I’m sure to most of us this list looks at least somewhat familiar. We all forget, we all slump, and certainly we’ve all wondered how we can do or be or feel better. Even if we don’t necessarily turn to Google for help.
Rather than address each concern, let’s focus on just a couple that are particularly germane to NHM’s primary slant. (In the meantime you can transfer balances to a 12-month 0% fixed rate card, clean your filters, and practice trying to touch your toes.)
Curious as to how my reading comprehension stacks up against the average, I followed Google to Reading Soft’s online speed reading test. Use the web page’s timer to see how long it takes you to read this dull passage, then you answer some multiple choice questions to get your comprehension score.
Personally, I was less surprised by my results (somewhere above good, but below excellent), than by the fact that I 
found it pretty much impossible to concentrate on reading after just three paragraphs. And not long ones, neither. By just the fourth paragraph down I was skimming — ineffectively as it turned out — and skipping sentences all together.
Am I incapable of getting all the way through a 600-word passage? Certainly not. In fact, I’m quite the reader on my own time. Without ruling out entirely that the passage was less than riveting, I must lay heavy blame on the medium. According to the site, reading is around 25% slower from a computer screen than from paper. And who’s got time for that? The Web, she’s just so easy to scroll through. Why slowly be bored when you could scroll and be done? The answer to that came during the comprehension part of the quiz, when I started getting absurdly easy questions wrong. I’m not a bad reader, per se, I’m just spoiled and lazy.
Sounds about right.
From there I moved on to improving memory, and found this online version of the classic match-two-cards Memory game. I picked this one pretty much based on the fact that the url is mathsisfun. Anyway, being a wise ass I immediately bumped up the difficulty level as high as it would go and started the game. Boy, if this ain’t my kind of exercise. I completed the task fairly quickly and got what I can only assume is an amazingly high score.
Has my memory improved? Maybe, maybe not. But I’ve definitely boosted my self esteem.
No Happy Medium 