If you mean they don't finish reading, which is something I can see many answer doing as it is obvious in their answers, this is a horrible way to answer questions and likely doesn't result in very many best answers. I think these people are looking to answer as many questions as they can as quickly as possible to try to make a buck, but in the end will move on realizing that just won't work here.

However actual speed reading I am guilty of myself. Speed reading is not, not reading the question in full it's done by catching the ends and beginning of sentences/words and filling in the rest mentally. For instance if I saw a this sentence..

"I am finding that many of my the responses to my questions are indicative of "speedreading" in that the answers show that the question has not been read in its entirity."

while speed reading I may see.."finding many of my the responses to questions are ..."speedreading" ... answers show question not read."

This would not make my answer incorrect nor in most cases even affect it. There have been a few times where I have filled in the blanks incorrectly or because I was speed reading seen the wrong word.

Wonderful example.. I got feedback on a task telling me to be sure to "capitalize" all related pages.. however I speed read... "alphabetize" because I wasn't paying close attention to the words and I thought I had capitalized.

In this instance it would make my answer wrong, which is why I am trying to stop doing it, but it's a habit.

Long answer short, not reading completely= makes mahalo not worth your time, speed reading= bad habit but not necessarily destroying answers.
Source(s):
http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Speed-Reading

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I think sometimes it is that they only read the top portion and do not read the more detailed question below.

I know many times my question is vague in order to fit it into the allotted space and my details explain what I am looking for.

These are very annoying when you get only the minimum topic portion answered.
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I found that this happened to some questions of mine too although I really try to be as specific as possible.

Might a general short attention span on the internet or a feeling of being "rushed" all the time in this world contribute to that?

Will take even more care reading questions and supplying answers! Thanks for this question!
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Careless or incomplete reading of a question is annoying but inevitable in this environment.

I usually skim the questions and answers to see if it's something that I might be interested in answering or commenting on. It's a great time saver but needs to be kept in perspective.

If I decide to answer the question I go back and read it carefully to make sure that I haven't missed something or misinterpreted the question.

After I answer the question I reread what I wrote to make sure that I have answered the question and not just gone off on my own tangent. ;-)

Regardless of the methods used comprehension is the important factor.
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