Is it worth learning to read fast?

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I am a pretty slow reader. While increasing my reading speed could allow me to experience more books/internet posts, it also seems like it would make the process of reading less enjoyable. For me, a bit part of enjoying books is visualizing the words as images in my head. Increasing my reading speed could make this harder and less vivid.
Have any of you tried to increase your reading speed, and how has it affected your enjoyment of literature?
 
I read so fast that people routinely tell me they can't believe I'm done already. I can read LotR faster than the full theatrical release can be viewed. There's an upper limit to how quickly your brain can process the information. I believe it's g-loaded, ie. correlated with IQ. When an author's prose is hard to parse or complex, my reading speed drops to shit. Speedreading is more about quickly summarizing information with the recognition that you may need to re-read a subsection in the future because there are details you deliberately overlook. This runs contrary to enjoying a piece of new literature, where you want to stop and digest what was written. "Enjoyment" is a diaphanous notion that means a lot of different things, but generally, when I read to enjoy, I slow down. Speedreading is more for business cases where you need to be aware, but can refer to your notes whenever.
 
I can read super fast. You don't do it all the time, your impulses about it decreasing the enjoyment of fiction is accurate. However, if you learn to speed read you will find that it also increases your baseline reading speed.
 
Agree with the above posts -- learning to "speedread" will let you get through boring/dense/mandatory stuff more quickly (at the cost of some comprehension), but you don't have to to it all the time, like when enjoying a novel. And the scanning/chunking techniques of taking in more words at a time will likely translate to higher "normal" reading speed even when you're not trying to blast through.

As an example, I haven't practiced the speedreading stuff since playing around with it years ago, but when I read an e-book on my phone, I take in most of each line (6-8 words) at once. Instead of sweeping back and forth along the 3" wide screen, my eyes basically stay within the center inch as they move down the page. It's not some magic 5x speed, but probably at least 50% faster than if I were stopping on each word.
 
if you read a lot of stuff that you have to be only slightly familiar with, sure. If you want to read, then no. Do you speed up your movies till they are barely comprehensible? No? Well, you might not want to do it with books either. I think it's a big problem that some ppl put value in reading a lot of pages, books, or make reading seem like an accomplishment that requires lots and lots of energy and effort. Sure, the more effort you put in the more enjoyment you get, but that effort is in the, let's say, vertical, and not horizontal direction - reading deeper, not faster.
edit: unless you want to consume bookslop then it's fine
 
I've always read somewhat fast, even when for leisure. I think if you just read more, that's already a good start. It may not always be desirable to go fast though, slowing down is sometimes better.

Judas Connor Moon dijo:
If you want to start improving your reading, put subtitles on when you're watching something. It really does help.
Presiona para expandir...
I've done this as long as I can remember, might be onto something.
 
Speedreading is useful if you are researching because you can skim-read a lot of extraneous details and get to what you really need to learn about quicker. I had a professor at uni who spent a tutorial session teaching us how to do it properly.

Speedreading for pleasure doesn't make sense to me, at that point you are just churning through books like it's a box-ticking exercise to prove how big-brained you are. Like the guy from The Office who brags "I read a book a week".
 
I only read fast when I don't give a shit about what I am reading. If it's a book I want to dig into I would ruin the book for myself by reading at as fast as my eyes can grab words.

How I read as quick as I can is kinda like making each word a symbol that you just recognize and I turn off my inner monologue so I only look at the words and don't echo them in my head. If that makes sense.

I hate doing that though, it makes me feel anxious. Reading is usually relaxing for me which is why I enjoy it.
 
There are (ironically) books you can read that will teach you to read quicker and absorb information faster. A lot of zoomers who are getting into literature find them useful since they're not used to having to read and internalize large amounts of text, not their fault they were raised on an iPad I guess.
 
I hate women (like you) dijo:
if you read a lot of stuff that you have to be only slightly familiar with, sure. If you want to read, then no. Do you speed up your movies till they are barely comprehensible? No? Well, you might not want to do it with books either
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This is actually a good comparison: I watch/listen to some youtube videos and spotify podcasts at 1.5x, like long interviews, home improvement how-tos, and mechanical walkthroughs, because I want the content condensed. But I wouldn't watch a show or movie that way.

Same deal with informational writing vs. novels and such.
 
Watched a very low-funded documentary about reading which was basically made up of the guy's personal travels to italy, random libraries etc.

He spoke with the fastest reader in the world, as in he literally looks top left to bottom right in .2 seconds and the only thing he extracts from that is a vague 3D image of the setting. He more or less understands everything he was meant to get out of the page. He was then asked if he ever sat down to read slowly to enjoy it, and he said basically every time he actually wanted to enjoy a book, "like that big release you stayed up til 12 at the store for".

Reading is forced meditation. I used to meditate but it felt fruitless to me, yet I feel such reward from reading. "Hell yeah nigga I read moby dick". It's meditation but you also achieve, learn and experience. Reading IS entertainment. It's what video games were to dudes in their teens. You wouldn't sit down with a game and go "how do i skip to the end?"
 
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