Slow Is Good

Speed reading uses methods such as chunking, scanning, reducing subvocalization, and using meta guiding. For example, reading the first sentence of each paragraph can indicate if it's worth reading more or to move on. Or guiding your eye by using your finger.

Some researchers looked into speed reading and found there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy.

Speed reading can help you skim to content, which is useful at times. However, speed reading cannot help you read faster and retain more information.

• Our eyes are designed only to see a tiny portion of our visual field with the precision needed to recognise a letter in a 10 to 12 point font. Everything outside that small area is blurry. The idea promoted by speed reading that we can use our peripheral vision to see whole sentences is biologically impossible.
• While we spend most of our time reading forward, our eyes often go back to reread some text. This is the way our brain links content together. Speed reading attempts to help you read faster by showing one word at a time. This has a bad impact on overall comprehension.

Although there is an academic consensus that speed-reading decreases comprehension,

On the other hand, the same can’t be said for comprehension measurement techniques, as we can process text differently according to context.

"I took a course in speed-reading...and was able to read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It's about Russia."

Regardless of which reading method you use, the evidence points towards the fact that speed comes at the sacrifice of understanding.

Depending on what you’re reading, this might not necessarily be a bad thing: If you’re trying to get through a dry piece to capture a few key points or you are going through a short piece that’s easy to understand, speed reading strategies might make sense.

1. Choose different reading pieces for different occasions: articles and light reads can be reserved for short periods. Books that require less focus can be listened to in audio format etc.
2. Incorporate reading into your daily habit: put a book on your bedside table.
3. Share your reads with others, to help you to better understand and appreciate what you read.
4. Reflect on your reading: take notes or check out films that are based on novels (to compare interpretations).

For a weight-loss hack, it goes like this: As soon as you order a meal at a restaurant, ask immediately that half of it be put in a to-go box once it’s ready and only the other half served to you. It’s basically a stricter version of portion control.

We can apply the same technique to get ourselves to read more.

Instead of 2 hours of Netflix each night, cutting it in half would still give you the satisfaction of watching Netflix in the evenings but also free up time to read as well.

Preview the book in order to vet whether or not it’s worth investing your time in.

• Use book summaries. Find apps that give accurate and concise summaries of many of the most popular books out there and are constantly updating their library.
• Use podcast interviews with the author. Authors often go on the podcast circuit to promote their books. 

The fovea is a small high visual acuity area in the retina. Our eyes are seriously limited in their precision outside said area.

We can take in only a word or so at each glance, and a little bit about the words on either side. 

Multiple experiments confirm that speed reading,” leads to decreased comprehension of the parts of the text that reader's eyes skip over.

“The factor that most strongly determined reading speed was word-identification ability.”

Software using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) methods claim to eliminate unnecessary eye movements, thus increasing reading speed. It presents words above the average reading speed, one at a time, at a single location on the screen.

Unfortunately, experiments show RSVP software does increase reading speed, but subjects could only sustain reading at high speeds with good comprehension for short bursts.

This methods are supposed to let you read it right the first time, but regressive eye movements generate enhanced understanding beyond what could be obtained on the first pass.

Due to sentences unfolding linearly, often contrary to the messages they convey, rereading becomes necessary for proper understanding.

New readers, especially children have reduced deep-reading skills.

Digital media is consumed differently in a 'skimming' time-bound way, as opposed to the profound, thoughtful reading associated with print books.

People have become addicted to digital devices, as the content they see and read may not be deep and immersive, but is engaging and conversation like, rendering it more alive than the printed word.

The Internet is training our brain to adapt and work differently than in the last century, as the changing technological landscape requires different cognitive skills.

The new digital mediums mostly do not have the quality, as most of the stuff online seems uninteresting, but it has the quantity, making it even more discordant and chaotic.

• As we become adults, we tend to take on more time commitments. As our work and domestic lives stabilize, the years increasingly resemble each other. This creates the sense that less “living” happens each year.
• Children usually have no time commitments; they're told what to do. They also form higher-quality memories (sharper and more lasting), making early years seem so full.

• As adults, we spend much of the time on autopilot, with most of our attention on past, future, or hypothetical moments.
• As children we’re immersed in present moment, which creates long, vivid days, with many more touchpoints for memory and appreciation.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Dr Seuss