OK the title is a joke but the question is serious. A bit of backstory:
My parents failed to make me love books, because they also introduced me to a PlayStation 2, and I decided that I like playing vidya games a lot more than reading stuff. School didn’t make me love books either because the literature they force you to read in my curriculum, is, in my opinion, better suited for adult reading.
Fast forward to now, I am a freshman in a prestigious university, but it turns out that it requires me to read a lot of stuff, but I don’t really have enough willpower to sit through academic literature for more than an hour a day. And the fact I’m noticeably behind my peers in amount of books read makes me feel like I don’t belong.
So my question is how to learn to love reading books, get immersed or enter flow state or whatever, and also retain information? Is it some kind of talent or superpower? I know a few of my peers who don’t stop reading books and seem to not distract themselves with tiktoks and video games, and attend optional lectures in their free time which is kind of insane to me, but I respect it a lot and want to become like them.
I read between 15 and 30 minutes a day, but pretty consistently. The key is to be consistent, and eventually time takes over! If you feel you get distracted, try focusing on your environment, maybe light a candle, make some coffee or tea, snuggle under a blanket with some pillows, anything!
As for what to read, I say focus on fiction! Whatever interests you. I recommend trying something modern, one of my favorite modern titles is Piranesi, and it brought me back to my childhood with how immersed I got. Once you develop a habit and a love of reading, gradually expand to non-fiction, theory, etc. I also recommend reading 2 books at a time, one fiction and one non-fiction, at set times in the day.
That’s what works for me personally!
For me it feels like reading at home under a blanket is the worst way to do it because it makes me too comfortable and sometimes sleepy. Doing it somewhere in public, like a cafe or library makes me focus much better, while at home I get distracted by everything.
Then see if you can make that a habit! Or change up your home to be less distracting, if you can!