Reading the title, “I Have Forgotten How to Read” is a comforting feeling. It is comforting because I have always felt I have never been a good reader. This is a well-documented truth. I never liked reading. At a young age, learning how to read, I was always significantly more focused on pictures than words, which is a normal relationship for young kids to have with reading. However, that never seemed to change. My brothers and family loved reading and whenever I had to sit down at the book it was just torture unless I was looking at pictures. In middle school, I finally reached an age where I was able to recognize that my reading ability was not the same as those around me. I was smart enough to get what I needed out of readings to do well in school. But it was always just words on a piece of paper to me. There was never any imagination, excitement, or even curiosity. However, I still only considered reading as something that I disliked. Then at the age of 18, it all finally made sense. I was diagnosed with dyslexia. With this information, my disliking turned into more of a challenge, it went from something that I avoided to something I put more focus into. Unfortunately, my relationship with reading has never reached a point where I do it for leisure. It is still challenging enough for me that I think of it as a task rather than something for enjoyment. 

What Michael Harris has done with “I Have Forgotten How to Read” offers a very similar message to Hari’s “Stolen Focus. Focus and reading are both nearly innate skills possessed by human beings and it’s argued that functionality is being sacrificed by the evolution of society. My own stories and challenges with reading seem to not matter in the eyes of Harris and Hari because the genetic aspects of my cognition would still be under the same societal and media-driven impacts as everyone else. The negative impacts that have been observed with focus and reading skills have uncontrollable reach and consistent impact. It is impossible to hide from and impacts all.