Ask HN: How much and How do you read? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much and How do you read?

Hi All, I was wondering that there is huge content online day by day for new things. You get all the long articles. I do not get so much time to read all. Most of time I am not able to completely understand the article. It might help to others also So I just want to know:

1) How much you read per day or what are your reading habbits?

2) Most Important: If you not able to understand some article do you find dig them or just ignore the words or articles not able to understand? or what you do to understand like keep dictionary or search google?

3) How you read? Do you read continuously or there is some good hack?

Please give the advice. Thanks

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The pecking order of quality:

text books/journal articles > books >> online articles.

I'll try to at least read 1 book per week, but on a good week I can get in up to 3. If the books are technical (i.e., programming) on a good week I can get 1 book read. If the books are mathematical (i.e., an algorithms textbook) I'm lucky if I can get 30-50 pages processed.

Audiobooks are the holy grail of passive consumption of content. They are so, so underrated.

IMO, the primary point of online articles is to get your finger on the pulse of what other people are up to. Other than that, they are similar to informational twinkies. Obviously there are exceptions: a Paul Graham article is certainly not an informational twinkie! But, by and large, reading something that somebody spent a year on (i.e., a book) tends to be a much better use of your time than reading something somebody spent 1-5 days on (i.e., an article).

Books go deep. Articles go broad. And textbooks are like "here is a broad summary of what the human race knows about a particular subject, at least up to about a decade or so ago."

1) Online: I just skim articles to find something that interest me. I am not in "knowledge absorbing" mode at this time. It's mostly just fun/boredom. I try to limit how much time I spend reading online. Offline: I read for either knowledge (business books, non-fiction) or for pure pleasure (fiction). For both the cases, my kindle has my full attention. No computer, no mobile phone, no distractions.

2) If the word makes no sense, I will check the meaning. However, if I am not completely sure about the meaning, I might still carry on as it helps not to get distracted from reading.

3) I read for 3-4 hours at a time and make sure it is at a time when I have peace and quiet and uninterrupted time.

1. Mostly scan content and really read if something strikes me as interesting 2. I dig deeper and sometimes read other articles or look through wiki pages if the article is something technical which I absolutely want to understand 3. I have a list of sites that have content that I care about, look through it and know what I want to read seriously. Later in the day I read those articles I would say for about 2 hours

Really want to know!

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