2023-05-31 ◦ When is Learning Worth the Effort? - Scott H Young

Later, psychologist Keith Stanovich applied the same insight to reading. Those with a slight advantage in early reading ability had a slightly reduced cost of reading new material. This lead to them practicing more, further reducing the costs of reading. Given the connection between reading and other forms of learning, he even hypothesized that early reading ability might bootstrap intelligence by making it easier to acquire new skills and knowledge.

To summarize, many decisions about learning have the following features:

– Doing it yourself doesn’t initially pass a cost-benefit test.

– The more you practice, the lower the cost becomes.

– Thus whether it’s “worth it” to learn something depends on a far-sighted calculation of how much you’ll need to use the skill.

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