[janandonly]

So Bionic reading is just a form of speed reading?

And it turns out that comprehension is suffering from trying to read faster... I think that most people, when they read, do a sort of automatic "speed reading" in their mind already.

What I mean is: I notice that when I read, my eyes will skip parts of words where I don't need to see all the letters to know what word it is. What if all this trickery simply hinders our innate and built-in "automatic speed reading" capability?

[hoodwink]

My best interpretation of the test results is that Bionic Reading is just an exotic text styling that has no impact -- positive or negative -- on reading speed or reading comprehension.

If it were a form of speed reading, we would have observed faster speeds when using Bionic Reading (and probably lower comprehension as a trade-off). This is NOT what we observed.

[doliveira]

I thought so too, but I've noticed in some "pair-programming-like" experiences that some people waste so much time reading posts and SO comments/threads that are obvious dead ends, and take too long to jump to the relevant section in logs or docs... So I think most people don't do speed reading at all

[darkerside]

Having just tried it, I definitely felt like the bionic reading was completely unreadable. I am very much a skimmer, and to be fair, I haven't practiced with Bionic so it might get faster over time. But my initial reaction was honestly disgust.

[Mo3]

More or less, but the creator is much more interested in patents and trademarks and selling API access for mind-boggling cost. It's obvious it's just snake oil.

[sizzle]

It definitely feels faster to read bionic and almost, dare I say it, pleasurable

[wahnfrieden]

Note there is rapid eye movement you’re not conscious of