Want to re-up your reading practice? Try reading with others. ♦
It seems like flashing lights from electronic rectangles get in the way of doing a lot nowadays. My phone proves to be an often-irresistible temptation that provides more immediate serotonin than any book. I read much more when I was younger; at my elementary school, alongside the hours dedicated to science, math, social studies, etc., we had “silent reading time,” half an hour where everyone in the classroom read together. Usually I only got to participate in the first ten minutes of silent reading time before I was pulled out of class for my special education classes and therapies, where they tried to teach me how to be more normal, and how to fit in. I guess someone decided that silent reading was the least important time of the day. But those ten minutes were always my favorite part of school, even sacred. I would devour book after book, away from the distraction of a screen and fueled by the energy of my classmates. I got to do something I loved alongside all of my peers, without having to worry about being normal or fitting in.
Nowadays, like a lot of college students, most of my reading happens as a result of being forced to by a class. This was the case while I was in London for study abroad; though I had optimistically packed some personal, non-academic readings, a week into my trip found me no closer to getting through my lesbian space opera and several hundred pages behind on my required readings on gothic literature.
One afternoon I decided to go with a couple of other girls to Kensington Gardens, just one tube stop over from our accommodation. After retracing Princess Diana's morning run, watching the swans in the lake, and taking Instagram photos in front of the beautiful flower beds, we settled down on an empty patch of grass to start reading. And we weren't the only ones. Surrounding us, in between the families having picnic lunches and friends kicking around a soccer ball (sorry, football), there were a remarkable number of people reading. Back home in my college town, I had become accustomed to viewing people reading with a negative connotation. On campus, seeing people reading in public brought to mind the stress of a looming deadline or the panic of not understanding the material you'll later be tested on. But the people reading around me in Kensington Gardens brought about a different emotion.
After spending the day joining a crowd of readers, I was filled with a sense of joy and human connection, similar to the giddy, adrenaline-filled feeling you get after a lively concert spent singing along with a crowd. It reminded me of how I felt after attending a Korean pop concert in Paris a few years back, where I stood in between a Norwegian mother and daughter, a Portuguese couple, right behind a Moroccan group of friends, and screamed along to songs in Korean. How amazing was it that so many people, all from different cultures and backgrounds, were together here, doing the same thing? Even without talking to a single person, the feeling of connection was incredible.
Not only did reading in public fill me with this warm sense of connection, but it also allowed me to read more efficiently. Seeing so many other people reading encouraged me to keep my phone in my pocket. I could feel myself feeding off of the focused energy of those around me. It was similar to the boost in efficiency I got when studying in the university library as opposed to my dorm room, but instead of an all-encompassing, foreboding energy of stress that characterizes university libraries, I felt the same joy that I did in elementary school during silent reading time.
Being able to experience that feeling of human connection without having to worry about being normal, or fitting in, is a really magical experience. That joy, along with the quantifiable improvement sitting in nature and decreasing my screen time had on my mental health, kept me going back to read in London's public parks weekend after weekend.
