Photoreading efficiency on a screen

[Nielius]

Hi everybody,

Photoreading and speedreading seems to be a very efficient reading method for absorbing information in printed books, but since I often read articles or entire eBooks on my computer, I was wondering whether the techniques can be applied on computer screens too. Most courses focus AFAIK mostly on real, touchable books and I think the way in which a real book could be read is pretty different from how an eBook could be read. Has anyone of you got any ideas or experiences concerning photoreading/speedreading on a computer?

Nielius

[Steve Pavlina]

I've PhotoRead a number of ebooks on the screen. In fact, I think it works even better than paper.

The way I do it is to set the margins so one page fits on a screen, and every mouse click will display a new page. I go through the book about 3x this way, followed by a rapid read.

[dennis08]

I think that someone’s eyes would get to tired from speed-reading on a computer for it to be as effective as good ol paper.

[Sheeo]

Originally Posted by dennis08

I think that someone’s eyes would get to tired from speed-reading on a computer for it to be as effective as good ol paper.

Maybe if you're not used to looking at a screen up to 12 hours a day

[MadHyeNa]

In case of a CRT monitor set a higher refresh rate that's appropiate for your specific resolution and your needs.

In case of a TFT screen reduce the brightness until it's comfortable for your eyes. TFT screens have intense luminosity on default but fortunately it can be configured.

As for PhotoReading ebooks on the screen, indeed, it works.

If you use Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader then you might do the way Steve adviced but it requires you to click on every page. This might cause loss of focus for a beginner and s/he might drift off that relaxed state. Of course, once you mastered the technique you can pretty much do it anywhere regardless of the circumstances. Furthemore, for an experienced PhotoReader this does not really matter at all. It's a learned and applied habit that was reinforced N times already and, thus, it always works.

My alternative is that you should do the following: Edit -> Preferences -> Full Screen -> "Advance every [ ] seconds." Type in the preferred number of seconds. I'd advice either one or two. Not less because it's going to be too fast but not more either because then you won't be photoreading anymore. Once you've set this click on [OK] and you're done. Click on Full Screen mode using the hotkey CTRL+L or Views -> Full Screen.

This way you can sit back, do the tangerine technique, generate your required state and once you are done, hit the Full Screen mode and you're all done. Maintain your state, chant your mantra, and remain in your defocused eye gaze... whatever you need and/or prefer to do as an addition.

And, by the way, you won't need to worry about blinking because it takes less than a second anyway and as an addition even if you'd skip one page, the whole material would still make pretty much sense. It is also quite impossible that you will skip those exact same pages if you do it twice or three times in a row.

All in all, the technique works even better on screen because you don't need to actually turn the pages with your hands and this may help you to maintain the required state. That's all. Practice, practice, practice!

[Nielius]

Thanks for the informative replies.

I've tried photoreading from a screen myself now and I was quite satisfied with the result. The only things that I find more difficult on a screen, are browsing the text, for example while previewing, and keeping a soft gaze (without being able to see a blip), but that will probably become easier while I gain more experience.

[Sarek@Vulcan]

When one is photoreading it has to be in some state of mind discribed in the photoreading book as something as imagining that you have an apple or something similar small and round up-begind your head...

My question is, in that state of mind what should be one's frequency of brain? We know there are Delta Waves ( below 3.5 hz ), Theta Waves ( 3.5 hz to 7.0 hz ), Alpha Waves ( 7.0 hz to 13.0 hz ) and Beta Waves ( 13.0 hz to 40.0 hz ). So what frequency is the best for photoreading?

I use "brain wave generator" program for changing my brain frequency.

[solomonML]

your explanation was very helpfull. I was searching this forum to see posts related with photoreading on computer screen and found yours, lucky me.
I wanted to practice photoreading with many books. But i cann't find books in hard copy. Most of them are in ebooks(pdf). From now on i will start PRing
my ebooks, thankyou very much.
one more thing to ask you. I am using the flipping technique described in the home learning course. But i can keep flipping single page more than five seconds. The page starts to double or more. Do you think this is luck of experience or what?

see you soon!

[moonstar]

Perhaps a little off topic, but could someone please explain to me whether reading a lot on a monitor is bad for you. The reason i'm asking this is because I like to read ebooks (very convenient) but i'm scared i'm going to ruin my eyes further. Does it matter what type of monitor you are using? To me I can't help but think that nothing is better than reading text on paper in a well lit area.

[m18pak]

Moonstar, just make sure you have the proper resolution settings and font sizes and everything, and there should be no problem.

[urlwolf]

I found that what really matters for great-quality reading off the screeen is pixel per inch, not the raw amount of pixels.

I have no idea why but if you want the maximum resolution on a stand-alone monitor, you need to get a huge one. which defeats the point since I don't want to do much saccadic movements while reading -i.e., the smaller size the better-.

I currently use a laptop with a UXVGA screen -I think- (1920 x 1200). I place the laptop vertically (i.g., portrait, not landscape).

I have written about reading off the screen here:
Adobe Acrobat as a solution for reading articles off the screen

Reading PDFs off the screen? Advantages


This gets me what I want, a UXVGA screen on a small form factor: best pixel per inch ratio. And it's portable to boot!

They say laptop monitors are not high quality, but I have no qualms with mine.

[Sarek@Vulcan]

Originally Posted by why123

I use "brain wave generator" program for changing my brain frequency.

I probably didn't explain it in a way that you can understand but click here and read about it. BrainWave Generator