In the middle of a sleep-deprived layover at the Dubai airport, some fifteen years ago, as I waited anxiously for the flight that would take us to meet, after one year, my father in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, my brother passed me a book. He placed it in my hands like some mystical source of infinite powers. There was an initial mandatory rejection, true to any younger sister; the book was not pink and that was a very important criterion for most things at the time. But as soon as I started reading, I was suddenly one of the Golden Ticket holders, entering a mysterious land of chocolate rivers, fantastical candy, and the strange sagacity of Willy Wonka himself. The first book I fell in love with was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. It was not just a book though, it was a life event. I endlessly obsessed over it for days, until I found out there was a sequel, and somehow I had finished the entire collection of Dahl’s titles within that one year. Back then we read without count, and without an Instagram story to mention it in, or a Facebook page to announce to our fandom. We read in perpetual hiding, under the covers, past our bedtimes. These are tales from a different time though, when the cellphone was only as useful as the torch in it that could ensure an uninterrupted read through the long hours of load shedding. When books were not consumed like condiments, a little bit every night before bed; instead they were devoured, often cover-to-cover in one sitting. It was an immersive experience like no other. Now I would be hard pressed to finish more than two books in a year; most are abandoned midway, and others lay beautifully stacked on a bookshelf unread. This epidemic, widely attributed to the age of digital distractions, is an affliction that has claimed most of our generation’s readers, leaving in their place nostalgia, reminiscing about a time when poetry and prose were weaved into daily conversations. But in a country where we struggle to ensure rudimentary levels of literacy, the general discussion inevitably revolves around the need for better educational policies, the need for infrastructure, lack of libraries, and lack of access. But what is the cause of disinterest for those of us for whom books are as accessible as the nearest bookstore or our bookshelf in the next room? Why are we not reading anymore? This apparent shift in a seemingly trivial personal preference of leisure activity is profoundly enlightening and indicative of our cultural trajectory when it is viewed not merely as a choice of medium for consuming knowledge but instead as a matter of how we choose to engage with the world. We increasingly experience the world through a digital lens today. And while previously the global conversation on technology primarily focused on how technology is changing the world around us, now more and more research is trying to unravel how it has altered our individual experience of reality in fundamental ways. There is a plethora of research on how technology affects our thoughts and emotions, and while most of this research confirms what we already sense in our daily experiences, the most interesting aspect of these findings demonstrates how blissfully unaware we are of certain effects. A recent study found that while students prefer digital reading and consider it to be more effective, tests reveal a higher level of comprehension through print reading. Thus the trade-off is the speed of reading for a deeper level of comprehension. Another study on the effects of technology on attention, at the Ohio State Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, found that momentary lapses in attention caused by visual distractions, such as notifications for ‘new message’ alert or a ‘breaking news’ alert, can crucially change our memory and perception of an event that was experienced simultaneously. In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman remarks on such a psychological phenomenon: “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” It is not that technology is taking away the time we could otherwise dedicate to leisure reading; instead it is altering our brain to become accustomed to a rapid mode of consumption. An example of this is memes that inundate our digital interactions today. Without the need for much articulation, we efficiently share our emotions, and feel a sense of comfort in the relatability memes convey. In anthropology, the term ‘meme’ refers to ‘a unit of cultural information spread by imitation’. It is a prime example of how our culture is now broken down into small, easily and rapidly consumable portions. It reduces the need to engage deeply with others or often even with our own thoughts. We all feel the need to be profoundly self-aware and meaningfully connected with the world, but this need is often satiated perhaps with one session of infinite scrolling, making us temporarily hyper-engaged but ultimately dissatisfied. Our minds have adapted flawlessly to our digital environment, matching the rapid pace it demands; the only question now is if our minds can still slow down. Whether or not we are able to sustain a culture of reading hinges on the answer. A recent paper questions this ‘digital evolution’, studying the brain’s plasticity and adaptability to technology, and expresses concern over the possible loss of the ‘deep reading’ brain this entails. Some scholars worry that we are moving towards a time when we may soon be almost entirely skipping reading, and going directly from an oral to a digital culture; this would not mean just the loss of readers, it would mean the loss of a mode of experiencing the world. Not too long ago reading was not a novel activity; of course, there was no ‘golden age’ of reading when everyone sat under the shade of the proverbial tree to read, but it was what and how much you read that distinguished you, not the mere act of it. Right now, most of us feel rather alienated from the reading culture, since we associate reading with a certain stereotypical persona. In my own experience I have found two general perceptions: either those who read are