Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/30/learn-speed-reading-techniques.html
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it was tl;dr
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Worth $499, lifetime access is now $23.99 with 40% off coupon
I’m no capitalist, but if my product is worth $499 and I, instead, price it at $60 and then give out a 40% off coupon… I may not be good at my job.
Or maybe I just don’t understand the job.
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Reminds me of Stephen Wright’s joke, “I put instant coffee in the microwave and almost went back in time.’ Here it would be “I discounted my already on-sale product so heavily, I almost created an economic vortex.’
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“Speed reading” techniques teach you ways to reduce the amount of information you take in, so you can skim through things quickly. They claim that they help you just absorb the “essential” information, but you’re adopting methods that actually damage your normal reading skills.
You end up passing over large parts of what you read, and your experience of reading for pleasure or reading anything where nuance is essential is greatly reduced. Good luck “speed reading” through an Edward T Hall book about one of the critical aspects of cultural anthropology, for example. Or one of Somerset Maugham’s novels. If someone later opens either book and starts to question you on its contents, you’ll find that you missed most of what was written.
The only way to learn to read quickly but continue to take in all of the experience the writer intended you to have is just to read - read a lot. Like running or cooking, it takes a lot of practice to get better.
Learning to “speed read” is like putting a frozen dinner in the microwave instead of cooking fresh ingredients from a good recipe - the results won’t be nearly as good as you were promised.
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But you are learning a valuable lesson in capitalism: the product isn’t worth $499. It’s worth far less than $23.99, otherwise they wouldn’t discount it for so much. They need to make their profit (unless it’s a loss leader). Now, just imagine if you’d actually paid $499?
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