9+1 Reasons not to read books

Dear readers,

I know the title is provocative. Wise and foolish, friends and foes, acquaintances and strangers alike admit that reading books is good. I take it upon myself to give you ten reasons that prove reading books is harmful. However, if you start reading, please do not stop until you reach the end. Otherwise, you will miss the point.

1. Too Much Time. Reading books takes up much time we could spend on more productive activities, like scrolling on our phones. Please don’t laugh, my friends. We all know how much scrolling teaches us in far less time than a book.

2. Dust. Books collect dust. The more you have, the worse it gets; if you become a collector and have a library, alas! In a few years, they might even start to smell.

3. Disappointment. What happens when a book ends? Who wants to experience the disappointment of finding the next one? We all have enough disappointments in our lives. We don't need any more...

4. Loneliness. Read books, and you’ll likely end up alone. Yes, your social interaction will decrease so much that eventually, you might forget you live in a society or worse.

5. Demand for Concentration. Oh my God. Books seem outdated. Books require concentration. But who is looking for concentration in an age of endless stimuli and notifications? I could say that books, with their demand for focus, are among the outdated.

6. Risk of Emotional Involvement. Especially if you read literature, poor you; you will get emotionally involved with the characters, and then who can save you? Why don’t you pull yourself out of this difficult situation? You might argue that the same happens with movies, but excuse me, I never told you to go to the cinema.

7. Physical Problems. We all know how dangerous reading can be for our health. A good book will soon give us headaches and eye strain. And let’s not forget that we have to sit down to read. But ok. The last one might not be a problem; we have already sat down for various reasons except books.

8. Silence. Books require silence and quiet. Who can endure silence and tranquility? We all need some noise to survive; not too much noise, but at least a little. After all, silence threatens our mental health, because it makes us raise difficult questions.

9. Difficult Questions and Mental Health. If the books you read are complex and philosophical, this is worse for you. Such books raise difficult questions that will torment you. Even if it doesn’t happen at that moment, the seed will have been planted. Protect yourself!

10. Your Life. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. Because now I’ll set aside humor and speak seriously. If you suspect that the first nine reasons are ironic, you are right. But the tenth is not, or at least I think so. Books, whether literary or not, create a new world with new characters, new lives, and new adventures. By reading books, you live lives you’ll never actually live, in a way. And that’s good because it helps you live your own life better. Knowing how many potential lives you can live, and how many paths you can choose, makes you wiser and perhaps more mature. But that’s not enough. You have to go out there and live your own life, to write your own book. If you don’t live your own life, no matter how many books you read, you won’t have achieved anything. You don’t read just to read. You read to live.