Show HN: I'm 35 and couldn't finish reading articles anymore, so I built this

[ggomma]

Hey HN, the full story is on the page, but here's the TL;DR:

I'm 35 and somewhere along the way I lost the ability to finish reading articles. I'd open them, read 2-3 paragraphs, get distracted, and close the tab feeling like a failure. My "Read Later" list became a graveyard of 2,000+ unread articles.

I tried everything – focus apps, reader modes, blocking extensions. Nothing worked. Then I realized. 'maybe the problem isn't me'. Modern web articles are designed for engagement metrics, not comprehension. Sidebars, popups, related articles, comment sections – everything is optimized to pull your attention away.

So I built Parsely. It shows one paragraph at a time, blurs everything else. Stupidly simple. But it worked. I'm finally finishing articles again.

Tech stack: WXT framework, TypeScript, Mozilla Readability (same as Firefox Reader View), Shadow DOM for style isolation.

Code is MIT licensed: https://github.com/TeamOliveCode/parsely

Happy to answer questions about the implementation or commiserate about our collective attention spans!

[anigbrowl]

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Could you have just switched to reader mode? Did you try any sort of control group, eg reading some articles in print magazines or a book unrelated to your work activity?

It's not that I don't agree with you about the low quality of web reading experiences, and that many articles themselves are low quality bait, designed to tease, rather than inform. I resnt the time wasted on checking out articles, skimming them, and realizing they're crap, and am equally annoyed by the distractions inflicted on readers attempting to read quality long form articles.

But unlike you, I find it relatively easy to parse an article, decide quickly whether it's worth reading or not, and allocate cognitive capacity (if it's complex) or engage reader view it looks to be simple but I want to zip through it quickly (eg articles that are a straightforward list of facts).

I'm all for it if this tool is helpful to people; I just wonder if it's solving the real problem.

[ggomma]

Great question, and I appreciate your feedback.

On reader mode, Yes, I tried it. Reader mode is great for stripping visual noise, but it didn't solve my core problem. When a long article is visible all at once, the scrollbar still whispers "this much left to go", and my brain starts looking for an escape hatch. What I needed was seeing only one thought at a time(an intentional constraint).

On control groups, Fair point, I didn't run formal tests. But I could still read physical books. I just did it less and less, because my web reading habits were eroding my overall attention span. This is a personal story, not a scientific claim.

On you not needing this, I'm genuinely glad for you! Seriously. The ability to quickly triage an article and allocate the right cognitive effort. that's a skill I lost. Not everyone has the same problem. Some people need patches to quit smoking, others just put them down. Both are valid.

On "solving the real problem", Maybe it doesn't! The real problem might be the attention economy, platform incentives, or my own habits. Parsely is a symptom treatment(a bandage). But for me, that bandage let the wound heal. Sometimes that's enough. This isn't a universal solution. It's for people like me, people who know how to read but somehow lost the ability to do it.

[anigbrowl]

I see, that makes it easier to understand. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[replwoacause]

I have this same issue. I’ll start reading something and within a few words or sentences I’m in full “skim mode.” Before I know it, my eyes have scanned and hopped all over the page. Then I’ll force myself to start again, only to realize my eyes are reading the words but my brain isn’t actually processing them.

It’s gotten noticeably worse with age, and honestly I think AI has made it even worse. When it spits out huge blocks of text and I’m just trying to find a specific nugget, I default to scanning and skimming. Over time, I think my brain has optimized for that because it hates parsing reams of extraneous text just to get the one thing it’s after.

I also have ADHD-PI… but I’ll give this a shot. Thanks for sharing!

[ggomma]

You just described my experience perfectly. the skim mode that kicks in automatically, eyes moving but brain disconnected, forcing yourself to restart only to drift again. It's exhausting.

The AI observation is interesting and I think you're onto something. We're training ourselves to scan for "the answer" buried in walls of text. It's efficient for extraction, terrible for actual reading. Different cognitive modes, and one is cannibalizing the other.

With ADHD-PI in the mix, I'd be really curious to hear if Parsely helps. The one-paragraph-at-a-time approach seems to work well for some ADHD folks, it removes the overwhelming "wall of text" feeling and gives your brain a smaller, more manageable target.

But brains are different, so no promises. Let me know how it goes either way. If it doesn't work for you, I'd genuinely want to understand why. I think it might help me and all the other people who suffers same thing make it better.

[replwoacause]

Reporting back with some feedback. This extension definitely helps me read through content more thoroughly which is great...so thank you for that. One thing I’d love though is more control over the darkness. Even at the darkest setting, a bit too much still comes through and I find it slightly distracting. A slider that could go all the way to black, letting me fine tune how much is visible would be ideal. That said, I plan to keep using it and it’s effectively replaced reader mode for me!

[treetalker]

Throwing it out there: read with pencil in hand and make notes. That means printing out what you want to read from the web.

If you feel like making handwritten notes about a piece wouldn't be worthwhile, that's a powerful indicator that it's not worth reading and not worth your time anyway.

[ggomma]

This is solid advice, honestly.

The pencil-in-hand approach forces active engagement. Your brain can't drift when it's hunting for things worth noting. And the "would I take notes on this?" test is a genuinely good filter. I used to do this in college. Somewhere along the way I stopped, probably when "reading" became "checking 47 tabs while pretending to work."

The printing step is where I fall off, though. There's enough friction there that I'd just... not read the thing.

Parsely is partly about reducing friction to zero—same tab, one keypress, you're in.

For me, the best system is the one I'll actually use. But you're pointing at something real. "tools that force active engagement beat passive consumption every time".

I'm tring to do this by making you deliberately advance through text. Printing and annotating does it even more forcefully. Different tools for different people, maybe different moments.

[nacozarina]

instead of building tools to compel yourself to reward bad writing with your attention, perhaps you might choose more worthy authors

your resistance may not be dysfunction

[ggomma]

There's something to this, not all resistance is dysfunction. Sometimes your brain is correctly telling you "this isn't worth it." But I'd push back a little.

The problem isn't always the writing. I've bounced off genuinely excellent long-form pieces—articles I later finished and found deeply valuable, simply because the environment triggered my escape reflex before the content had a chance.

It's like trying to enjoy a good meal in a casino. The food might be great, but everything around you is designed to pull your attention elsewhere. At some point, you stop blaming the chef.

That said, you're right that Parsely won't make bad writing good. If an article is hollow clickbait, reading it one paragraph at a time just reveals the emptiness more slowly. The tool helps me get to the content, what I do with bad content is still "close the tab."

Maybe the real answer is both [better filters for what deserves attention, and better environments for when something does].

[level87]

Love it! Great work

[ggomma]

Thank you! Glad it resonates.