I think the problem is that you use Medium like Facebook. I read Medium because it is NOT like Facebook. If you just want to scroll, read headlines and maybe a paragraph or two here or there then go to Facebook. Facebook and Twitter are places for people with extraordinarily short attention spans or who are doing 3 or 4 things at a time or who are doing their reading while driving a car.

Personally, I think Medium should do away with reading times. With the average attention span of humans shrinking at an alarming rate thanks to social media most people simply won’t click on anything that takes more than 3 to 5 minutes of their attention. There are so many truly wonderful reads on Medium that never get read because they are more than 3 to 5 minutes long. The length of an article or story has become more important than the substance.

My suggestion is to set aside a certain amount of time with no distractions to actually read when you come to Medium. If you just want to scroll and skim go to Facebook or Twitter. Instead of visiting Medium for 4 minutes here and 5 minutes there and 3 minutes here, dedicate a full uninterrupted half-hour a day so that you can actually read articles and stories that are more than 4 to 5 minutes long. This not only helps you to get more substance out of your Medium reading but it will help build attention span. Click on an article link because your curiosity is aroused and because you want to learn more, not because the reading time is short enough to handle during a bathroom break or the two minutes you have between tasks at your job.