Introducing |Read|
Read - Between the Lines is an Android app that helps people increase their reading speed and efficiency by using their peripheral vision. It does this by employing a speed reading technique of drawing lines down the page one or two words from the margin. Instead of the traditional way of reading left to right from the furthest left letter to the furthest right letter, the reader keeps their focus between the drawn lines, and should rely on their peripheral vision to read outside of the lines. As they improve, they may move the lines further in to continue training.
Why?
Accomplished author, life hacker, and speed reader, Tim Ferriss, explains it well in this video (to about the 4:40 mark)
Read faster by using your peripherals
- Fixating on a word costs some amount of time as your eyes and brain work together to accomplish the task.
- Speed readers reduce this cost by fixating on fewer words. How? By using their peripheral vision. Try it for yourself — fixate on THIS word. Notice how you can read “on THIS word” while your eyes stay locked on “THIS”?
Don’t waste your new peripheral powers at the margins
- Notice what is left of the furthest left word and right of the furthest right word on a line? This is empty space, where your peripheral powers are not being utilized!
- To prevent their eyes from wandering into the “peripheral empty space”, speed readers in training will draw a line down pages of their physical books about a word after the left edge and a word before the right edge. They then read between these lines. As they improve, they move the lines further in.
Why use an app for this?
Save your physical books! An app allows you to practice peripheral use without marking up your books, saving you time and allowing you to adjust the lines as needed. Use it with e-books, the web, pdfs, etc to practice reading faster.
What else can the app do?
Customize it
|Read| is composed of three, separately configurable regions: the lines themselves, the tinting outside of the lines, and the tinting inside the lines. Each region may be customized to the color and transparency of your liking.
Want a dimmer screen? Keep the default settings.
Want something that protects against blue light? Use some reds and yellows.
Or maybe combine the two.
Easily accessible
When enabled from within the app, a persistent notification is available to easily turn it off or quickly jump back in to Settings.
|Read| may also be added as a Quick Setting Tile and enabled/disabled there. When started from the tile, the persistent notification is not shown (just press the tile again to disable it). Long press the tile to navigate to Settings.
We hope you like it!
Please give readbetweenthelines.app a try and let us know what you think. Happy (speed) reading to you!
