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Fadeway comments on Recent updates to gwern.net (2012-2013) - Less Wrong
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Is it useful to increase reading speed, even if it takes a minimal amount of time (to go from basic level to some rudimentary form of training)? I've always been under the impression that speed increases in reading are paid for with a comprehension decrease - which is what we actually care about. Or is this only true for the upper speed levels?
I think it is. As I mention in my footnote, it's been a long time since I was reading up on the topic and I don't have any notes, but I recall the gist being that it's at the upper levels that you forfeit comprehension and that for lower speeds like <400wpm on nontechnical material you may even get better comprehension.
In summary, it's useful to be capable of different reading speeds to adapt to the current task? Skimming (or Ctrl-F) for searching for useful text passages, fast reading for technical material one is familiar with, slow reading and re-reading for technical material one is not familiar with, slow dabbling in texts one reads for recreational purposes.
In the form of speed-reading in which I was trained, you write a one-sentence summary of each paragraph as you're reading, and after you read a chapter or section, you review each of your one-sentence summaries. In theory this allows you to "process" things like textbooks into knowledge stored in your brain very quickly. In practice, speed reading only works for me if the material doesn't contain any concepts that I don't already understand.
I find it very useful when I need to get the gist of a paper to decide whether I want to actually read it in detail.
I think it would be interesting as an experiment to force yourself to follow this method for every article you read for a week. It might make your consumption of media more deliberate, although the downsides may be worse than the upsides.