I'm the opposite, if I'm staring at my phone for hours on end I'm probably reading a book. I have a respectable library right here in my hands right now.

But I do get what you're saying, I've had a problem with dicking around on Reddit before, for a couple of years I spent beyond productive amounts of time on that site.

For me, it was my school's enforced reading and book reports that taught me to skim and just pick up enough info to write a report, and the internet was ultimately what restored my capability to read and attention span, as I could find things that genuinely interested me.

Obviously, the internet has changed a lot since I was a kid, but I'm not entirely sure that there's just nobody being exposed to larger amounts of text and that few people online have interests greater than TikTok.

How is this different from reading books? Most people are likely not "reading with great comprehension rates" when they read a book either.

I think this is pretty natural given we live in an information-abundant world now. Taking the time to read everything you could get your hands on makes a lot of sense when you don't have constant access to everything.

For me, there are some writings that are really great and some that are a drag. I typically skim to figure out if something is really great. If it looks good after a skim, I'll dig deep. I suspect many others are the same, though there probably are some junkies who never dig deep.

Are comprehension rates that important when your goal isn’t something serious like education or self-help?