speed reading: c/d?

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is it really better than sitting and taking time with a text, savoring every word?

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 9 October 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

i can't do it. i have to reread each paragraph at least three times to be able to enjoy a book. it's a bit frustrating though because books take forever to read.

― dog latin (dog latin), Sunday, 9 October 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

doing a google search on speed reading gives me a kind of icky scientology feeling.

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 9 October 2005 14:20 (twenty years ago)

no. a friend of mine can read a novel in an hour or so but she just scans to get the general storyline. My favorite authors tend to not use a complex start to finish storyline (bukowski etc) so it'd be useless to scan. i think of it as a story fans VS writing fans.

― sunny successor (he hates my guts, we had a fight) (katharine), Sunday, 9 October 2005 14:23 (twenty years ago)

It also depends where you draw the line between normal reading and speed reading. I'm a fast reader (though I normally take more than an hour on a novel, unless it's Brautigan or McBain or some such), but the evidence is that my retention and understanding is extremely good. My pace varies with different writers - I can't imagine zipping through Fitzgerald, but wouldn't be too inclined to stop and savour every word of a Lawrence Block.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 9 October 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

I read at a normal pace, but still, a couple of years down the road I have NO RECOLLECTION of what the book was about. Truly. Even if I wrote a twenty-page paper on it. I have to look up plot synopses on Amazon all the time.
So who cares if people speed-read?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 9 October 2005 15:18 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, what stays with me more is a really great line or metaphor or something, not necessarily the plot.

― the pr00de abides (pr00de), Sunday, 9 October 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

I found speed reading/scanning really useful when I had hundreds of pages of reading every night in college, and I find it really useful at work now, particularly because I have to read a lot of manuscripts as part of my job and discern very quickly if they are crap or not. It's practical, not enjoyable. I'd never do it with a book I was reading for pleasure.

― Laura H. (laurah), Sunday, 9 October 2005 16:14 (twenty years ago)

is reality butter thin stirring and talking town witch craft, sawing earthly world?

Your imagination works so much harder with speed reading.

― when something smacks of something (dave225.3), Sunday, 9 October 2005 16:24 (twenty years ago)

I was on the way home from work last week and there was a guy walking down the street in the opposite direction holding up a book in front of him and flicking through the pages so fast it was like he'd done an animated stick-man in the bottom corners. I figure he was trying to show passersby that he could "speed read", but he succeeded in showing me that he was a Grade-A chump.

― Bill A (Bill A), Sunday, 9 October 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure if it can be called speed reading, but I was always able to read novels and anything from the humanities (except like theory theory) at hundreds of pages a day and do well when graded on the material, but reading science I'm lucky if I can get through a ten-page journal article in a couple of hours.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Sunday, 9 October 2005 20:22 (twenty years ago)

I think it's the columns. They're supposed to make reading easier and faster, but i need the words to go all the way across. You ever pay attention to the way your eyes are moving when you really get into a good rhythm reading? It's less back and forth for each line and more sort've diagonal zig zags down the page, with most of the words being caught by peripheral vision.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Sunday, 9 October 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

TS: Speed Reading vs. Speed Talking

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Sunday, 9 October 2005 20:54 (twenty years ago)

a fast reader (though I normally take more than an hour on a novel [...]'

what the fuck? even if you take out the 'though', woah. i take hell of a lot longer than an hour even over fun books.

― N_RQ, Monday, 10 October 2005 12:30 (twenty years ago)

I am not a speed reader but I do read quickly. (For example, I bought Battle Royale on Friday night and finished it by Sunday noon with a 6 hour break for sleeping and a 4 hour break to play videogames and a 1 hour break to eat. I bought Going Postal yesterday afternoon and, even with being at work and spending 5 hours playing X-Men Legends yesterday, I'm halfway through it. One reason I tend not to like "literature" is because I can't read it quickly and I feel like I'm wasting my time getting bogged down on this one book when there are all of these other easier-to-read stories out there waiting for me to devour them.)

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 October 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

Going Postal, great book and a return to form thank goodness. He was getting very dark for a good while.

Speed reading: hugely important in day to day but not enjoyable. I find for it to be most effective I have to know about the subject as it lets me fill in the gaps quicker.

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Monday, 10 October 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

Reading a novel in an hour had been mentioned above, so I wanted to emphasise that I am not that fast. Taking Dan's point, I think my record was four novels in a sitting - and, as far as I recall, that may have been without so much as standing up between books.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 10 October 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

Peter you did a bang up job I'm putting you in charge of Pittsburgh, Peter. I know it's perfect Peter that's why I picked Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's perfect, Peter. May I call you Pete" Dick what's the deal with the deal? Are we dealing? We're dealing. Dave it's a deal with Don, Dork and Dick, Dork it's a deal with Don, Dave and Dick...gotta go, disconnecting

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Monday, 10 October 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

Does that guy still do any commercials? And speaking of fast talkers, isn't JFK in the Guinness Book Of Records for the most words per minute delivered in a speech or something?

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 01:11 (twenty years ago)

nine months pass...

Okay, so I did a couple of tests,

http://www.readingsoft.com/
http://mindbluff.com/askread.htm

and I read 300ish words a minute, which is just slightly faster than average. I am 'sub-vocalizing' everything and if I try to skim or read faster I become conscious that I am trying to do that and end up not taking in any information. And in any situation where I am under some kind of stress, like an exam, my reading speed halves, at least, and sometimes I have to read the same sentence three times or more before I can process the meaning.

