Monday, February 15, 2016

Hyper Speed Reading - Why And Why Not

By John Clark


Having the ability to read and process information simultaneously is a skill that most people would be very eager to possess. With the magnanimous amount of information in both physical and digital print, hyper speed reading will become more popular. Thankfully, this is now a skill that can be learned and developed.

With people who have a higher volume of reading to do, it's always tempting to simply scan their eyes over the articles and essentially just do selective reading. While that gets them through the task much quicker, it's also highly likely that not everything was processed correctly. After all, who's to know which information is crucial unless the entire thing is read?

We're all familiar with the mobile apps that allow us to buy the books we need in digital form. Unbeknownst to most, there are now also apps that help us to increase the speed at which we can read these books. To help us train, these apps have changed the reading game completely by flashing the words one by one instead of having whole paragraphs on the screen.

With this method, our eyes are less distracted and less tempted to wander down the page, skipping information that may be important in the long run. Having only one word allows the eyes to focus and process quickly. As focus is put on the optimal point in the word where the reader's eyes don't move but can still see the entire word, movement and time is reduced, thus making the process quicker.

This is just one of the benefits of increasing reading speed, particularly for individuals who lead a double-life of pursuing studies and working simultaneously. Dealing with one or the other is stressful enough, but having to do both is close to impossible. With faster reading and comprehension skills, it's much easier to get through the daily grind of school and work.

Another benefit of speed reading training is the strengthening of the eye muscles. It's not uncommon for people who are studying vigorously or working at a computer every day to experience eye strain. With constant training, the eye muscles will develop and the frequency of the pain will subsequently decrease. This is useful because it would be nearly pointless for someone to read quickly but only for a short period of time.

Some might argue that speed reading is not as beneficial as it sounds. Again, it will take a lot of time and effort to get to the point where reading quickly is almost natural. Not everyone has that luxury of time that's needed.

Having only one word flash before the eyes may speed up reading pace, but comprehension may be affected as a result. Everyone is different; some may need to rely on surrounding context clues to fully understand the text. And what happens if the reader blinks and misses a word? More time is wasted trying to figure it out, and that could have a domino effect.

It all boils down to the experience that readers are looking for when reading an article. Some prefer to bask in the experience of what the imagination can provide when reading at a leisurely pace. However, others may need the speed to help them breeze through reading assignments.




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