Sounds like a pointless endeavour to me. This infinite efficiency quest for speed reading is chief pursued by those who don't read regularly, and so don't understand that ones comprehension comes from the pauses, the page turns, and the backtracks which make up reading traditionally. If one has no time to digest, are they truly reading a book or just an impromptu script?
A lot of what you're saying here resonates with me, I've touched on some of these points myself in this conversation. It definitely isn't great for anything that requires actual thought. Your comprehension does suffer as your reading speed increases. The whole industry surrounding this stuff really does oversell its capabilities, which is why I tend to set a practical limit rather than touting some massive number.
Where I think the argument starts to break down is by lumping all reading into a single category. Reading a novel for pleasure, and wading through forty pages of background information before you get to the five crucial ones, are fundamentally different activities. I'm a medical student, and the majority of my reading consists of that second type. You can't really "digest" a literature review in a way that makes it enjoyable. The only real goal is to get through it once, without getting bogged down.
Regarding the pauses, that's actually the area I put the most work into. It lingers three times longer at the end of sentences and twice as long at commas, specifically because a consistent, flat pace feels like reading a script rather than actual prose. And, of course, you can pause whenever you feel the need; there's no pressure to keep moving forward.
The part I'd really push back on is who this is actually for. The people who've given me the most in-depth feedback today are clearly avid readers. It's not really a tool for people who don't read much.
I agree. If I really want to absorb material I have to slow down and consume it. Its not that my eyes don't recognise the words and have it leave and imprint on my mind, it's that my actual comprehension and retention of the knowledge is not at 100%. And if it's not at 100% I feel like I'm missing out on something which could be crucial information within the context of whatever I'm reading. So I'll go back and reread passages if I have to. I guess if I didn't really care how much of the whatever I'm reading I absorbed and was happy to absorb only a fraction of 100% then speed reading would be perfectly fine. Picking up something is better than nothing I guess. But if I'm reading a fictional story, it doesn't make sense to speed read it to me if the goal is to just enjoy it. Go on the sensory, emotional and intellectual journey that fiction can take us on.
Or someone like me who reads often, and at great volume, and wants to read more. Not everyone is like you.
What do you read?
Anything that interests me. I can see you're not asking in good faith based on your other comments (and indeed, even calling something pointless just because you personally don't see a benefit, which is a useless way to understand things) so I will reply in kind. As I said, not everyone is like you, so maybe you're the one who simply reads too slow for it to matter.
Why do you want to read more, if you don't mind me asking?
I like reading.
That's the profile I keep bumping into, people who already read a lot and want the volume rather than a shortcut. What does your load actually look like, out of interest? I'm trying to work out where the line sits between the reading you'd want this for and the reading you'd want to slow down for. Everyone seems to draw it somewhere slightly different and I don't think I've got it right yet.
I ask you to question why those 'avid readers' are looking for a shortcut to increase their volume rather than a shortcut to increase their comprehension. Looking at this users are comments, his desire is simply to increase the tally rather than any genuine interest in reading.
False dichotomy that reading more does not mean understanding more, that's why you ironically don't understand. Why would I read more just to keep up some artificial count if it doesn't heed my knowledge?
It depends on the book, if I'm reading Lord of the Rings or something dense obviously I'd slow down. But for pulp fiction or nonfiction even, I'd go fast. I typically read between one and two books a week, generally pretty decent sized ones too.
That's a good way to phrase it, and it makes me question my own approach. I've been sorting things into fiction and non-fiction, but what you're saying suggests it's more about why you're reading. Are you there for the words themselves, or just to get to the point? With someone like Tolkien, you're absorbing the language. But with a thriller or a business book, you're mostly focused on the information or plot beyond the sentences.
Reading a couple of books weekly, and switching between these reading styles, also makes me think the reading speed should be set per book, not as a general setting. If you're reading Tolkien at 250 words per minute and a fast-paced paperback at 450, you shouldn't have to adjust the speed every time you pick up a different title. Since it already tracks where you are in each book, remembering the reading speed for each one seems like a logical next step.
Anyway, that's a really helpful point.
Your comments are being auto banned by the way, probably due to being a new account and probably due to writing too much like an AI with HN's detectors.
I agree, the quest for productivity is ultimately counter-productive. But I think there are some legitimate use cases for RSVP: screens too small to fit a paragraph (smartwatch), quick triage of headlines or alerts, and accessibility, for example people with impaired eye-movement control.
You're right, I agree.