So, has anyone here actually taught themselves how to read faster? I am thinking I should get a book or something, but there are lots on Amazon and I don't know if any would help me.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 20 July 2006 09:25 (nineteen years ago)

Apparently I read at about 600 WPM with 100% comprehension. I want to be a real speed reader though, it's like having a creepy superpower.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Thursday, 20 July 2006 09:49 (nineteen years ago)

I only had 86% comprehension, ie I got all the obvious questions you hardly even had to have read the text for, but couldn't remember numbers.

This is another problem, that whenever I am reading something technical or with numbers in it, my brain fuzzes over and I can't process it properly at all.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 20 July 2006 09:55 (nineteen years ago)

I was surprised to hear that most people read faster than they speak. That makes no sense to me. I read at speaking speed or slower. I'm not illiterate, I just feel like I'm doing the writer/story an injustice if I skip so much as a word. I'm also totally film blind and if I so much as look away or stop concentrating for a second I lose the plot completely.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, 20 July 2006 10:42 (nineteen years ago)

ftr - 171wpm 73% comprehension.

I suck.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Thursday, 20 July 2006 11:07 (nineteen years ago)

hum. 255/73% (same problem with numbers, here).
pretty average. that said, i'm french so I may have better results with a french test ! (obviously trying to make myself look better...).

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Thursday, 20 July 2006 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

607, 91%! I am surprised by both, but then I have to do it for a job so I guess it makes sense.

― Earwig oh! (Mark C), Thursday, 20 July 2006 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

Apart from practical applications (like work), I've never understood why anyone would want to go over about 400 words per minute. It seems to me that the biggest factor in how quickly we read things has nothing to do with the speed of taking in the words, and everything to do with the tiny breaks beind taken to actually think about what's been said; I can't imagine reading at a breakneck 1000 wpm without having to stop every few seconds anyway and mull over what you're taking in. So programs like this can push the speed of intake, and even push the comprehension, but I wonder where they leave you in terms of reaction and analysis. You can answer factual questions about the content, sure, but how much chance do you have to get anything else productive out of it?

I'd be curious to see someone do a reading test, like the ones above, that was full of deep-down logical inconsistencies, or that made arguments you could shoot down really easily by summoning up some outside bit of information.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 20 July 2006 17:03 (nineteen years ago)

I mean I guess I think reading is kind of a participatory activity, and speed-reading totally hampers your participation.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 20 July 2006 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

I suppose I was hoping that by some magic method, I could triple the speed with which I get through a book and still retain the same amount of information, and be able to process and analyse the ideas contained in it at the same time.

I tried for a while reading books and making notes at the same time, in a notepad, and looking up words or names I didn't know on wikipedia. I think it did help me better understand what I was reading, but it also meant it took me three weeks to read a 300ish page book, which I found very frustratingly slow, and it started feeling like a chore.

At the moment, I am trying to read Proust, in English, and I do want to get through it quickly so I can read all the other books I want to read before summer is over and I am busy with other things again. But I don't know what actual point there is in reading it at all, if I am hurrying through and saying to myself "you must read 50 pages in the next hour" etc, because it is really the kind of book I feel like I ought to be savouring.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 20 July 2006 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

I've found that when I read makes a big difference. Reading in bed, when I'm already tired, goes slow and if I'm distracted I have to re-read sections. But in the afternoon, as awake as I'm going to get, with good light, probably doubles the speed.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 20 July 2006 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, I have another tedious problem in that I can't read for more than ten minutes in any other position than lying down. I can't just sit upright in a chair and read. So I usually read in bed, or lying down in some park, whatever hour of day it is, and then inevitably fall asleep. I am hopeless.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 20 July 2006 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

Are you part puppy?

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 20 July 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

271 and 82 procent.

Blame it on late night reading in a foreign language.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 20 July 2006 21:03 (nineteen years ago)

aww. actually, I am often accusing people of treating my like a puppy. I wonder how many more of my problems I could explain away with part-puppiness.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 20 July 2006 21:10 (nineteen years ago)

fifteen years pass...

Is this what speed reading is like?

it’s incredible how reading this feels like finally unlocking 100% of your brain

(via @christophepas) pic.twitter.com/nU6CblVZWT
— juan (@juanbuis) May 18, 2022

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 May 2022 11:13 (three years ago)

... kind of works??

― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, 19 May 2022 12:16 (three years ago)

Maybe for some non-fiction it might work but I just need things to let 'rest' otherwise.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 May 2022 13:11 (three years ago)

Marginal improvement if the original text is fucking boring to begin with, not sure I'd appreciate for fiction or something more gripping.

It's not complicated, it's just giving your eye a place to anchor as you read across the lines, and (IME) controlling for the way monitors make blocks of text too shiny and high-contrasty to read all the way through

I imagine it might be better for people with sight problems, rather than for bros who want to power read management books

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 19 May 2022 13:55 (three years ago)

I like the speed reading "karaoke" function on the Marvin EPUB reading up. If my eyes are tired, and the text isn't too complicated, it does make it easier to read more quickly, but it's more like "this is the speed I'd read a book at if I wasn't distracted" not "this is a super power that lets me speedread like Superman".

I think I read most of a Richard Osman book and a Gwendoline Riley's First Love on karaoke. Sometimes it's good for comic timing when the punchline is the last word in a sentence.

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 19 May 2022 13:59 (three years ago)

*EPUB reading app I mean

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 19 May 2022 13:59 (three years ago)

unlocking 100% of my brain by reading one simple paragraph in uneven font, not realizing that reading an entire book like this would be so annoying i wouldn't be able to finish it

― towards fungal computer (harbl), Thursday, 19 May 2022 14:09 (three years ago)

Unlocking my brain by logging on

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 May 2022 14:35 (three years ago)

can we get an unlockbrain.css stylesheet so i will finally stop reading ilx

― towards fungal computer (harbl), Thursday, 19 May 2022 15:21 (three years ago)

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