#I'm trying to quit twitter doomscrolling so here i am writing shit on tumblr instead with two paperbacks abandoned on my lap

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

I mean... I have gone through phases of reading something like a hundred books a year for absolutely no reason other than I've been a compulsive reader forever? And that (plus undiagnosed ADHD ahahaa) does tend to make you read some things really really fast? Not everything, and it's not a bad thing as such.

I ran across both of these today and I just

I mean there are a fair few different things going on here:

Big chunks of text aren't the easiest for anyone to read, and on a purely functional level they do tend to interrupt the flow of reading. If you read fast, you do tend to automatically skim longer paras, pick out the odd word and assess how relevant the whole section really is to pay attention to. It's a valid and recognised reading technique (literally how they reach speed reading) and if you do realise you've missed anything important, you can always go back and check (one reason I prefer reading to audiobooks).

That tiktoker is talking pretty specifically about a particular genre, and I don't think it's that controversial to say a fair amount of that genre can be considered skimmable if you're not reading it for the writing per se - romantasy particularly is mainly targeted at adults but a fair amount of it is then written at a YA level. It's deliberately predictable and not designed to be challenging to read (there is a whole other essay to be written about communicating information and which reading level you choose for that). Sometimes you just like the trope or the characters or a setting or something and that's all you want from a (very long) book. Skimming is a totally reasonable way to approach that.

If you have ADHD especially, then a lot of the time it feels like you're trying to outwit and outpace your attention span whenever you start a new book (literally the same reason I have to binge TV shows or I forget they exist between episodes). Sometimes the choice is between finishing the book really really fast before you lose interest, putting it down and completely forgetting what happened (or that it exists at all), or chucking it on the DNF pile where it will taunt you as yet another thing you failed at :)

Which is to say that sometimes skimming is the only technique that lets you finish a book, and finishing a book does your self-esteem a whole world of good if you frequently beat yourself up for being flakey.

I cannot stress enough that most books aren't inherently skimmable but that person is talking about specific books that are, for them. It's not about being disdainful about reading or books, it's about wanting to read and finding a method that works best for you.

These people have to be stopped