Mindless Reading Lowers Cognitive Performance – How Do We Stop?

There are two kinds of mindless reading. The first kind, often associated with guilty pleasure, involves reading something just for fun.  There is no expectation that you will learn or grow.  A trashy novel is a good example. The second kind of mindless reading involves moving your eyes across and down a page while you are thinking about something else or otherwise not paying attention.  You are not being mindful of the written word. Re-reading the same paragraph over and over or getting to the bottom of a page and not remembering a single word are typical examples.

According to researchers we often zone out, even when we are trying to read for understanding or receive prompts to pay attention.  This suggests:

For those interested in improving cognitive performance, mindless reading presents a major opportunity.

But how can we keep from reading mindlessly when we don’t want to? I’ve spent sometime researching that question and have come up empty. Despite its prevalence there has been very little scientific research done on mindless reading. What has been done shows that it lowers the cognitive performance of reading and lowers test scores.

In studies subjects that experience mindless reading have reported being distracted by hunger, thirst, sleepiness, boredom and sexual desire. Making sure you are rested, well fed and the rest to avoid mindless reading makes good common sense.  But what else can be done?

Very interested to hear from readers about specific techniques for decreasing the frequency of unwanted mindless reading.