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Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

nytimes.com

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Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#51

Post by peteretep »

SeanDav wrote: post #42
zipwitch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speed read pulp novels, and have for decades. From Doc Savage to Honor Harrington's recent outings, sometimes you just want the the combination of that literary equivalent of zoning out in front of the TV, combined with finding out what happens next. You're right that speed reading very well done stuff is a waste of time, but for the written equivalent of fast food, it seems to work fine. And if something does turn…

What is the point of speed reading a novel? If you can't be bothered to read what the author wrote, word for word (or nearly so) then you might as well go online and read a summary of the novel - job done. When an author writes a book, they consider every word they put in. Every word has meaning and a reason for being there. I am sure you could take almost any novel ever written and reduce it down to a 10th of it's o…

What if you want content that's half-way between the summary and what the author wrote? Certainly in the rare cases I read "airport novels" whose authors are masterful at pacing, intrigue and plot, but whose writing I don't particular enjoy (Grisham, for example), I'm just vegging out and don't want to absorb every last morsel.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#52

Post by peteretep »

isomorph wrote: post #32
jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

When I was a kid, I used to speed read each Harry Potter book when it came out, just to find out the plot so nobody could spoil it for me, and then I'd read it again later for enjoyment

It's upsetting you're getting down-voted.

Every Neal Stephenson book I've read, I've gone through at break-neck pace wanting to know what happens, and later reread substantially more slowly to get make sure I follow as many of the ideas as possible.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#53

Post by Zelmor »

jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

Because people think more is better. I shortsighted and materialistic view of the world, that which has lead to much of our sufferings in this day and age.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#54

Post by Htsthbjig »

I do speed reading: It is real, I am part of a group in Europe that could read a novel in 30 minutes. We are more than 50 people.

The big drawback: we can't read anything that fast. We have to format the content in an specific way that we trained with. For example, reading long lines is a big no no. The idea is to maximize the circular area that you could read on a single eye stroke. With training you make the circular area bigger and bigger.

That is, we need to OCR the book or something that let's us create our own book in digital format(tablet) or decrypt the epub-pdf. That is illegal.

Why people love to speed read things like novels? Because normal reading is boring and too slow. It is like being told to play football at 1km/hour max.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#57

Post by anotheryou »

jobigoud wrote: post #37

Regarding audio they say: > Doubling the speed, in our experience, leaves individual words perfectly identifiable — but makes it just about impossible to follow the meaning. Wow, sorry but this is very misinformed. A lot of people me included can listen to audio at 2x. I constantly listen to podcasts (so not a slow narration to begin with) at 2x in English which is not even my native language and I understand everyth…

One of the biggest limits is the processing I think. Good algorithms try not to omit anything, but those also begin to blur vowels in to consonants. Fine-tuning of the window size helps (not sure if this was on the FFT or resynthesis part).

Close to the speed limit for understanding two things are difficult:

- personal names (especially of companies) and aberrations.

- a change of the speaker to someone who has a slightly higher speed or worse audio quality

Unavoidable and super annoying:

how back in the "real world" everything appears to be in slow-motion. It takes ages for someone to just finish a single word...

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#59

Post by golergka »

jasonkester wrote: post #9

I don't get why anybody would want to speed read a novel. (Outside of a High School literature class where you're being forced to read Ethan Frome and you just want to get back to playing Minecraft, of course). When I'm reading Hemingway, I'll go back and read individual paragraphs three times to squeeze the last drop of juice out of them. There are only so many Hemingway paragraphs in existence, so wasting one feels…

It only makes sense to speed read texts that don't have a lot of meaning in them. Which, of you consider avreage quality of technical books, articles and work stuff like email and memos, is the majority of texts you encounter.

Re: Sorry, You Can’t Speed Read

#60

Post by klue07 »

TheDauthi wrote: post #38
marvy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so you notice you lose "some" meaning. The question is, how much? One way to find out is to read something the fast way and then the slow way and pay attention to how much is new the second time. Have you tried this, or perhaps some other way to see how much meaning gets lost? As for comparing reading speed to talking speed (audio books and lectures): of course talking is slower than reading, even if you don't sp…

I don't know about the parent, but I have tried this - repeatedly, in fact, including taking a number of reading comprehension exams each way, just to see the effects. Something that frequently happens is that I'll mix up side characters. I can only juggle a few characters at a time when speed-reading. I really made a mess of The Hobbit, back in the day, completely mixing up several of the dwarves. And I miss a numbe…

That sounds about right. More word play and characters would entail more processing needed for comprehension.
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