Make no mistake, keeping up to speed in the modern world can be tough, everyday we consume thousands of words via email, Web pages, books and text messages. Step forward Spritz who have been working for nearly 3 years in “Stealth Mode” to perfect our reading methodology. They claim to have discovered that when reading, only around 20% of your time is spent processing content. The remaining 80% is spent physically moving your eyes from word to word and scanning for the next Optimal Recognition Point” or ORP.

The unique aspect of Spritz is that it identifies the ORP of each word, makes that letter red and presents all of the ORPs at the same space on the screen. In this way, our eyes don’t move at all as we see the words, and we can therefore process information instantaneously rather than spend time decoding each word.

According to the official Spritz site, “spritzing,” is the new form of reading that enables users to read up to 1,000 words a minute. Not only can the reader read faster, but Spritz says they are also able to retain much of what they read.  So let’s take a look at how it works…

This is 250 words per minute. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone is 76,944 words long according to . At this rate you could read the whole book in just over 5 hours.

350 words per minute doesn’t seem that much faster. 3 hours and 40 minutes to finish Potter (did you read that in the voice of Alan Rickman?).

I cannot think of anyone that would want to read a novel in this way and to even suggest this would be quite offensive to most readers because the beauty of reading is not like binge viewing your favourite TV show but to be transferred to another universe and escape reality to soak up the language and let your imagination create the world inside the book. You may even stop for a few minutes and ponder what you have just read and for these reasons, this innovation would dumb down the last sacred intelligent past time of reading.

However, nobody is suggesting we all read this way and this is simply a very useful learning tool which will enable students for example to read and digest information quickly which  would be incredibly useful to anyone who needs to wade through text books the size of War and Peace.

Anyone who has ever had to wade through a large text book or technical manual seldom  retrieve any joy from the experience but a tool like this could make our lives just a little easier and may even free up some of your time so that you can relax in your garden reading the entire works of Hemingway the traditional way but the important thing to remember here is you have different ways to access and absorb different types of information.

Nothing that we see or read is black and white any more; this is a very old-fashioned way of pigeon holing things for convenience and help people make sense of things. The truth is that we are all quite unique and the best analogy I can think of is that we all carry a toolbox around with us, and will select a tool from that for whatever situation that we find ourselves in or for any particular job/role and to be successful we just need to ensure that toolbox contains what we need.

The days of “we have done it this way for 20 years, but we get by” are disappearing, if you can use something like this to help make learning a little easier and but still be able relax and emerge yourself in another world for a few hours in the more traditional sense, would make you a more rounded and multitasking individual, but that’s just my opinion.

What is your opinion on apps like this, do they have a place in the modern world? Or is it simply a step to far?