Ask Lemmy

First thing first, check with an eye doctor if you don't need glasses. I would not be surprised if you needed those.

I’m so tired of TV shows and movies that I’m willing to force myself to read,

Don't force yourself to read. And I say that as an intensive reader. Reading should not feel like a chore or something someone has to do. It's not homework. It needs to remain fun, engaging, and exciting.

Let reading slowly become a habit, let it become progressively stronger in your activities. It's a muscle one needs to exercise. Exactly like one would develop any new skill, progressively. No one ever learned to walk by running a marathon ;)

Edit: as suggested by others already: you may also want to consider reading print more than on screen as screens (even e-ink, but to a much lesser extent) can really become tiring for some readers.

I’m so tired of TV shows and movies that

My spouse and I have not owned a TV set since the early 00s, so you may imagine I understand how you feel about TV: we don't miss any of it. But we also don't force ourselves to read, ever.

I do read a lot more than my spouse, every single day (and often at night too), but we have other activities. Sketching, craft, writing (as important as reading, imho), listening to carefully selected music (by hand, not through an algorithm), spending time with one another and with people we appreciate, and so on. Edit: we also watch DVDs of carefully selected movies and series (we watch them on a computer, since we have no tv).

BTW, among those other activities there is one that should help rest your eyes a lot and rather quickly: going out for a walk. This forces your eyes to focus on a different focal point/distance than the one you usually hold a book at. It also give your eyes to get some quality light that should also help rest them (daylight is still the best light we have access to)

Try to make walking as much of a habit as reading. For me, it's a great help to reflect more calmly on what I have just read. Thinking about the book you're reading is at least as important as actually reading it and, sadly, is very often overlooked (books being binge read without much time left in-between to let our brain assimilate them what we just read. That part is so important in my own reading that, no matter the type of book I’m reading, I always read pen in hand to take notes and then re-read those notes/reflections to help me summarize the book and my impressions of it.