am going through a pretty rough time right now, I am always going through something rough but this time with tears. So naturally I haven't been reading much and also finding it very difficult to read in the digital format. I turned to my most trusted format of entertainment which in the past has helped keep my brain off of difficult patches of life, that is kpop. The problem is, after consuming the k content for a stretch, or spending a long time on the television, my brain kind of gets numb? Or dumb? Something like that. It never really happens with reading. I end up feeling more terrible after spending hours on television and computer and just consuming all that k content. It feels suffocating. I am not sure why I am even writing this. Reading is taking a lot of effort these days and I am not really enjoying it. It feels like a chore. I want to read more fantasy but everything is just exhausting. Sometimes I feel as if I like the idea of being a reader and do not like actually reading. This makes me feel terrible and like a performative person. Sometimes out of nowhere I would get excited to read but when actually with a book, I would just try to escape reading. What the hell.