Trick your brain into faster reading with the help of Bionic Reading. With the help of highlighting part of the words, it “guides your eyes over the text and the brain remembers previously learned words more quickly.” (source: br-about)
Here is a beautiful example of how text with the use of opacity, colours, size and many other elements can be quickly achieved for faster reading.
The vanilla output of the R language is slightly limited in terms of output in R Studio, but it can be done using some colours and text size. For the sample text, I will use the one from the image:
sample_text <- "
Bionic Reading is a new method
facilitating the reading process
by guiding the eyes through
text with artificial fixation points.
As a result, the reader is only
focusing on the highlighted
initial letters and lets the brain
center complete the word.
In a digital world dominated
by shallow forms of reading,
Bionic Reading aims to
encourage a more in-depth
reading and understanding
of written content.
"
And the function is straightforward:
Make_text_easier_to_read <- function(input_text){
bold <- "\033[1m"
underline <- "\033[4m"
reset <- "\033[0m"
blue <- "\033[34m"
modify_word <- function(word) {
word_length <- nchar(word)
first_half <- substr(word, 1, ceiling(word_length / 2))
first_half_bold <- paste0(bold, first_half, reset)
second_half <- substr(word, ceiling(word_length / 2)+1, word_length)
second_half_bold <- paste0(blue, second_half, reset)
final_word <- paste0(first_half_bold, second_half_bold)
return(final_word)
}
words <- unlist(strsplit(sample_text, " "))
modified_words <- sapply(words, modify_word)
formatted_text <- paste(modified_words, collapse = " ")
cat(formatted_text, "\n")
}
For the comparison of the text, here is an example:
#simple text
cat("\033[34m", sample_text, "\033[0m", "\n")
# run the function
Make_text_easier_to_read(sample_text)
On the left-hand side is the normal text and on the right-hand side are the bolded parts of the words for faster reading.
As always, the complete code is available on GitHub in Useless_R_function repository. The sample file in this repository is here (filename: Bionic_reading.R). Check the repository for future updates.
Happy R-coding and stay healthy!
Am I the only person who sees Bionic Reading and gets an internal monologue in William Shatner random pauses?
Checked out the About page (https://bionic-reading.com/br-about/). After the pile of blurb points that could have been written by a Temu bot (“More knowledge will make you more successful and give you the significant advantage in this noisy and hectic world.”), gave up on looking for any evidence that it actually increases reading speed / comprehension.
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