• 10 Dec, 2025 *

When I was little, my parents had several shelves in a small study room at the back of our house. Most of them were filled with technical and complicated books about all sorts of things. Books my parents were given by their parents, and many more that I never even got to look through.

But there was one small part of the shelves that wasn’t like the others. That part was just for me. My parents had filled it with Sesame Street, Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, and even Spongebob storybooks. Books I had asked them to read to me over and over, until I could finally read them myself.

I’ve always loved reading. I couldn’t imagine my childhood without seeing myself holding a book of varying sizes and thickness every night. In those books, I could escape into new worlds, worlds that I often, perhaps maladaptively, retreated to when rough moments broke into my childhood.

Yet I can hardly recall those tough moments now. What I do remember most are all the books I read, and the tons of notebooks I filled with stories about faraway princesses, magic, girls with superpowers, and more.

I could read multiple books a week and never get tired. I’d recall them vividly weeks later, and when it came time to read books for school, I didn’t see it as a challenge like my classmates did. In fact, if it had been allowed, I would have asked for even more on my reading list.

It stayed that way for many years — until I got hooked on social media in high school.

At first, it didn’t bother me. I was still technically reading, but this time it was fanfiction about my favorite characters online. I was still writing stories like before, but not by hand anymore. Now it was on platforms like Tumblr and AO3.

Sure, I was still in love with reading. But the deeper I got into that online world, the world where I could be anyone I wanted to be, the more that love quietly began to crumble before I even realized it.

For the first time in my life, I couldn’t focus on reading. I’d pick up a book that looked interesting from the library, the one place my friends and I frequented to escape the constant noise of cliques and schoolwork. I’d start reading as I always did, and then my mind would wander back to my online world.

Midway through reading, I would think to myself, “I wonder if my last post got any likes? I wonder what’s trending? I wonder if my favorite artist posted something new on Instagram?”

I’d force myself back to the book, blinking hard or even shaking my head as if to push away the silent pull of my phone. And yet I’d read the same paragraph over and over again until I couldn’t even remember where I had last stopped or what was going on.

The more I scrolled, the more I lost focus. Sure, I had my eyes on the latest trends, but my favorite books began to gather dust. The notebooks I had told myself I’d use more, to journal and plan my tasks, were left untouched, as I convinced myself that apps would do the trick since I was on my phone a lot anyway.

It didn’t help that my school had switched to studying with tablets instead of books. Now I couldn’t escape reading my schoolwork on a screen, with social media apps just a few clicks away.

I told myself then that it wasn’t that bad.

I told myself that I still loved reading, and that I was just distracted and tired from studying, so I couldn’t focus.

A year passed without me reading a book that wasn’t required for school. Then two, then three.

By the time I graduated high school, completely exhausted from pushing myself to finish on time, I hadn’t read a book for fun in three years.

My inner child — the same child who craved new books all the time, who received chapter books above my grade level every Christmas — had gone silent without me even realizing it.

Flash forward to several years later. I had just bought a Kindle to finally read books I couldn’t find physical copies of. I was inspired by my older brother, who had just bought his own and told me that despite working long shifts as a doctor, the Kindle helped him stay motivated to read.

At that point, I hadn’t read a new book in almost eight years.

It coincided with my decision to leave social media. A day before I received my Kindle, I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Tumblr was gone long before. I had forgotten the passwords for my other social media accounts and decided they weren’t important enough to recover just to delete.

I got the few books I wanted and waited for the weekend. Then, on a calm and quiet Saturday morning, I began to read again.

At first, the quiet hurt. My hand itched to reach for my phone, to scroll mindlessly even as I read. I had convinced myself a long time ago that I could multitask when it came to browsing social media.

And then I picked up my phone and saw an empty home screen.

Oh yeah, I thought to myself. I’m supposed to be offline now.

It hurt to focus. It pushed me harder than I ever expected. And yet, I managed to finish that book.

Something in me pulsed. Something deep and slumbering moved an inch. A small, insignificant inch.

I kept reading, and reading, and reading. When I finished a book, I searched for two more. When I was bored between work tasks, my habit of picking up my phone was replaced with picking up my Kindle.

As of writing this, I have read seventy-two books in six months.

I felt my inner child come alive more than ever, all because I had left the online noise behind. She wasn’t gone or dead; she had just been waiting for me to escape — to come back to the real world, the world where happiness could be found in a story. The world that kept me smiling throughout my childhood, even when things didn’t feel like a happily ever after.

I read again. I enjoyed coloring books. I started trying to learn how to ride my bike. I played badminton like I did as a child on those hot summer days when there was nothing to do. I finished the books on my Kindle and then scoured my parents’ shelves for more stories.

I can’t imagine seeing my inner child again, feeling the happiness she felt, if I had never left. And I’ll never regret it.

Your inner child isn’t dead either, you know. They’re in you, slumbering, waiting for the moment you choose to escape, too.

It won’t be easy. There will be fear, anxiety, discomfort. But if you’re still reading this far, then I’m here to tell you from the other side:

There really is hope beyond the decision to leave the online world. Step back into this messy, complicated, imperfect, and real one, and you might just find the version of yourself you’ve been missing.

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