There is a rich and long history to the philosophy of reading. In his Phaedrus, Plato attacked reading as corrupting true philosophical dialectic. Later, in his 1597 book Essays, Francis Bacon wrote that “Reading maketh a full man.” And, in more modern times, Maryanne Wolf has said that the reading brain is under threat from digital culture.
That was a fairly generic paragraph to open an article about reading. It’s so generic that you’ve likely skimmed past it. But if you’re one of the 20% who have made it to this point, thank you. Well done.
Most people who open this article might spend around 50 more seconds on it, even though our website’s AI system estimates that reading it will take at least five minutes. In those 50 seconds, most readers will probably jump to the next section — drawn by the chunky font and brain-friendly division. They’ll scan it a bit, then jump to the next. So, at this point in the introduction, I might as well put any old nonsense in here. Did you hear about the gaudy goat who sang the blues to the fairy godmother? It was quite the Jabberwocky. Let’s just jump into the next section without any prelude. You’re probably not reading this anyway.
Scanning
Scanning is the least engaged of all types of reading. It’s when you drift your eyes over a piece of text. As with all reading, it has a purpose. If you’re here to find a specific name or idea, you’ll scan.
But scanning is also for the undecided many. When you open an article like this — with a clicky title involving numbers — “3 ways,” “5 types,” “10 books” — then you will probably be scanning the headings to see whether I’ll have anything to teach you. Scanning, skimming, and depth? Meh, I know what those mean. I can color in the rest and tell my mates I’ve read it.
Of course, scanning misses a lot. It misses the details and the texture. It misses the hard hours I put into adding my voice to this masterpiece. The scanners among you can’t tell me when or where Francis Bacon said that thing about reading. The scanners can’t find the Jabberwocky. But that’s okay, because it’ll always be there for deep readers.
Skimming
Skimming is the slightly fleshier version of the scan. The skimmer will read a few lines then jump a bit or flow along without really processing. In 2006, the researcher Jacob Nielsen showed that most people will skim digital content in an “F pattern” movement of their eyes. One long line, one short line, then straight down.
Nielsen’s “F pattern” changed how many people approach writing online content.
Writers accommodated the skimmer.
They gave their brains
what they
liked to
read.
But skimming is not just limited to digital content. It’s also true for those who read “for fun.” When I was growing up, I binged on a diet of fantasy books: Dragons, orcs, Hobbits, and wizards were all the company I needed. Of course, I loved The Lord of the Rings. But, by heck, Tolkien does love a long-winded description. These days, I might be more willing to get on board with J.R.R. and his world-building, but when I was 14? I skimmed. I read a few lines, and when I saw it was about “Durin, who lived in Azanulbizar, father of the Longbeards, the eldest of the Seven Houses, and his line lived through the First Age in the halls of Khazad-dûm,” I skipped my way to the cool fighting.
Sometimes, reading should be fun. Skimming keeps it that way.
Deep reading
Now we come to the dying art of the deep read. The deep read is when we read every word of every sentence, and maybe even go back to reread them all again. It’s what Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead, and George Eliot’s Middlemarch demand of you. Skip a bit, and you’ll miss something important. Skim too much, and you’ll be asking, “What the heck is going on?”
The deep read has three purposes.
First, it’s immersive. Rereading — and deep reading — The Lord of the Rings in adulthood was a far more visceral experience than when I was a teenager. I loved the deep scents and sounds of Khazad-dûm. How could I have missed that?
Second, it’s appreciative. When you deep-read something, you take the time to recognize that the author behind these words has taken a long time to write it. It was said that P.G. Wodehouse would pin each page of a manuscript to a board, raising it inch by inch as he revised — a page only reached the top after dozens of rewrites. Deep reading is a kind of literary applause.
Finally, deep reading is a stilling exercise. A 2009 University of Sussex study found that reading for as little as six minutes reduced stress by up to 68% — more than music, walking, or a cup of tea. The process of sitting down and reading word after word for hours at a time slows the heart rate, eases muscle tension, and nudges the brain toward the kind of restful patterns we associate with meditation.
The age of the skim
A lot has been said about the death of deep reading. A lot has been written, too, but no one likely read it. In the TikTok age, we want our information to be entertainment, and we want it fast. This is the attention economy, and with media companies all squeezed and at war, who has the money to bother with anything long? Let’s get the clicks, lure the eyeballs, and cash in on those pop-up ads.
This is true. The data is there to prove it. And yet, the natural optimist in me (that’s Tolkien talking) can’t succumb to literary doomerism.
Yes, we read less, but do we consume less? A lot of our consumption is, no doubt, quick and shallow — video captions, 140-character tweets, a 3-minute newsreel. But running parallel to this is the rise in long-form podcasts. People subscribe to and binge multi-hour-long conversations. They will spend an entire afternoon listening and watching a loved creator unpack an idea or niche interest.
This is the age of the skim read but deep consumption. Yes, this engagement lacks the meditative effect of a book in an armchair, but it’s still something to be grateful for. Because, somewhere right now, someone who hasn’t read a book in years is three hours deep into a podcast about Roman concrete. We’re still humans who want to immerse, want to connect, and want to appreciate the power of a good story.
This article The 3 types of reading (and the 2 you’ll pick) is featured on Big Think.
