Skim reading is definitely a art and skill. At the highest levels of that skill, you're basically trusting your subconscious to alert your thinking mind that a

Skim reading is definitely a art and skill. At the highest levels of that skill, you're basically trusting your subconscious to alert your thinking mind that a phrase or passage is worth putting in that extra few seconds. It's also something I automatically do just to get a sense for the piece of writing once, whether or not I choose to read it deeper. It makes deep reading that much easier. The way out of the problems caused by skimming is to skim more. I skimmed the whole Atlantic piece to digest the point, then decided it wasn't worth a deeper examination. My own experience with the concept is probably way way better than the author's. And the stated thesis of the article just isn't important to me. Writing a lot helps with reading. Spending lots and lots of time putting together arguments and points sets yourself up to recognize common patterns extremely quickly in recently-written prose. When dealing with older prose, or poetry, especially something like the Bible, my mind slows way way way way down to an almost glacial pace, the subconscious just isn't primed to understand the writing as the culture in which it was written is long long gone.