Reading speed

Using Technology to Break the Speed Barrier of Reading

New research suggests that one of humanity’s most important inventions can be improved

By Matthew H. Schneps | September 8, 2015

While cramming symbols tightly together may have seemed like a brilliant way to save on parchment, scientists are now beginning to understand that this design decision runs afoul of the way the brain processes visual information. 

Credit: Antonis Liokouras ©iStock.com

I grew up in a tiny New York City apartment, packed in alongside our four cats and my father’s immense personal library of some 3000 books. My father designed books for a living, and he revered them.  His books were everywhere in the apartment, covering every possible surface in the house, the radiators and toilet tanks included. To my father, these books were objects of art: beautiful to hold, beautiful to look at, and beautiful to read.

Though my father’s outsized romance with books didn’t entirely rub off on me, he did instill in me an appreciation for the book as a technological invention, a remarkable piece of engineering whose importance is arguably like none other ever devised. And yet, given that at its core reading is nothing more than a tool, engineered around a set of compromises and constraints, it’s far from perfect./.../