I am a great skim reader. I can bluff my way through a meeting with a glance at the slides and agenda. Right up until my stunning knowledge, evidenced by my wise nodding and "yes, yes" responses is actually tested in a fact: Did I actually read? No. Did I comprehend? No.
Some people can handle it. Some people don't notice it. Several of my peers are bringing me up short on it, and "did you actually read what I said" is one of the blunt, but useful things which can be asked sometimes.
Skim reading is death to comprehension. The other side of the coin is that I can re-read fiction for decades, multiple decades, and enjoy it afresh every time. Oh my god, she was HIS MOTHER. Next year: WHAT? SHE DIED? Next year: WAIT, ITS SATIRE.. Next year: ... rinse and repeat.
Paul Vixie buried a "give me your firstborn" in an IETF draft and surprised all the "I have read this draft" microphone queue people with an aha moment pointing out what they'd missed. It hasn't changed behaviour at IETF that I can see.
As far as I can tell I've always been this way. I want to blame lack of attention on digital media but TBH as a 60yo I've been aware of this tendency for a long time, probably most of my conscious life.
Reading carefully can be tedious. Oddly, listening might be better. Audio books might actually have a role, for ingestion of the facts. Mind you, not at 2x speed. I've done that for AI transcription correction and its a brainfuck.
Much of the blame goes to the students as was touched on in this, as plenty of students just want to pass the course and are not concerned with learning anything. I was one of them. There were quite a few courses in university where I didn't even crack the textbook and instead just drilled the past 5 years of questions asked.
For example, our electromagnetics course graded based on problem sets. I didn't crack the textbook nor did I go to class, but rather just drilled the past problem sets. I had no idea what the "w" looking thing was by the end of it. I got a B in this course and I didn't genuinely know anything beyond what to do when faced with a certain question pattern.
I got a B in a stereotypically difficult course without knowing what what some of the variables were even named.
I had the same experience, but it was not for a lack of motivation, it was just too much content to handle. We had 5-7 subjects with crazy amounts of exercises to hand in every week. I spend almost 20 hours a week on one subject in my first year. But there were still 4 other subjects to handle and we were expected to have a 40-hour week which of course was completely unrealistic. How are you supposed to read text books in addition to that?
There is this factor too. I had some 30 hours of classes in my first year of university. They had a suggested ratio of 1 hour of class time to 3 hours of outside time.
So 120 hours is what we were theoretically supposed to do?
It happened in my final year as well. Had a class where the prof openly said that we should be spending about 40 hours a week on his course as it had 10 contact hours.
Yes it was totally ridiculous, almost nobody managed the class schedule with a healthy amount of time/work involved. Most professors seemed to be so detached from reality that they either really thought it was possible or just thought their subject was more important than others and deserved more attention from the students.
Not to mention that during your university time you are SUPPOSED to do leisure activities, get to know other students; be active in clubs, join a sports team.
Adding to that basically anyone here in my country needs to have a job while studying because there are very little stipends and having student loans is not really a thing.
Either way, it was a disaster and only 20% of my class even finished their degrees in time, most had to extend by a semester or two.
Some people can handle it. Some people don't notice it. Several of my peers are bringing me up short on it, and "did you actually read what I said" is one of the blunt, but useful things which can be asked sometimes.
Skim reading is death to comprehension. The other side of the coin is that I can re-read fiction for decades, multiple decades, and enjoy it afresh every time. Oh my god, she was HIS MOTHER. Next year: WHAT? SHE DIED? Next year: WAIT, ITS SATIRE.. Next year: ... rinse and repeat.
Paul Vixie buried a "give me your firstborn" in an IETF draft and surprised all the "I have read this draft" microphone queue people with an aha moment pointing out what they'd missed. It hasn't changed behaviour at IETF that I can see.
As far as I can tell I've always been this way. I want to blame lack of attention on digital media but TBH as a 60yo I've been aware of this tendency for a long time, probably most of my conscious life.
Reading carefully can be tedious. Oddly, listening might be better. Audio books might actually have a role, for ingestion of the facts. Mind you, not at 2x speed. I've done that for AI transcription correction and its a brainfuck.