Screens are all my days seem to be filled with at times. Playing video games with friends, watching TV by myself, movies with my family, and above all else, sitting on my phone. At times I’ll feel I’ve become disjointed from real life. Luckily, I discovered something that could always bring me back to reality and away from screens. Pushed on me from a young age, reading has been one of my greatest influences throughout life. Starting with being forced to read Guinness World Records out loud with my dad, I’ve been in and around literature for a very long time, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it as I certainly wouldn’t be the same without it.

I was at first very against reading. All I wanted was to sit in front of a screen all day, to play on my Wii or watch Cartoon Network. To do this however, I would have to read to my dad. This caused me to start looking at books at the bookfair so I could at least read what I wanted to him. My stack walking out would always be Guinness World Records, Most Disgusting Things and the like. I hated reading alone even more, so you can imagine the look on my face when my Grandmother gifted me the first “Harry Potter” book for my birthday. As it turns out, I needed more interesting content than the longest distance spit in history, because I finished the book in a matter of days.

Flash forward 10 years, Covid hits. I no longer go to school in the day, nor go out with friends at night. I switch from watching my teacher on my computer, to playing with friends on my Xbox. I wasn’t fulfilled; then I remembered what I used to enjoy before all these things. I asked my dad for recommendations and got started on a Hunter S. Thompson. My world changed drastically; a new area of knowledge arose, an hour of screen time was replaced, and everything felt right. Hunter S. Thompson turned to J.D Salinger, to Ernest Hemingway, to William Burroughs. In no time I had read countless books, and had spent less and less time burning my eyes behind my computer. Now, I try to read everyday, to ground myself from the buzz of college, to remove myself from everything from work and friends, and to have some time in reality to myself.