Is Speed Reading Bullshit?

Speed ​​reading is a skill that seems like superpower. The ability to quickly read and understand books, articles, and other written material would change the lives of many of us. But do you have the ability to read quickly or is this something everyone can learn? Lots of cheap apps that claim to teach this technique want you to think you can learn it. Let’s take a look at the claims about speed reading and if 1200 words per minute can really be read.

For some context: most of us tend to read at 200-400 words per minute. Fast readers claim to be typing around 1000-1700 words per minute. To better understand if these claims are backed up by research, Lifehacker spoke with eye-tracking professor and expert Keith Reiner, Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego shortly before his passing in 2015 .

Let’s start by looking at the different speed reading techniques before we dive into what works and what doesn’t.

Various methods of speed reading

Before we can talk about speed reading, we need to outline the specifics of how we usually read and understand text. Slate reveals what we know about reading:

When you subtract the amount of time spent pondering complex and unfamiliar concepts – a rare occasion when people read for pleasure – reading becomes a terrifyingly mechanical process. You are looking at a word or several words. This is called “commit” and takes about 0.25 seconds on average. You move your gaze to the next word or group of words. This is called a “saccade” and takes about 0.1 seconds on average. After repeating this once or twice, you pause to understand the phrase you just watched. On average, this takes 0.3 to 0.5 seconds. Add up all those commits, saccades, and pauses in comprehension, and you have about 95 percent of all college readers reading between 200 and 400 wpm.

Speedy readers supposedly cut down on the looping time on the word. They usually do this by reducing subvocalization , the end goal being faster than the above 0.3-0.5 seconds. The idea for speed reading has been around since the 1950s, but it has seen a resurgence in recent times with many applications popping up over the past few years .

As you would expect, there are several different popular speed reading methods, but most of them can be broadly categorized into a couple of broad methods, including fluent skim, meta guidance, quick sequential visual presentation, and others.

Skimming is scrolling through the text looking for important parts to read. While this is generally considered a speed reading technique, you are not learning to read faster. You are just learning which parts to skip. As you’d expect, research shows that we don’t remember as many details as we go through information.

The meta guide is an older technique. This is when you use your finger (or a pointer such as a pen) to guide your eyes. The point is to reduce distraction and focus on specific words to increase your reading speed.

Another method encourages you to “read” multiple lines at once, expanding your peripheral vision . Tim Ferris has developed a speed reading technique that builds on this idea and trains your attention more than anything else.

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is the method used by most modern digital speed reading systems. Individual words flash across the screen, so you concentrate on one word at a time. As you get used to the system, you increase the speed at which words appear on the display. You can see an RSVP method called Spritz in action here .

If you’re wondering about your own reading speed, you can find her with the help of this test site increase productivity ReadWriteWork or this test MyReadSpeed.com .

How speed reading affects comprehension

Of course, speed reading is a good idea, and the ability to see 1000 words per minute is technically possible. But the problem is that you don’t really understand all of these words. Research here is rather limited, but Reiner ‘s book Eye Movement and Information Processing While Reading is one of the most comprehensive views on how our eyes work when we read. Reiner thinks that speed reading claims are bullshit because our eyes can’t work that way. As he explained in our interview:

You can probably bring yourself to read a little over 500 words per minute, but you are limited by your eyes and retinal anatomy. To understand the text, you need to move your eyes to place the fovea on the part of the text that you want to focus on. Visual acuity drops quite noticeably outside the fovea, and you cannot distinguish between words and text far from the fovea. So this is a speed-limited factor, as well as how fast the brain can process information.

When it comes to eliminating subvocalization with techniques such as the meta-guide, Rainer pointed out that you quickly lose understanding:

You can practice moving faster and you probably will, but when you start moving too fast, you start to lose understanding. Most speed reading methods involve getting rid of subvocalization. Research shows that when you do this and the text is difficult,comprehension is impaired .

As for methods like Ferriss requiring multiple lines to be read at the same time? Rayner said they don’t work:

Another claim is that you can get more information in one eye fixation, but there is no evidence that we can do that. What we know about the physiology of the retina contradicts the idea that you can perceive two lines of text at the same time.

Finally, the digital RSVP system has a serious working memory problem:

Then with RSVP the words come in pretty quickly, but the working memory gets overloaded and the words come in faster than you can handle them.

Research, including a 2016 study by Reiner and colleagues, shows that as reading speed increases, text comprehension drops. This means that you are not accepting information, which is contrary to the purpose of the reading. With RSVP (and the apps that use it), you don’t have the ability to look back to re-read text, and you’re overwhelming your short-term memory so you don’t remember as much.

There are counterarguments, of course. More recently, Spritz hasmade statements that contradict Reiner’s claims. This is not surprising considering that they are selling an app to teach people to read speed. Spritz claims that because their system allows you to look at one point, you can read faster. That could be true, but it doesn’t explain Reiner’s working memory problems.

Spritz also does not share information on how their research was conducted or how many people participated in their research. So, coupled with the fact that they sell a speed reading app, that means you might want to take these findings with a grain of salt (or spoon). In fact, in our hunt for research to support claims about speed reading, we found that most of the research was conducted by companies that sell various methods of speed reading . In the case of Tim Ferriss’s technique, he uses science-based ideas, but I couldn’t find any research beyond Ferriss’s own statements in his blog post .

Apps that teach you speed reading

But that’s not all the bad news. Speed ​​reading has many supporters. Slate’s Jim Pagels loves the RSVP system . Olga Khazan of Atlantic believes that speed reading apps are best for boring news or email rather than anything that requires full understanding. Likewise, techniques that rely on skimming instead of reading faster make sense when you’re cramming in school or reading something unimportant.

You can easily try this for yourself these days. You don’t have to order any of these apps on the back of a sketchy magazine, and most of them only cost a couple of dollars or for free. However, the bottom line is this: don’t expect great results. Here are some options:

• Spreed: This Chrome extension uses the RSVP technique to display words on the screen. Just select the text you want on any web page and Spreed does the rest. (Is free)
• Outread : An iOS app using a variant of the meta tutorial. (Is free)
• Accelerator : iOS app using RSVP variant. (US $ 2.99)

Ultimately it’s up to you how much time and effort you want to spend reading faster. It takes a lot of attention and mental effort to speed up reading, and when you do, you are missing out on information. If you’re the type who likes to pause and think about an idea when you like a book or article, achieving speed may not be for you because those moments are gone.

So, in short: speed-reading everything you need to truly understand is probably a bad idea. However, if you have multiple documents that you need to review, or if you are reading something less important, these methods may still be useful. Just know you won’t become a super-fast reading comprehension machine.

This story was originally published in March 2014 and updated on October 28, 2020 to update dead links, align content with the current Lifehacker style, change the title, and add a new title image.