Most people would agree that reading books is really good for you.
And personally, when I started to read more books,
I decided to set the goal for myself that I was going to read a book
every week for an entire year.
And when I announced this, people were generally positive
and receptive, but a lot of people also had the question of
'Am I really reading these books or am I skimming them?'
'Am I dedicating enough time to be able
to contemplate the ideas and the thoughts
that the authors are putting down, or am I just kind of reading
the words and then moving on. And I think it's a really valid question.
Today, I want to give my best shot at answering this question.
About the balance between quality and quantity when it comes to reading.
And before I get started
I'd just like to thank the sponsor of this video,
Audible
when I need to be, I'm a really fast reader
Online test, which obviously are not super accurate,
showed that I can read
between 800 and 1200 words per minute
for moderate difficulty text
out of around 75 to 80 percent comprehension
So this it pretty standard for fast speed reading
Speed reading is, you know, a skill you can learn
You can take courses on this. You can read books on this
And it's a skill that a lot of people
really romanticize. And you know, for good reason, for somethings, right? So this skill for me
helped me a ton
on SAT English, right? Being able to read
passages really quickly but still get most of the information
tremendously beneficial
And you know, speed reading has some pretty obvious "evangelicals"
if you've really got these entrepreneurs
especially on Youtube talking about how they read
a book or even multiple books every day, right?
people definitely romanticize this. So in my opinion,
the major benefit of speed reading over contemplative reading
is that it allows for this massive,
efficient, influx of information,
as well as contemplation of a greater breadth
of ideas
so rather than contemplating a few ideas very deeply,
you are able to contemplate many ideas but
relatively shallowed. And so these are
the benefit of speed reading, in my opinion. But on the other end
of the spectrum, we have contemplative reading
So for me, contemplative reading happens when I'm reading
you know, less than 100 words per minute
taking the time to think
about every thought that the author's putting down to critically analyze
my reaction through those thoughts
And in doing so allows me to explore ideas
much more deep
you know, there's no way for you to get through as many books
contemplatively reading as you would speed reading
simply impossible, but it doesn't matter
Under this philosophy, the process of reading
is valuable, not just the books that you are reading
So thinking about the thoughts
that the author's putting out there. Thinking about
every sentence, every word. The way that those words
are put together matters a lot to contemplative reading
under this philosophy.
And placing this emphasis on how words and sentences are used
how language is used
allows us to appreciate things like literature
I mean if you are skimming Jane Austen
or Virginia Woolf, right?
It's effectively pointless
Sure, you get a sense of how the story progresses
and maybe you can name the characters and what they do
but the point of literature is
that language is being used beautifully
In other words, this is like comparing the SparkNotes
of classics to the classics themselves, right?
you get a sense of the story from the SparkNotes and you can read it a lot faster
but you lose a lot of the value that you get from the original
So in my opinion, this philosophy of contemplative reading
allows readers to critically think
deeper on fewer issues
and it allows them to
appreciate how language is being used