I'm another "speed reader" skeptic. After significant repeated investigations I came to a stunning conclusion: I'm among some of the fastest actual human readers. My general reading speed 300 to 600 wpm depending on context and medium. For context I was your usual bookworm growing up: reading ahead of level, constantly reading everywhere, always reading while walking, always getting in trouble for reading with other people present like at the breakfast/dinner table, just churning through books non stop. And yes I now read random scientific articles and things for fun.
Anything above that reading speed I've started just allocating to bullshitters, or generally techniques which come back to "not reading" rather than "reading".
That is to say people who choose techniques to try to speed themselves up through strategies like "skimming" (that is to say, not reading parts of the text to try to game metrics) or "extracting key points" (that is to say not reading parts of the text to try to game metrics) or their comprehension drops beyond 100% (that is to say not reading to try to game metrics).
And that's assuming you're not just dealing with the actual frauds trying to talk themselves up in a penis-measuring contest or sell something.
So yeah, I'm in the anything above 400-600 wpm is in the bullshitters club. And technical or difficult text is of course lower and can't be sped up.
No inherent offence intended to "speed readers"... Ok, maybe a little...
Anything above that reading speed I've started just allocating to bullshitters, or generally techniques which come back to "not reading" rather than "reading".
That is to say people who choose techniques to try to speed themselves up through strategies like "skimming" (that is to say, not reading parts of the text to try to game metrics) or "extracting key points" (that is to say not reading parts of the text to try to game metrics) or their comprehension drops beyond 100% (that is to say not reading to try to game metrics).
And that's assuming you're not just dealing with the actual frauds trying to talk themselves up in a penis-measuring contest or sell something.
So yeah, I'm in the anything above 400-600 wpm is in the bullshitters club. And technical or difficult text is of course lower and can't be sped up.
No inherent offence intended to "speed readers"... Ok, maybe a little...