These things are nothing new. First time I saw them was on Medium com, if I remember correctly.
Honestly I never understood why they were useful in the first place. Why would it even matter how long do I spend reading things? And how would such a guess even make sense in the first place? I mean, define “reading” – is it just skimming the text with your eyes and not even thinking about it? Or somehow thinking at the exact same rate & speed for all parts of the article, from intro to any novel ideas to unclear parts to conclusion?
Also, doesn’t putting a “minute price tag” on a body of text kind of devalue it?
Disclaimer: I’m probably heavily biased here, all I can think of is some sort of a pseudo book nerd who wants to be as efficient at “reading” as many things as possible with no pauses for thinking, but there has to be a real serious reason why these guesstimates are ever really useful?
(A more honest disclaimer: I actually find them distracting, to say the least. I am prone to problems with managing focus, as well as expectations, so sometimes when I open an article with curiosity, having this thing whisper to my ear “you must spend about 14 minutes and go away” is not helping. On bad days it sort of hurts even if I know it’s BS.)
Again, this is not anything new but I wonder about it recently, since it’s been my feeling that I’ve been seeing them pop up more and more, even in places they make no sense (like programmer’s guides or API references). This suggests to me that they are getting incorporated into publishing platforms, and it’s more about turning them off than deliberately including them.
What’s the deal?
Omg you’ve just reminded me of a few years back when journalists started unironically calling articles “longreads”, like reading is somehow too much effort for adults.
If you only have 10 minutes left on a break you can save the half hour read till later.
Personally, I just read for 10 minutes then and finish the rest later. I do the same with books.
Yup. The other day I was on the toilet and saw a really interesting article. It said “45 minute read” so I saved it instead of starting.
At the risk of sounding uneducated, I wasn’t to say I don’t think I’ve ever read a 45 minute article.
I mean most days I would spend at least that much time reading technical advice or commentary, but not an “article”.
Yea, this is the answer. “Can I read this in the time I have available” is all it is. I never once considered actually comparing the time it took me to read it with the estimate, nor do I think most people have any care to do so.
It’s a great heads up that something is a longform piece and will have a couple interesting paragraphs followed by 10s of garbage ones that are nothing, then a couple useful points, then more garbage.
People’s attention span is very short these days. The “x-minute read” is a courtesy to those who fear they might get trapped in an arduous and impossible-to-complete 2-digit-minute read.
brain rotted lol
Exactly this. I don’t have time to read a 10+ minute article during this hour of shit post scrolling
I distinctly remember getting about 1% into this article about the heist of the McDonald’s Monopoly Game money, but not knowing how long it would be. I ended up getting to the 5th paragraph and read
JEROME PAUL JACOBSON always dreamed of becoming a police officer. He was born in 1943which is when I realized this was a long story and I couldn’t read the entire thing while on the toilet at work.Yeah I have bad attention span but all that means is that even if the article is 5 minute I will be googling every other word and and opening every other link, and THAT’s far more significant than the length of the article.
After all, there’s a reason I did not end up reading the original “14 min article” (which by the way got rated almost an hour by Firefox reader mode, go figure) and went on to post this… :D
So I know whether to waste my time
How does the estimate help you decide?
I don’t get it. If I’m interested in something, I’m interested in it regardless of the length of an article, right?
I mean, maybe I’m not interested in all of it, but then I can just spend, say, 30 seconds evaluating whether the article is any good and whether it spends a paragraph or two on the very topic I’m curious about. Length of the article does not have much bearing on that, it’s more about whether I know the terms I’m looking for and can spot them. (Of course, massive length may hint I will spend more time sifting through, but peeking at scrollbar is enough to realize that.)
If the thing I’m interested in is buried in a massive wall of text, so what? I can ignore the rest of the article as much as I can ignore the rest of the blog (or the internet…)
The real unpredictable thing for me is always that even if I’m looking for topic X, I might actually need to learn about W first, and often I’m underestimating the relevancy of W and its own depth. So I could spend 1 minute reading about X but still find myself unable to use the knowledge. That’s regardless of whether the knowledge was in a 1h long article or 10 min.
I’m interested in it regardless of the length of an article, right?
For you, maybe, but not for me. I literally didn’t read your whole comment that I’m replying to right now because it was too long.
My attention is conditional.
If I know it’s a 10 minute read:
I can decide NOW whether to continue.
Or in 1 minute whether to continue.
Or in 4 minutes whether to continue.
Or in 8 minutes…
Or…
Or…
…or in 30? That’s how it would work for me since I’m a very slow (distracted!) reader.
I get the point, though. Thanks.
It helps me. If I expect it to take like an hour, I may save it for some time when I have the time to sit and digest it. And the estimate is more usually accurate than just looking at how small the scroll bar is.
I generally don’t like reading things in chunks throughout the day, so I don’t want to crack a long article when I’m just sitting on the toilet for a few minutes or whatever.
Maybe I’m more like a bovine when it comes to digesting.
I graze on stuff, then later I will regurgitate it and slowly chew and process it again. (…and sometimes again, etc… until I suddenly realize that I’ve learned something…) The grazing is separate process, and my greed makes it already unpredictable enough. (The thing with Internet meadows is, there’s always another meadow nearby.)
It gives a rough idea of article length without needing to scroll down. Like remaining time on a video.
If it is a topic I’m interested with a two minute read time there probably isn’t anything of value beyond the headline. If I don’t really care and it is a 30 minute read time, there is a high likelihood that I will lose interest before finishing.
Since I read pretty fast, the estimates tend to be higher than it actually takes, but it still gives me something to use to determine whether I want to start reading.
I don’t like them. They tend to be inaccurate for anything that contains information, such as might benefit from reading more than once, or pondered over before understanding. And if it’s meaningless, then why would I even care if I get interrupted midway through it?
I’m assuming it takes the average reading speed in order to make a guess, and I actually find that I like them, especially in fan fiction stories. That way, I know how long the chapter is, because I’m blind, so I use a screen reader, so I prefer somewhat longer chapters, because I don’t have to constantly switch pages as often with longer pages.
I never thought about it being useful for blind people, but it makes perfect sense it’s just like the timer on videos and audio books. Do you have time for an hour of content or do you just have 15 minutes to spend listening. It very useful to know how long it will take before jumping in, or at least in the ballpark of how long.
Exactly. I can’t really stand chapters that are 8 to 10 minutes because I have to turn pages so frequently that it becomes really annoying.
I like them. I’ve had times where I start reading an article and 10mins in I wonder how fucking long is this thing only to find out I’m not even halfway through. I don’t have time or desire to finish it so I just wasted 10mins.
Now I can see the aprox time it will take and if I’m interested /have the time decide if I want to read it.
I have an energy limiting condition and need to manage my energy appropriately. These things massively help.
Who benefits? Probably whoever is making money off you reading it.
