3 ms·

I've never understood how people can read that fast. Cryptonomicon is 918 pages; you read it at maybe 30 seconds a page. I've been reading for a long time (thou

by sesqu 16y ago

I've never understood how people can read that fast. Cryptonomicon is 918 pages; you read it at maybe 30 seconds a page. I've been reading for a long time (though I didn't get into books until my late teens), and I still read English at about 5 minutes per page. It took me weeks to get through Cryptonomicon.

hugh3 16y ago
30 seconds a page is pretty fast (especially for a book like Cryptonomicon, where you'd want to stop and think every now and then) but five minutes a page would be really slow. You could read it out loud faster than that. Hell, most people could type it faster than that. It might be worth your while spending a few hours every day for a week learning to speed-read. You can probably get instructions elsewhere, but it just involves a metronome and dragging your finger across the page in time with it. You can get reasonably fast (~1000wpm) pretty fast once you overcome the need to (a) sound it out in your head as you read and (b) point your eyes directly at every word.
- cstross 16y ago
  Maximizing words-per-minute throughput is not a useful goal for reading; what about comprehension? (I find I get distracted more easily these days; I suspect too much use of the internet has damaged my ability to focus for hours on end on a book. I catch myself looking away from the page and zoning out every couple of minutes. That is something to work on -- maintaining focus on the task at hand -- and so I'm trying to re-train myself to read books.)
  - Retric 16y ago
    Comprehension tends to increase as WPM increases up to 500 or so WMP. Above 500WPM the trend is less clear and probably depends on the individual and how redundant the text. As I understand it the faster you read the more stuff you can keep in short term memory so the easier it is to make connections though different sections of text. At the extreme consider how hard it would be to read one page of a book over the course of a year.

by sesqu 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago

30 seconds a page is pretty fast (especially for a book like Cryptonomicon, where you'd want to stop and think every now and then) but five minutes a page would be really slow. You could read it out loud faster than that. Hell, most people could type it faster than that. It might be worth your while spending a few hours every day for a week learning to speed-read. You can probably get instructions elsewhere, but it just involves a metronome and dragging your finger across the page in time with it. You can get reasonably fast (~1000wpm) pretty fast once you overcome the need to (a) sound it out in your head as you read and (b) point your eyes directly at every word.

cstross 16y ago
Maximizing words-per-minute throughput is not a useful goal for reading; what about comprehension? (I find I get distracted more easily these days; I suspect too much use of the internet has damaged my ability to focus for hours on end on a book. I catch myself looking away from the page and zoning out every couple of minutes. That is something to work on -- maintaining focus on the task at hand -- and so I'm trying to re-train myself to read books.)
- Retric 16y ago
  Comprehension tends to increase as WPM increases up to 500 or so WMP. Above 500WPM the trend is less clear and probably depends on the individual and how redundant the text. As I understand it the faster you read the more stuff you can keep in short term memory so the easier it is to make connections though different sections of text. At the extreme consider how hard it would be to read one page of a book over the course of a year.