i'm probably not the right person to talk about it, since reading isn't something i've ever personally struggled with, but i think the trepidation many people have about the act of reading comes down to a combination of

(1) self-demoralising (it's hard, it's boring, i've poor attention span, i'm not smart enough for this, where by the time you're actually set up to read you've already convinced yourself you're not going to be able to)

(2) this weird calvinist 'gotta slog thru all of it in one go, line by line' idea of reading, which simply isn't how anyone reads non-fiction; and

(3) lack of reading strategies. western schooling, even in countries like france that place high value on literature, basically fail to teach people to read. they'll teach you to sound the letters, sure, but figuring out how to read effectively is left for you to figure out on your own

apparently just growing up around books, even if they're not really read, predicts reading ability in later life. how i'd explain this is that if you're used to books, you're not going to be afraid of them, and so are more likely to learn how to use them. and making people afraid of books is precisely what the methods used to teach reading do, just as it is for mathematics. when you're punished for failing to immediately understand, it becomes safer to never try & make that part of your identity

twee neil gaiman-esque 'books :)))) are magic. if you think about it :))' is the flip-side to this. which again is just a way of saying 'you're too stupid for books, you lumpenprole dipshit. you dunce. you charlie'

and the people who go for that sort of a thing themselves mostly have shit reading comprehension. they're not interested in the information, they just want the middle class aesthetic of being a person who loves :))) books :))))

if you're on social media, you already read more per day than almost anyone in any prior era of history. you don't have 'poor attention span', you're tired and you have depression, and it's not too hard for you, you've just convinced yourself to do it in the most difficult way possible. the first thing is to demystify the act of reading. the barrier you face here internalised classicism and the trauma of schooling

think about how a poor reader reads aloud: haltingly, monotonously, syllable by syllable. don't do this: instead of going letter by letter & assembling them in your head, try to look at the whole words. go thru the sentence once, scanning the words, then consider the whole sentence; and then if it still doesn't make sense go back to the beginning

another thing you probably do is you still read aloud, mentally to yourself. try not to — it slows you down

for whole texts: you don't have to read everything in one go. give a paragraph a look over or flip thru a chapter to see if there's anything important or interesting in it, and skip it if not. you can come back later. underline passages that seem important, and mark ones you don't quite understand or words that you don't recognise — you can look them up later. if you start finding it difficult to focus, take a break. you're not helping anyone by trying to force yourself

finally, for dense theoretical works, you are not expected to understand everything. reading is only part of the studying, and in academic settings, it's actually common to have the basic points of a thinker explained to you long before you actually read their works. don't make mountains for yourself

@esvrld
It should also be noted that reading used to be a communal activity. The practice of solitary reading emerged around the late 18th / early 19th century. Before, books would be read aloud for a small audience. Part of reading was talking about the book, discussing it chapter by chapter, coming to understand the text by reflecting on it together. Solitary reading takes bite out of this, I think essential, part of the process of reading.