Speed Reading Apps
Google succeeded
in its mission of organizing the information of the world. So it's now our
move: how do we consume more of that information? Speed reading apps claim to
help do that, at least on our phones.
Many criticize
such apps saying that promote reading without any comprehension. But were we
really reading and comprehending much even before these apps, asks Alex
Balk:
“Basically nobody reads anything, the few
people who do read things don't read all of it, and the two people who do read
all of it are basically the ones tasked with checking for typos, so they are
not actually retaining anything anyway.”
Harsh, you say?
Balk rubs it in further:
“You might as well be lorem ipsum dolor
sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut
labore et dolore magna for all the actual comprehension and retention going
on.”
Don't bother
Googling the Latin sounding parts of the lines above. The phrase has the
appearance of an intelligent Latin idiom. Actually, it is just nonsense.
Really.
On the other
hand, as Balk says in another
article:
“Nobody has anything super-valuable to
say anymore anyway so it doesn't really make a difference how much of it you
retain…The odds are that anything flashing by you on a screen will be for the
most part ignored and even more importantly ignorable so whatever helps you
breeze through the barrage of verbiage at this point is probably worth it.”
and goes on to
ask:
“You only have so many breaths remaining.
What are you doing with them?”
One thing we
should not do with our remaining breaths is to curse those speed reading apps.
It's just lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do
eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna!
Somewhere at the start your blog I saw this is there"Basically nobody reads anything..." And, having seen what your point through various quotes, I agree with what is is all about.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the way life is leading us, not only nobody reads anything, but actually nobody listens to anything that is being said! We may keep hearing vaguely and then nodding to avoid being drawn into discussion or comments, or saying something vague or polite in return too - but very little we listen to actually.
The need to be like that is due to our circumstances. We surely live a world which differs from that in which relatively primitive people lived. I recall what the native Indians said to the sophisticated white man, who found that the native Indian was not given to polite conversations without need for directness or substance. He said it seems, "When I have something to say, I say it. When I don't have anything to say I keep quiet." And, the native Indian did listen when there was need.
At the other end, that is Japan, there are still those Zen masters, who declare clearly and simply, "When I eat I eat, when I play I play, when I read I read etc." This simple looking almost naive and idiotic statement is indeed profound. Do we understand?