Two years ago, I went on a non-fiction reading spree. You might be familiar with the exaggerated number game on social media: reading 100 books per year or 10 books a day, being crowned a "reader" based on raw numbers. And I fell right into the mania. I even made a Bookstagram account three years ago. For those who don't know, it's a tiny corner on Instagram where people post aesthetic book photos, talk about reading goals, and call themselves bookstagrammers. I took photos, posted quotes, and made stacks look cute. Sometimes I even read the books in those photos. In my defense, I was in dire need of a community and needed some escape from a major health crisis, and it worked for a while. I felt like I was doing something meaningful by reading book after book, only to realize I was just counting numbers. The Myth of Speed Reading Social media sold me a simple equation. Quantity= Growth Speed = Intelligence And like an idiot, I believed it. Sadly, I was living in an illusion, thinking I…