some highbrow, academically advanced intellectuals, a different class that one can not deem to be a part of, hence there is no point in trying. Or worse yet, we may associate reading with pseudo-intellectuals; it also does not help that in the age of Instagram to identify yourself as belonging to the said tribe of intellectuals, all you need to do is post a few pictures of book covers and some book quotes. Never mind if you have actually read the books, or finished the articles that you have shared on social media. Both these views are alienating though, and so is the idea that reading is incompatible with the current age. They inhibit us from picking up the books beside us. It is not that technology is taking away the time we could otherwise dedicate to leisure reading; instead it is altering our brain to become accustomed to a rapid mode of consumption The digital age has not touched every individual, or every society in the same way, and the reading culture has certainly survived. In many Western countries, readers have embraced the digital lens, shifting to Kindles and e-books, and this trend has only helped new writers who are now able to self-publish online. It has invigorated rather than stalled the publishing industries. In contrast, the book-sale figures bestsellers reach in their first week in other countries may be the highest figures bestsellers reach in Pakistan in a year. There has also recently been news that Islamabad’s once iconic bookstore, Saeed Book Bank, may be on the brink of closure. The bookstore had lost its charm and its visitors for many a year now, and the news came as more of a somber realisation than a truly shocking development. There was nevertheless a fleeting outrage on social media. Perhaps, the loss of monuments is sometimes more harrowing than the loss of their meaning. I remember visiting London, and being surprised at the billboards that advertised book covers, the parks that had free-to-read bookshelves, the dedicated tourist itineraries for beautiful bookstores, and most of all, the few who instead of clicking away on their smartphones had their noses inside their books, even on the hottest, busiest tube rides. I concluded then that where love for reading exists, it would make room for itself. The impact of individual choices we make in our everyday lives, in the quiet corner of our homes, can be palpably felt, and inevitably reverberate through out our entire social system. The current bane of the entertainment industry, widely believed to be a lack of good writing, is a clear testament of that. We are consistently choosing to be satisfied with passive engagement over more profound engagement and this is what the industry is largely responding to. In our TV dramas we complain about regurgitated drama scripts, and in cinema we talk about commercialisation. Our protagonists often despite the dramatic perils they face seem at a loss for words to explain how they feel. We ask where are our writers and our thinkers and our storytellers. What we are feeling the lack of is in fact original thought, which inevitably requires a deeper level of thinking and immersion. Stories and ideas are some of the key building blocks of culture, and for much of history, reading and writing has been the predominant way of transmitting these with their true complexity and intricacy. Despite digital advances, at least until now, there is no shortcut for originality and innovation. Before any Eureka moment comes, there is a long process of immersive thinking, often fast-forwarded with motivational background music when depicted in movies. Reading is still perhaps the only way to attune and train our minds for this mode of thinking. The fact that reading and success is correlated is still incontrovertible. Seeing such studies and statistics, most schools at the end of the year issue a list of possible summer reads with the children’s report card, and some parents assign mandatory readings that would ensure their children the two hours on the i-Pad they crave. However, integrating reading in our lives cannot be seen as a means to an end. It is not the number of books read that causes success; what distinguishes successful individuals is perhaps that they find pleasure in the deeper form of engagement that books offer. Critical thinking, new knowledge, new ideas, and self-growth are happy byproducts of the activity. As we grow older, past the age of required readings, books are still our prime, and perhaps the only source of self-development. In this ‘age of information’, however, we are often lured into a false sense of security, with the conversation enhancing browses that we get time for everyday. We pick up ideologies like we pick clothes, whatever would go better with the digital persona we are creating. The average feminist may not know about the suffrage movement, and the staunchest religious believer may not have read the Quranic translation in years. We are eager to rely on gurus of higher knowledge, be it the self-proclaimed mullahs or the most compelling media outlets, or labels of higher education, or comfortably associate ourselves with tribes of ideologies with their pre-defined manifestos. All save us from the need to deeply engage on our own. The truth is we have forgotten the pleasure of reading, and with time, it might become harder to remind ourselves. Words have the ability to pierce through to your subconscious, and exhume the latent potential of the human mind. Words have the ability to move you. And in books, they take on a life of their own. Imagine a movie, directed solely for you. Imagine the handsome protagonist has the voice of your first crush. When it rains in the background, you can smell the wet grass from the memory of a monsoon rain. And when you see the sunlight fall, your own skin is warmed. Reading is an out of body experience beyond time, it surpasses any virtual reality technology yet invented, and it sits on a shelf right next to you. All you need to do is pick up the book, forget about everything else, and start reading. The writer formerly worked at the European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam