Light, Balanced or Deep? Choosing Depth and Reading Time

Pick depth by how well you already know a subject, and reading time by where the discovery will land in your day. For a new subject, Light or Balanced at 3 minutes is a sensible start; for one you know well, Deep at 5 minutes gives you something to chew on. If you cannot decide, All mixes every depth and makes the choice for you each day.

The rest of this guide explains what the settings actually control, shows one subject sketched at three depths, and gives a few combinations we would use ourselves.

#Two settings, two different questions

Every topic in Topicly has its own settings, and two of them shape the article itself.

Depth answers "how far into the subject should this go?" The options are Light, Balanced, Deep and All.

Reading time answers "how much time do I have?" You pick 1, 3 or 5 minutes, and 3 is the default. Behind those labels are word targets of roughly 200, 600 and 1,000 words.

People often treat these as one dial. They are not. A 5-minute Light article is a relaxed, well-explained walk around an idea. A 1-minute Deep article is dense: one precise point, no scaffolding. Both can be the right choice, for different reasons.

One detail matters for how you experience length. Each discovery first arrives with a short "In brief" summary of 90 to 150 words, a takeaway plus 2 or 3 short sections. The full story is only written when you tap "Read the full story". So even at 5 minutes, you can glance at the brief on a busy morning and go no further.

#What does "All" do?

All is labelled in the app as "A thoughtful mix of every depth". It picks one depth per day or per delivery slot, so over a week you get some light reads and some heavier ones.

We like it for topics you are fond of but not studying. Variety keeps a long-running topic from feeling like the same article in a new coat. It is a weaker choice when you have a specific aim, such as preparing for a job, because you lose control over which day gets the hard material.

#One subject at three depths

To make this concrete, here is how the same subject might be approached at each depth. The subject is the Moon drifting away from Earth, which is also the idea behind one of our real sample titles, "The Moon is slowly leaving us." These are our own short sketches to show the difference in angle, not copies of app output, and a real discovery would be longer.

Light. The Moon moves about 3.8 centimetres further from Earth each year, roughly the speed your fingernails grow. The cause is the tides. Earth's oceans bulge toward the Moon, and because Earth spins faster than the Moon orbits, that bulge runs slightly ahead and gives the Moon a small forward tug. Over very long spans, days on Earth get a little longer as a result. The piece would end on one memorable image and stop there.

Balanced. Same core, plus the mechanism in more steps. The tidal bulge carries energy; Earth's rotation loses some of it and the Moon's orbit gains it. The rate is known well because Apollo astronauts left reflectors on the surface, and laser pulses bounced off them let scientists time the distance precisely. A Balanced article might add why the rate has not been constant through Earth's history, since it depends on the shape of the oceans and continents.

Deep. Now the article is allowed to assume you know what angular momentum is. It would treat the Earth and Moon as one system in which angular momentum is conserved, explain why the transfer happens through tidal friction, and touch on how ancient growth bands in fossils and sediment layers hint at shorter days in the distant past. It might end with the open questions, such as how well past rates can be reconstructed.

Notice what changes. The facts at the bottom are the same. What Deep adds is not more trivia but more mechanism, more vocabulary and more trust in the reader. What Light removes is not accuracy but the steps you would need background for.

And like every discovery, each version would carry the reminder that it was generated by AI and may contain errors. Deeper is not the same as more reliable. On Advanced and Professional plans, independent AI reviewers check a draft before it is stored, but that is AI review, not checking against sources.

#How to choose depth

A rough rule we use:

The main mistake is starting too deep. A Deep article on a subject you have no hooks for is not wasted, but a lot of it slides off. The research on memory is fairly consistent that new material sticks better when it connects to something you already know, and Light and Balanced articles spend more of their words building those connections.

The opposite mistake is staying Light forever on a topic you have outgrown. If you find yourself skimming because you already know it, move up a level.

#How to choose reading time

Reading time is less about the subject and more about the moment. Ask where the discovery will land.

1 minute (about 200 words) suits a notification you open standing in a queue, or a topic you want present in your week without it taking much. It works well with Light. With Deep it becomes a single sharp point, which some people love and others find abrupt.

3 minutes (about 600 words) is the default for a reason. There is room for an example and a second idea, and it still fits a coffee.

5 minutes (about 1,000 words) needs a seat. Pair it with a moment you already protect, like the train home or the first ten minutes after lunch. Delivery times are set per topic down to the minute, and the discovery is prepared about 30 minutes ahead so it is ready when the push arrives. We cover timing in more depth in finding the best time to learn each day.

The length is enforced honestly. If a draft comes out too short or too long for your choice, it is regenerated. It is never padded with filler or chopped off mid-thought.

#Combinations we would actually use

• A new hobby topic: Light, 3 minutes, one delivery in the evening.
• Your professional field: Deep, 5 minutes, at a time you normally sit down, for example 08:40 before work starts.
• A casual interest like space: All, 3 minutes, so the week has variety.
• A custom topic you are testing: Balanced, 1 minute, for a week, then adjust.

These settings are cheap to change, so treat the first week as an experiment. After a discovery, "Three quick questions" gives you 3 multiple-choice questions drawn from that article. If you keep answering 3 of 3 without effort, the depth may be too gentle. If you keep landing on "Not quite", try one step lighter.

#A next step

Look at the topics you follow, or plan to follow, and sort them into the four rows of the table above. Give each one a depth and a reading time that matches the moment it will arrive. You can see how per-topic settings fit together on how it works.

Topicly is coming soon to iPhone and Android, and you can check the download page for when it launches.