Because I’ve always seen reading time as such an incredibly personal thing, I’ve never once paid any heed to these widgets. In fact, I’ve been slightly perturbed a service would presume to know how quickly I could read an article.I’ve always viewed any service that sticks a “reading time” widget on its articles as the literary equivalent of fast-food: you’re not here for quality, but for expediency.
Personally, I think they devalue a text more than they add to it.
Estimated Reading Time Widgets — Jim Nielsen
I’m with Nielsen on this one. It makes no sense to suggest an (average) estimated reading time, unless you are trying to convince your audience that this is not a long piece, and you can read it in a minute or two. For personal blogs like this one, I really don’t care if people read it or not. But if you are writing one of those linked-in-self-promotion-bullshit-crypto-AI-latest-fad types of posts, then your goal is to get the reader to take its time. And in those cases, you can bluntly lie and always say it’s one minute.
My guess is that this trend comes in response to instagram/reels/shorts/tiktoks where people do not want to spend any more time on a particular content than they need. Long-form reading is dying, especially on the internet.
Other than teaching how debilitating this is to the younger generation, I hold a very pessimistic view for the next generation.