Sounds like a pointless endeavour to me. This infinite efficiency quest for speed reading is chief pursued by those who don't read regularly, and so don't understand that ones comprehension comes from the pauses, the page turns, and the backtracks which make up reading traditionally. If one has no time to digest, are they truly reading a book or just an impromptu script?

A lot of what you're saying here resonates with me, I've touched on some of these points myself in this conversation. It definitely isn't great for anything that requires actual thought. Your comprehension does suffer as your reading speed increases. The whole industry surrounding this stuff really does oversell its capabilities, which is why I tend to set a practical limit rather than touting some massive number.

Where I think the argument starts to break down is by lumping all reading into a single category. Reading a novel for pleasure, and wading through forty pages of background information before you get to the five crucial ones, are fundamentally different activities. I'm a medical student, and the majority of my reading consists of that second type. You can't really "digest" a literature review in a way that makes it enjoyable. The only real goal is to get through it once, without getting bogged down.

Regarding the pauses, that's actually the area I put the most work into. It lingers three times longer at the end of sentences and twice as long at commas, specifically because a consistent, flat pace feels like reading a script rather than actual prose. And, of course, you can pause whenever you feel the need; there's no pressure to keep moving forward.

The part I'd really push back on is who this is actually for. The people who've given me the most in-depth feedback today are clearly avid readers. It's not really a tool for people who don't read much.

I agree. If I really want to absorb material I have to slow down and consume it. Its not that my eyes don't recognise the words and have it leave and imprint on my mind, it's that my actual comprehension and retention of the knowledge is not at 100%. And if it's not at 100% I feel like I'm missing out on something which could be crucial information within the context of whatever I'm reading. So I'll go back and reread passages if I have to. I guess if I didn't really care how much of the whatever I'm reading I absorbed and was happy to absorb only a fraction of 100% then speed reading would be perfectly fine. Picking up something is better than nothing I guess. But if I'm reading a fictional story, it doesn't make sense to speed read it to me if the goal is to just enjoy it. Go on the sensory, emotional and intellectual journey that fiction can take us on.

Or someone like me who reads often, and at great volume, and wants to read more. Not everyone is like you.

I agree, the quest for productivity is ultimately counter-productive. But I think there are some legitimate use cases for RSVP: screens too small to fit a paragraph (smartwatch), quick triage of headlines or alerts, and accessibility, for example people with impaired eye-movement control.