Quick glimpse:
The complexity of reading makes it a skill that takes effort
The brain process words as images, and subvocalization is a normal part of the reading process
Regular reading and stacking up on your knowledge will help you speed read out due to familiarity and habit
More than ever, reading has become an important part of our lives. We are confronted with texts in school, in the workplace and even with Facebook posts and other social media sites. We read the newspaper to catch up with what’s happening in the world. We browse our emails, letters, and magazines, our subscriptions to everything else, whether digital or on print.
This is the Information Age and reading is nothing but essential and inseparable. People who want to study or learn something read on purpose. We read to fish for information, although there are some who read simply for pleasure. Society has evolved through the years such that reading has become more integrated into our set of necessary skills to keep pace with the world.
In an IDC Digital Universe Study, researchers predict that the amount of information in the world will be 50 times larger in the next decade.
So what does this mean for us? Well, it seems to be more of a data storage problem than a personal one. But when you really think about it, it presents to us the existence of a dizzying reality where the brains of our generation would have to keep up.
The world is continuously evolving, and so are humans as a species. Whereas before, ancient humans have an average lifespan of 30 to 40, we in the modern times have developed the means to improve our conditions and managed to live past 70 to 80. This is the same with the capacity of the brain. The world has become more complex and the amount of information has become larger such that the brain simply needs to adopt.
Since reading is one of the means by which we obtain information, and it consumes a large percentage of our daily activities, then maybe it’s a skill that we definitely need to improve. Reading faster would mean coping with the large volume of information that is presented to us every day.