Font Choice Matters, Bionic Reading Doesn’t
A couple years back, Bionic Reading took the internet by storm with influencers advocating it as a method to increase reading speed and comprehension for people who have ADHD and dyslexia. Readwise quickly debunked this1, and in their conclusion highlighted studies2, 3 that show what really matters: Font choice significantly affects reading speed without affecting comprehension – but this effect is highly individualized. There is no “best” font.
Bionic Reading has since changed its website dramatically, but used to make the claim that on an independent test of 12 participants, there was a “positive effect”, despite also claiming that some participants found it “disturbing” and that the results were unclear4, 5. Bionic Reading claims to improve how fast your eyes/brain can see words, but as The Conversation points out, reading speed is based on language processing, not how fast your eyes see or visual cortex processes visual information.
Bionic Reading appears to be a solution in search of a problem, with a profit motive rather than an altruistic motive. Their service is partially a font, partially bolding certain letters. The concept is patented and charged for. This is not the kind of behavior you’d expect from a genuine interest in helping people.
While some may benefit from using it, this does not make it special – it makes it equivalent to any other font choice. It has been researched thoroughly6, 7, with no significant benefit found.
References
I try to make sure all references are archived through services mentioned on Archives & Sources. For this post, all references were backed up using Ghostarchive, as it was the only public-facing working archive at the time of writing.
- Readwise: Does Bionic Reading actually work? We timed over 2,000 readers and the results might surprise you. Readers were 2.6 wpm slower on average – a statistically insignificant result.
- Study: Accelerating Adult Readers with Typeface: A Study of Individual Preferences and Effectiveness “[…] readers in our study read better with varying fonts. An average 117 word per minute difference between worst and best typeface, or around 10 additional pages an hour […]”
- Study: Towards Individuated Reading Experiences: Different Fonts Increase Reading Speed for Different Individuals “Participants’ reading speeds […] increased by 35% when comparing fastest and slowest fonts without affecting reading comprehension.”
- The Conversation: Can Bionic Reading make you a speed reader? Not so fast
- Quartz: Can adjusting font styles really help us read faster?
- Study: Kan bionic reading bidra til økt prestasjon i leseforståelse hos sjette-trinns elever? “This study […] shows that formatting as a method to enhance students reading comprehension may be inappropriate […]”
- Study: No, Bionic Reading does not work “Statistical analyses revealed no significant difference in reading times between Bionic and normal reading.”
Updated 2025-09-01 to fix a typo.
I Spent Two Hours Learning How to Take a Break Instead of Taking a Break
And so you hopefully don’t waste the same amount of time, here are just the conclusions:
Take breaks every 20 to 70 minutes. Finding the right frequency for you may take trial and error. Multiple sources agree that something near 50 minutes of work with 10 minutes of break works well. The Pomodoro technique combines more frequent shorter breaks with infrequent longer breaks, and is commonly used. The longer you go between breaks, the longer your breaks should be.
A break is only effective when you do something different from what you’re doing now. The primary differences that matter are using different areas of the brain (or not trying to utilize your brain during a break), a difference in eye-focus (stop looking at screens if you were, look far away if you were focused on something right in front of you), and a difference in physical activity (move more if you weren’t moving, or stop for a bit if you were).
(Vacations have beneficial effects, but these seem to be limited in scope and duration. I believe this take is missing important nuance.)
If you wish to read all my notes on this topic, they are publicly available here. (Note: In case that website goes down, I do regularly back up my notes (and blog posts) using the services linked to on Archives & Sources.)
Fastest Space Travel, Smallest Time Dilation
I made a major mistake in my calculations and have temporarily removed this post until I can fix it / explain where I went horribly wrong. :D
Nihilism, The Ubermensch, & Garfield
If you want the short version, skip to watching this video, or: Nihilism is the belief that life is meaningless. But why settle for that? If life is meaningless, then the only true meaning is what you bring to life. Do what you can to the fullest you possibly can. Embrace all of life, its good and bad, because it is all you have. The Ubermensch is an idealized future super-human who does this. While impossible to achieve, it is possibly the only escape from nihilism.
Garfield is horrifying once you realize the majority of the comic is about Jon suffering1 eternally. But that horror comes from within – or from a cosmic demon cat. It can be taken to represent a mental trap where one sits lost in their own suffering. I am very prone to nihilist feelings, but that video feels inspirational to me. While it wallows in hopelessness and otherworldly horror, to me it speaks only of the demons in my mind that I’ve lived with for as long as I can remember.
Every bit of horror displayed there just looks like a Tuesday to me. It also reminds me of the first video I linked to. I discovered it a few years ago, and keep coming back to it because it feels so significant to my personal issues:
I’ve felt lost and hopeless for a long time because my depression feels everlasting, because it feels like the only time I’ve ever be free of it is when I am dead, and because that feeling leads to wanting that death to come as soon as possible. I also fear death immensely, because I don’t believe in any kind of afterlife – I don’t want to not exist.
This idea gives me some hope and solace that while I may never escape my personal demons, I may be able to enjoy my life regardless.
I started writing this because I want you to know how Garfield is horrifying, and I want to share videos that are personally significant. Somehow these goals aligned with thinking about depression and how to keep living when life has a lot of pain in it. But, really, just.. watch this:
Edit: Oh, and I get the impression that Garfield is actually supposed to be much darker, but Jim Davis keeps being prevented from publishing the darker stuff:
- 38.7% of all comics
Updated 2025-09-02: The hover-over text was added as a footnote at the end.