Disadvantages of incremental reading

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This text is a part of a series of articles about SuperMemo, a pioneer of spaced repetition software since 1987

12 years ago, one Emil K. wrote to me with words of derision in reference to incremental reading. Here is his text: "Incremental reading is useless".

In short, Emil concluded that he prefers paper books by Feynman or Dirac. He also prefers paper notes on the margin. His sentiment is easy to empathize with. However, the world of value that Emil would miss by taking a pass on incremental reading is just too vast to ignore. As incremental reading keeps gaining in popularity among users of SuperMemo for Windows, it seems the reply to Emil was too timid.

Let's have a look at Advantages of incremental reading and inspect all bullets one by one. Emil's choice of good books instantly helps him reduce advantages such as consistency, comprehension, attention and meticulousness. With a good book and love of reading, those can be achieved easily. Incremental reading shows those powers only in confrontation with the chaos of the web, and a variety of sources that might be contradictory. With comprehension in the pocket, Emil's reading is likely to be stressless and enjoyable. The enthusiasm is easy to see in his words. For obvious reasons, Emil needs no personalized database, or private archive. His books are all he needs. He will also save a lot of time by not having to ask questions. His reading will be passive. This is bad for long-term retention, however, consistency, comprehension and sheer pleasure of reading can partly compensate for that loss.

Here are some properties of Emil's reading that indicate he will miss on a great deal of value of incremental reading:

  • his reading can be massive, but will always be one-sided (week of Feynman, instead of dozens or hundreds of authors)
  • his memories will keep fading unless he keeps reading in a narrow field that can be managed by asymptotically saturating long-term memory
  • his retention will be selective, with no incremental consolidation, and no knowledge darwinism
  • there will be no dendritic expansion of interests that feed the learn drive and creativity. His thoughts will follow the tracks laid by his chosen authors
  • there will be fewer dimensions to creativity
  • there is no prioritization of the material in linear reading
  • there is no speed-reading benefit
  • Emil will read about problem solving, but linear reading is not conducive for his own problem solving. For Emil reading and problem solving will go separately

If I was to name #1 reason why I would not want to use Emil's method of reading, it would be personalization of the thought process.

In incremental reading, you chose your thoughts, and your directions. Following tracks of great people is great for the time of schooling. At some point, you need to choose your own way to greatness

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For more texts on memory, learning, sleep, creativity, and problem solving, see Super Memory Guru