[epo]

If you scan or skim then you miss stuff. You have no idea whether or not what you missed is important because you didn't see it. And so comments by people self-importantly declaring themselves to be more effective by scanning/skimming are in effect saying "I didn't read that bit because I knew it wasn't important and, despite not having read it, I know I was right not to read it". What you mean is you have an impaired attention span.

Scanning or skimming can only be optimal with carefully structured texts where you know what to expect, e.g. textbooks where the beginning and end of chapters contain synopses.

[6d0debc071]

What I mean is that time is finite and a piece only has so long to convince me that it's worth reading in depth. While it's possible that a mostly skipped paragraph contained something worthwhile, if I've read a decent number of other paragraphs from that source and they didn't, that's not the way to bet.