Unpopular opinion: that guy who told me to stop highlighting every line was right

My book club buddy Mark told me 3 months ago that I was ruining my reading experience by highlighting like 80% of every page. I got defensive and told him it helped me remember stuff. But last week I reread a chapter from The Overstory and realized I couldn't actually pick out what mattered because everything was yellow. I finally tried reading my next book with zero marks and actually absorbed more. Has anyone else had to unlearn a bad reading habit someone called them out on?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade_hernandez1mo ago

Oh man, that yellow highlighter confession hit hard. I was exactly the same way with nonfiction books for like a whole year until my sister asked me what the point was if I couldn't tell the difference between a quote and a random comma. It's humbling but kind of freeing, right?

jana_henderson521mo ago

I read something recently about how over-highlighting actually trains your brain to stop processing information because it's all labeled as important. It makes sense that you couldn't pull out the key points later when everything was the same color. Mark's blunt advice probably saved your reading habits before they got completely stuck.