Lost in the Infinite Scroll – Till a Small Practice Renewed My Passion for Books

When I was a child, I devoured books until my vision blurred. Once my exams arrived, I demonstrated the endurance of a ascetic, studying for hours without pause. But in lately, I’ve observed that capacity for intense focus fade into infinite scrolling on my phone. My attention span now shrinks like a snail at the touch of a finger. Engaging with books for pleasure feels less like nourishment and more like a marathon. And for a person who writes for a profession, this is a professional hazard as well as something that left me disheartened. I wanted to regain that mental elasticity, to halt the brain rot.

So, about a year ago, I made a small promise: every time I came across a term I didn’t understand – whether in a book, an piece, or an overheard discussion – I would research it and record it. Not a thing fancy, no elegant notebook or fountain pen. Just a running list kept, ironically, on my phone. Each seven days, I’d spend a few moments reading the list back in an effort to lodge the vocabulary into my memory.

The list now spans almost 20 pages, and this small habit has been subtly life-changing. The payoff is less about showing off with obscure adjectives – which, to be honest, can make you appear unbearable – and more about the mental calisthenics of the ritual. Each time I look up and record a word, I feel a faint stretch, as though some neglected part of my brain is stirring again. Even if I never deploy “phantom” in dialogue, the very act of spotting, logging and revising it interrupts the slide into passive, superficial focus.

Additionally, there's a journalling element to it – it functions as something of a journal, a record of where I’ve been engaging, what I’ve been pondering and who I’ve been hearing.

It's not as if it’s an easy habit to maintain. It is frequently very impractical. If I’m engaged on the tube, I have to pause in the middle, pull out my device and type “millenarianism” into my Google doc while trying not to bump the person squeezed against me. It can reduce my pace to a maddening crawl. (The Kindle, with its integrated lexicon, is much easier). And then there’s the reviewing (which I frequently forget to do), conscientiously browsing through my expanding word-hoard like I’m preparing for a vocabulary test.

In practice, I incorporate maybe five percent of these terms into my daily conversation. “unreformable” made the cut. “mournful” too. But the majority of them remain like exhibits – admired and listed but seldom used.

Nevertheless, it’s made my thinking much sharper. I notice I'm reaching less frequently for the same overused selection of descriptors, and more often for something precise and muscular. Few things are more gratifying than discovering the perfect word you were searching for – like finding the lost component that snaps the image into position.

At a time when our devices drain our attention 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 forfeited – the pleasure of engaging a intellect that, after a long time of lazy scrolling, is finally stirring again.