Spritz is a new technology that allows you to read faster. Up to four times as fast as you used to be able to. According to this Yahoo answer, the average human reads at about 250 WPM (words per minute). Spritz says most people read at 220 and that through their Rapid Serial Visualization Technology (RSVP), you will increase your reading speed to up to 1000 WPM. At that rate you could read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 77 minutes. This is incredible, but don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself at gradually increasing speeds below:

We already live in a world where people are permanently engrossed in their screens. At least for now we can see that they are human by watching them occasionally scroll up to read more text or tap to flip a page. Imagine that changing to people staring unflinchingly into their devices as you just did while reading these super-speed versions of Spritz’s pitch. Considering this technology can increase the rate at which we consume media by up to 4X, its not crazy to assume that it may become a part of our daily routine. How big a change is this? Will Spritz be a bigger deal than the iPod? The iPhone? Could it be a bigger than Facebook? Than sliced bread?

We could be looking at a future where people consume their non-rich media on tiny screens in which the words spritz onto the screen in the same way they do in these .gifs. Maybe the articles and books we read will be interspersed with brand names to subliminally advertise while we “read”, if we can even call it that anymore. Maybe designers will be out of work because we don’t need fancy formats to present words in any more. If that’s the case I’ll continue to be glad that I’m typing out the words and not arranging them.