5 Reasons You Shouldn't Track How Many Books You Read

Is It Actually a Good Idea to Keep Tabs?

With the boom of GoodReads and BookTok, we all love to brag about how many books we’ve read. We share our thoughts, we update the number of pages we read in a day, and we love to present this persona of a reader online—but how beneficial is it to keep track? Are you actually motivating yourself or only keeping yourself down? Let’s dive into a few reasons to ditch the practice altogether.

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1. You Pressure Yourself

Some readers like to keep track of how many books they finish every month, and while that’s a great way to see how far they’ve come, it could also encourage more pressure. Not everyone feels that pang of excitement when they close a book; some people feel like they need to crush another one immediately.

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2. You Do It For Appearances

What kind of reader you are depends on whether you actually do it! Social media has encouraged the “aesthetics” of reading without actually supporting the activity. Next thing you know, you snap photos of every book you read to prove a point.

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3. You Don’t Absorb As Much

If you find yourself boiling under pressure, you might also sacrifice critical thinking and retention. If you’re just rushing through every page, you don’t take the time to appreciate what you’ve read, which goes against the whole point.

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4. You Try to Keep Up With Social Media

It’s one thing to keep your own reading journal, but it’s another to post about it on social media. Remember: BookTok isn’t exactly crawling with readers; it’s full of influencers who dump book hauls on their audience and try to sell you on looking the part.

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5. It Becomes Less About Reading and More About Persona

Speaking of which, keeping track of your books shouldn’t be a chore. How much you read is supposed to be fun! However, when you become influenced by social media, reading becomes more about how many books you have and less about what you have to say.

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