Do you read fast or slow?

R

Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
I read that Bill Gates reads a book a week, Elon Musk used to read two books a day, he used to read 10 hours a day! Mark Zuckerberg reads a book every two weeks. These are the cleverest of men and what they thrive upon is knowledge. They have hungry brains, they want to know everything. They have acquired the skill of speed reading, along with other effective skills.

I am a steady but constant reader, only really happy when reading. I cannot understand people who do not read - my husband doesn't. However, I don't set myself targets and I don't read fast. I feel happiest at my own pace which increases according to how interesting the material is. I read all sorts, fiction and non-fiction, I have a lot of books on kindle and my shelves are full. My bad habit is I have several books on the go all the time. I would be better trying for one book a week.

So can you read fast and effectively? If so, any advice? I tried but I cannot go fast, I like to assimilate the words, not rush. I do use a pencil or stencil, which has speeded me up.
 

Although those tech celebrities can skillfully read with speed, that is not what it may seem. They obviously need to keep their finger on the pulse of society and culture.

I have been a prolific reader most of my life. I love books. How much more fulfilling it has made my life versus ancestors centuries ago stuck in their paperless rooms with a knife for art's sake carving up small wood blocks. Like most on this board, I grew up in the golden age of newspapers and magazines with my parents subscribing to many. My dear mother particularly loved Reader's Digest. Growing up I was addicted to daily reading whatever local newspapers. Additionally the several California schools I went to from mid grades forward, always included much reading.

As a neuroscience enthusiast, I also subscribe to the narrative that reading is a key facet of increasing one's intelligence and knowledge. Through neural plasticity we fill our rather initially empty brain at birth with what we experience and do with our language brain areas most important. With humans that requires about 20 years before significantly slowing. But what one reads can be either a positive (ie. science) or negative (ie. comic books). Garbage in, garbage out. Wisdom in, wisdom out.

Thus all my life have read much science and technology and that shows. In this smartphone era, it seems much of that has been lost that one can expect will be a negative for many where that dominates their language consumption. Many have always touted speed reading, but what is lost in that narrative is those that do so won't have as much comprehension over what they are reading.

For instance, great for class fictional book reports but useless reading a physics textbook chapter on say gravity, mass, and forces. For increasingly complex text, comprehension become difficult to impossible. In my tech career, there has been much I have had to read repeatedly before adequately understanding, sometimes dozens of times. There are some science subjects I've never had the educational background to even minimally understand especially in advanced math areas, regardless of how much I've tried like molecular chemistry.
 
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I seem to involuntarily speed read everything....esp since i
was a Navy code clerk, we had to go thru stuff quickly in order
to direct the info to the next correct agency.....just something
I've done ever since....
 

Normal read speed is understand, things like credit card stuff sped red..glanch and jark card out. Haha
 
David777 said:
Although those tech celebrities can skillfully read with speed, that is not what it may seem. They obviously need to keep their finger on the pulse of society and culture.

I have been a prolific reader most of my life. I love books. How much more fulfilling it has made my life versus ancestors centuries ago stuck in their paperless rooms with a knife for art's sake carving up small wood blocks. Like most on this board, I grew up in the golden age of newspapers and magazines with my parents subscribing to many. My dear mother particularly loved Reader's Digest. Growing up I was addicted to daily reading whatever local newspapers. Additionally the several California schools I went to from mid grades forward, always included much reading.

As a neuroscience enthusiast, I also subscribe to the narrative that reading is a key facet of increasing one's intelligence and knowledge. Through neural plasticity we fill our rather initially empty brain at birth with what we experience and do with our language brain areas most important. With humans that requires about 20 years before significantly slowing. But what one reads can be either a positive (ie. science) or negative (ie. comic books). Garbage in, garbage out. Wisdom in, wisdom out.

Thus all my life have read much science and technology and that shows. In this smartphone era, it seems much of that has been lost that one can expect will be a negative for many where that dominates their language consumption. Many have always touted speed reading, but what is lost in that narrative is those that do so won't have as much comprehension over what they are reading.

For instance, great for class fictional book reports but useless reading a physics textbook chapter on say gravity, mass, and forces. For increasingly complex text, comprehension become difficult to impossible. In my tech career, there has been much I have had to read repeatedly before adequately understanding, sometimes dozens of times. There are some science subjects I've never had the educational background to even minimally understand especially in advanced math areas, regardless of how much I've tried like molecular chemistry.
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That is so interesting. I assume that the more we read, the more quality it is, the more neural pathways are activated and connected. Surely our brains need stimulation. Certainly I have a real need to read, I am unhappy on any day where I cannot get to my books. My mind needs it feeding same as my body does.
 
