3 ms·

The precise number doesn't really matter. The strongman interpretation is that we just read and skim too much each day.

• TeMPOraL 8y ago
  That statement makes about as much sense as saying that on average, a human being consumes 4 million droplets of water a day. That is, it's off by 2+ orders of magnitude, and a stupid comparison in the first place. There's nothing to strongman here, IMO.
• PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  It's clear what the author meant, yeah, but the fact that they blithely throw around big numbers while clearly not understanding what they mean does affect their overall credibility.
• jgtrosh 8y ago
  If so, the title of the article is meaningless clickbait. From reading the article it seems to me the author takes the phrase at face value as they imagine skim reading a third of Middlemarch in a day. I'm surprised they describe different modes of reading as a skill future people will have, since afaik it's normal for most people to approach different types of texts at different speeds and paying attention in different ways. I can skim quickly over comments and articles just building an understanding of the context and basic information and conclusions people are using, while I will read a scientific article anywhere between ½ and 3 pages per hour if I'm actually trying to understand a difficult concept.
• tomjen3 8y ago
  There is no way we skim _billions_ of words every day, on average. Remember one word every second is about 30 years for a billion, so even at ten words a second, you are still taking about 3 years. So even assuming almost all of that is video, I will still have to question it -- at 2gb/hr that is constantly watching video for more than 16 hours.