Sometimes, reading #MachineLearning papers, I find my brain turning off — I read the words, but I don’t get the meaning. I have to then stop myself and go back and read each of the words individually to make sense of them …

This probably is a sign that I need to stop reading papers 😛 But does this happen to anybody else? I think I’ve started doing this for everything, even fiction, and that’s why I can’t read as much any longer …

@f this happens to me sometimes regardless of what I’m reading. I could be a novels, papers, anything. I’ve notice it happens mostly if:

1. I’m tired,
2. I’ve got something else occupying my thoughts, or
3. The material is boring

Sometimes, I’ll even reread the same page several times before I decide I should probably give up.

@yonomitt That’s exactly how it is for me too 🙂 Just that this didn’t start happening till I got older … When I was younger, I could read anything and both understand it and not have my attention wander. But I guess that’s part of getting older? 😛

@f it’s been happening to me for a while. The first time I remember noticing it, was in 9th grade English class, when I was forced to read “classic” novels I had zero interest in.

@f If have the same "condition", mostly in similar situations as the ones mentioned by @yonomitt. Mostly happens to me when I'm not committed enough to reading a paper, particularly when I'm just doing it because I feel I have to stay up to date but actually got lots of other things to do.