I do everything slow these days......
Cute gray sloth sleeping resting on ...
 
I've always been a fast reader with good comprehension and retention. Don't read so much anymore because I simply can't find a chair comfortable enough for long reading sessions. The various aches and pains drive me back up on my feet in fairly short order. Golden years...as Major Hoople would say...Fap!

major Hoople.jpg
 
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I am a speed reader... always have been... however I don't always retain all the info... which means I can read a book again sometimes more than twice..depending on the length.. and still fin thing that I don't remember reading previously.

I'm a bit of a fiend for HUGE Tomes.. I'm very happy with a hardback book of 500 or more pages...

I prefer the HB, to the kindle..I have a kindle, I'm not comfortable reading it, simply because in seconds I have to changing pages, and you cannot get comfortably into a storyline if you're having to flick the pages as quickly as you would if it was a pamphlet..

Having been an avid reader all my life.. it was routine for me to borrow the maximum 12 books at a time from the library and have read them by the time they were due to be returned 3 weeks later..

My daughter is the same.. she's an avid reader.. and when on holiday from work.. she loves nothing more than to be on a cruise with a big bundle of books

For me now.. I buy books rather than use the library.. and don't get through books as fast as I once did, because I use the Internet more.. but at any one time, I have 3 books on the go..of all different genres
 
I have read since I was a very little girl, loved it. Then as a young wife and mother I knew we were moving to an area with no librairies, so I deliberately slowed my reading. I was never able to speed it up. I read mostly at night, and read about a book a week. When I was younger, I was so busy with children, but I still managed a book or two a week. There have been times when I read out loud to DH, in that case I read quite speedy and as I was taught in school, with emotions.
 
I am a slow reader. I enjoy reading and prefer hard cover books that I purchase new on Amazon.
I like to follow some of the reading list reviews. My favorites are offered by Jenna Bush on her NBC segment, and the one offered by Reese Witherspoon. They allow me to discover new or less known authors.
When I am done with my books, I give them to my neighbor who is a verocious reader.
 
Very fast. We had a mandatory "reading comprehension" course at my high school first semester of freshman year and I was the only person that year who tested out of it.

I can "skim" and pick up all the important stuff.

The Spousal Equivalent, on the other hand, cannot make himself real quickly. He had a career with the Department of Defense (after the Navy) writing instruction manuals for ships' artillery systems. He'd have to painstakingly crawl through a couple thousand pages of specs in order to produce 300 pages of manual. Miss one little spec and someone was going to ruin a multi-million dollar piece or equipment or get hurt.

He has a masters degree in Educational Technology but really can't read for pleasure.

It's interesting how you can mess up your brain.....
 
I can read fast but prefer to read slow. Like Pepper, I do everything slow these days .
Itā€™s probably not slow but in between; not slow, not fast.
 
Will add something to this thread that has now run its course. All we single folks living alone may go through periods where we have little social communication with others. If one only reads or say watches tv or computer screens for months, such does not fully exercise one's brain motor cortex vocal muscles. One may be surprised eventually how that may result in less than optimal normal flowing articulate speech when when does need to speak. Thus as long as one can do so without annoying others, will suggest occasionally reading out loud vocally for an hour or two doing so with intentional good elocution.
 
An interesting thread, a couple of comments to add, whilst I agree the the previous comment as one who sits alone much of the day if I find myself 'exercising the brain' out loud I am heading for the funny farm (assuming I am mot already pointed that way). But I dont think this "thread that has now run its course."
So I will add a few more comments, as a speed reader all my life now forced to slow down somewhat due to vision reduction I can say that reading a novel over weeks is simply not the same as inhaling it over hours so far as enjoyment of the story. This is entirely different from reading a technical manual which I also zoom through till I get to the bit I need and then slow and read slowly word for word. Its two totally different ways or reading.
 
I'm a slow reader when reading for pleasure but if a particular book is compelling my speed increases, I like to savor a book.

peter philipp rumpf girl reading in the park.jpg
 
Seldom read any more. When I do read it is slow because I often make marginal notes and notional cross references in an annex I create on an empty page back of the book.

My companion Sharon is a published author and is miffed at me having never read any of her novels. Somewhere along the line of time just lost interest in reading.
 

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