Daily DIY

Very similar to previously-posted Zap Reader, the Spreeder webapp trains you to increase your reading speed by displaying single words in succession at a high rate.

Several factors affect our reading speed, like subvocalization (the little voice inside our heads that reads along with us and slows us down), backtracing (rereading parts over and over again), etc. The purpose behind apps like these is to train our minds to get rid of all the other crap. So, by having a steady input of text, we erase our dependency on backtracing. By increasing the reading speed, subvocalization can't keep up and eventually goes away... we don't need to subvocalize to process information, as much as we may think we do.

The experience is jarring (as if reading online wasn't hard enough on the eyes), but it does seem to decrease reading delays. Looks like spreeder's also working on a login so you can track your speedreading progress. Thanks, Reman! — Gina Trapani