i have been powering through a basic level book and a stupid, low stakes manga to start reading but its not at all relaxing to me. to me its an Activity. my only actual method of rest is scrolling on the phone. hobby doesnt relax me just another thing to do. right now my hands itch for insta reels (im on my laptop). i badly want to read more but i just cannot. it exhausts me. other than scrolling, my only other ”rest” is listening to music and cleaning around. everything else is Activity that requires Energy. i cant relate to people who read to relax. i feel intellectually inferior and i try to power through because i know its good for you. sometimes i consider just accepting that i am what i am (certified Intellectually Disabled) and just giving up. just be a stupid simpleton, nothing else just consume consume consume, scream when im hungry and do nothing. i wish i could forget how to read and speak all together.
Same issue here, I’m trying to resolve it by deleting all western social media from my phone and keeping it on my iPad exclusively so if I want to engage with the internet I need to actually want to do it intentionally. And my hope is that when I get my brain used to boredom again I’ll be able to do tasks that don’t immediately reward dopamine.
Having social media on a separate device may not work for you but for me it seems to be enough because I’m only on my iPad when I’m using it for entertainment so I don’t really care if I watch Netflix or doomscroll because I intentionally wanted entertainment by using the device anyways.
I think it’s probably best to “detox” your brain before you try to engage with books and such because if you have much easier and rewarding dopamine accesible to you then you’ll feel worse when reading, whereas if your baseline is complete boredom a book might feel far more compelling.