4 ms·
I'm what I've come to call a 'slow thinker'. My perception speed is normal, but the gray matter ticks over at a very slow rate of knots and my comprehension of
by FooHentai 7y ago
I'm what I've come to call a 'slow thinker'. My perception speed is normal, but the gray matter ticks over at a very slow rate of knots and my comprehension of what I'm seeing/hearing/feeling unpacks over the course of several seconds. I've noticed I often have an initial reaction to things, then a 'slow reaction' that is sometimes quite different and factors in more things I know.
It's like it takes some time to 'dial in' on what my response to a particular stimuli is going to be, but often the situation demands a response faster than I can provide one that I feel is properly considered. This leads to interesting social stuff sometimes, and sometimes a kind of short-duration l'esprit de l'escalier social anxiety.
As I've got older, I've learned that in a lot of cases the initial reaction is fine, and I can suppress the desire to issue a follow-up correction once the brain has caught up. Younger me was less able to do that and would often blurt out a second response to nobody's particular benefit, or hold off on a response to the point the moment is lost.
So perhaps for this reason, speed reading has never really clicked for me to the point that I've always been 'suspicious' of it. It's as the author says, comprehension is often the bottleneck. Even with fiction, I find I'm relating the current occurrences I'm reading with whatever world the author has built up, and considering ramifications.
My SO reads very quickly, and I often wonder how much of it is being deeply considered as she makes her way through something. It makes me hesitant to recommend any text I've enjoyed for the richness of it, as I fear a superficial read somehow does it less justice than just not reading it at all.
- texasbigdata 7y agoI tested this at age 18 with comprehension tests. The figures escape me but at a pace that was sustainable for no more than 45 minutes, if I recall like 900 words a minute, my comprehension dipped down all the may to mid 70%. But that was roughly 2.5x the pace you would read a textbook at. Maybe more. Worth it? I don't know. But if its meaningless calories, sometimes just finishing helps. There is a ton of day to day "reading" in the form of emails and whatever you do on a computer. For everything else its context dependent.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoI've always been a fast reader, but I totally resonate with the slow pace of cognition. My wife thinks at a much faster pace than I -- but slow thinking can often get things done faster! (E.g., if reflection helps improve the task approach). I think reading fast is a really helpful skill though. It requires inhibition (knowing what words to skip) and selection (what words capture the attention) and some specialized knowledge of things like the typical structure of scientific papers.
- twic 7y agoI'm a bit like this, I think. My raw reading speed is decent. But when I'm reading, I'm constantly stopping to flip back and check something, or to stop and think through the implications of what I've just read, or, when the internet is to hand, to look up some related information. As a result, my net reading speed is diabolical. But to me, this isn't about thinking slowly, it's about thinking thoroughly. I think I pick things up from texts that faster readers skate right over. Of course, I haven't actually measured any of this, so it's probably just comforting nonsense.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bshacklett 7y agoThis sounds a lot like System 1 and System 2 as described by Thinking, Fast and Slow https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374533555/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_rdmcEbGJP6JA7 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374533555/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i... Veritasium did a great job summarizing the idea: https://youtu.be/UBVV8pch1dM https://youtu.be/UBVV8pch1dM
- crashbunny 7y agoI recognise a lot of what you write in myself. My initial reaction in a stressful situation I often regretted, it wasn't a calm and considered response but a knee jerk reaction. Meditation has really helped me. Lets me respond initially in a thoughtful and considered way and it's a lot quicker that having a spike in emotion and saying WHAT!, then sorry, then trying to calm down and think and respond.