Reading books on my phone is the best lifestyle decision I made this year

• I have loved books ever since I read Roald Dahl's stories and Harry Potter as a child.
• However, as I've gotten older, I've found it harder to finish reading physical books.
• Things changed when travel forced me to buy books on my phone.

My love of books started at an early age.

As a child, I distinctly remember my parents lying next to me in bed and reading me books of children's fiction written by greats like Roald Dahl and Jacqueline Wilson.

In middle school and early high school, my literary tastes gravitated toward young adult romance fantasy like the Twilight series and dystopian novels like The Hunger Games.

You can easily finish one or two books in a few weeks. But that changed in college.

I lost the ability to concentrate on things I didn't need to read, and every time I missed class, I rarely regained my concentration. The bad habits continued into adulthood. I have a number of books sitting untouched on my nightstand, which are slowly becoming part of the decor of my apartment.

Buying books on my iPhone was a last resort, but it has suddenly increased my reading volume.

As a writer, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but if I have a choice between watching TV and reading, 9 times out of 10, the former wins.

That is, until last month. Before heading to England to visit family, I picked up the first book in Sarah J. Maas' adult fantasy series, A Court of Thornes and Roses. I finished reading it in a week and looked for the second book at Heathrow Airport on my way back to the US.

When I couldn't find the book anywhere on my bookshelf, I decided to open Apple Books on my phone and buy the digital version of the sequel for £6.99, or about $8.90. Naively, I thought it would be a one-off.

But it's been almost a month and I've now finished reading three books, and I'm almost done with the fourth.

The first time I opened Apple Books, I was asked to add a reading goal. I played lowball for just 15 minutes a day. My current reading streak is 9 days in a row, well over an hour each day.

Treating your phone like an e-reader means fewer distractions

Reading on your iPhone is far from perfect.

Studies have demonstrated the effects of excessive phone use, including causing digital eye strain and affecting sleep cycles.

But if you're looking at your phone screen on the subway, in bed at home, or on vacation, chances are it's because you're flipping through a book rather than scrolling through social media.

In a time when it's easy to spend hours mindlessly on Instagram or TikTok, I'm happy to say that reading on my phone has worked wonders for curbing my social media addiction.

Even better, it didn't require you to buy a new device like the Kindle, which currently costs up to $249.99.

I'm reading a book from front to back again for the first time in a while. My phone is no longer just a phone, it's a library.