I was reading the book version of "The Martian" by Andy Weir today, which preceded the hit 2015 movie starring Matt Damon (Bring him home!) and it's a really nice and easy read, flowing just as easily as the movie did with Mark Watney, the astronaut, giving day-by-day status updates while trapped on Mars, but Andy Weir definitely did his research on space travel and Mars, even using real Mars geopgraphic features (the Ares Vallis) and old NASA missions like the Mars Pathfinder from 1997. (Also, ASCII, a computer language, and many more!) I sped through teh book, but I wondered how fast I would go if I could speed read, which some of my friends have mentioned they are equipped to do.
I do a modified version of speed reading, which is that I skip select words, select lines, and even some paragraphs when I feel like that portion isn't interesting or doesn't add anything, sometimes glossing over it completely or alternatively browsing it for key words just in case I missed something. At this point in my reading of English language (not necessarily for other languages, but there are definitely patterns I see in other languages too) I can visualize a whole block of words and kind of know where I need to know it or not, and if it's a lot of throat-clearing or connection words (and, the, for, from, of, etc) and skip them to get to the meaty words with more substance. This practice can backfire of course if I gloss over the wrong word or a short word that turned out to be pretty important, but I feel like that has to be part of what speed readers, do, right? Knowing to go quickly over certain words or skipping certain words.
As for skipping entire paragraphs, obviously I'm risking missing out there, but depending on the writer I feel like I can definitely get the gist of what they're saying as long as I stay connected to the overall narrative, and logical deduction can plug in some holes. I can always go back and re-read if I missed a key detail like "HE HAD SOLVED THE CASE- THE KILLER WAS...." but that rarely happens: I've read a lot of books now, and I kind of know what to watch out for. The Martian, though, kept me thoroughly entertained by the way Weir wrote the dialogue and like Mark Watney was speaking directly to the reader, so I didn't need to skip too much.
I feel a little bad but not too bad (because time is money) that I have a similar practice for certain TV shows, movies.....I just binge watched Season 4 of Stranger Things (using Korean subtitles to learn Korean simultaneously, although the American lingo of the 1980's sometimes gets lost in translation when converted to Korean) with liberal use of the trustly Netflix "skip 10 seconds button." Great series, and Season 4 didn't disappoint, but I definitely understand the gripe about "too many characters" and the David Harbour/Hopper storyline in Russia being a real drag. I skipped just about all of those scenes and focused on the main storyline of the Vecna in a sort of "binge speed-watch." I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Another area that speed-reading comes in handy, according to some, is when playing Jeopardy, and I've seen with my own ideas some successful Jeopardy champions reading the clue, processing it extremely quickly, and coming up with a faster before Ken Jennings or Mayim Bialik can even finish reading the clue. Props to those people, they're smart and on Jeopardy for a reason, but I find it works better for me to process the question as it's being read, let Ken's voice soak into my brain and see if it triggers any memories, and try to get it right before he finishes reading so I can yell out the answer before the contestant on screen can. I'd rather be a little slower to answer than mis-read a question or what it was asking for like "This state's capital is also the last name of actor Joaquin......" and blurt out PHOENIX! When it was asking for Arizona. That kind of mistake happens quite often from what I've seen on Jeoaprdy, so even if I think I know the clue right away from speed reading, I'd rather let it be read out in case I missed anything. (Measure twice, cut once = read twice, ring in and answer once).
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