What is Deep Reading Time, and why doesn't Skimora show a WPM score?

Open the settings of most reading or speed-reading apps and you'll find a words-per-minute number somewhere, usually presented as the thing to improve. Skimora doesn't have one. That wasn't an oversight — it's a deliberate choice, because a WPM number measures how fast you moved through text, not whether you actually took any of it in.

What Deep Reading Time counts instead

Deep Reading Time counts minutes of unbroken, attentive reading: the tab visible and focused, and you scrolling, typing, clicking, or a pacer actively running, within a short idle window. A tab left open in the background while you do something else counts for nothing, because it isn't reading.

The exact rules

• Leaving the tab gives you a 10-second grace period before the block pauses.
• Two minutes without any activity ends the block.
• Blocks under 30 seconds are dropped entirely — they're noise, not reading.
• A block only counts as "deep reading" once it passes a minimum length, which adapts between 2 and 10 minutes by default, or can be fixed at 2, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes in Settings.

Why this is a better number to look at

A speed score creates an incentive to move faster, which is exactly backwards for most reading that actually matters — a contract, a chapter, a paper you'll be tested on. Deep Reading Time can't be gamed by skimming faster, because skimming faster doesn't make the minutes count for more. The only way to raise it is to actually stay with something longer.

Today's total is free and shows in the popup. The license unlocks the longer view: a past-year heatmap, an opt-in streak, and your personal best — a picture of a habit, not a leaderboard.