I think it's a useful trick, especially while doing research. What I mean is that I often start reading stuff back to front. Open article, scroll to the end, read conclusion, point 10, then 9 and so on. Say, there's a book I want to read, but I'm not sure if it's good or useful to me. I'll just start reading it from the back cover, or from the last chapter. Is there anything of value? If there isn't, I might check one more chapter and then drop it. Books usually have harder topics and conclusions at the end, if we don't find value there, maybe there's no point in reading the whole book. But of course each circumstance is different. I think this trick also helps to gauge how much time reading the whole article (or book) will take. I've scrolled down for two minutes straight, it's unlikely I'll be able to read all of it in one sitting. I'm on page 1000, means this book will take a while. On the other hand, it may help you finish what you've started. Since you already know the length, you might as well try to finish it right now. Since you already started reading from the wrong side, you might as well track back to the beginning to get the whole picture. You would probably drop an article if you'd start from the start, like normal people. Started reading, got distracted, need to go off. Welp, whatever. Out of sight, out of mind. On the other hand, if there's anything of value at the end and you don't know how and why the author reached this conclusion, you might read on. You also might read the conclusion of the article straight on, if that's the information you needed in the first place and you don't care for the rest. There are more benefits to reading back to front. Books and articles often start with easy stuff first, where most people would be able to follow along. Introductory ideas may be too simple to capture our attention, we may already know this stuff. And topics get harder and harder as you flip pages. Harder chapters need more focus and attention, and it tends to diminish towards the end of the book. But if you try to crack a book from the rear end, you might as well succeed. Your brain will perceive previous chapters as easier, hence more chance of finishing it. Earlier terms and concepts are often mentioned or repeated later on anyways. It doesn't mean you have to really read stuff from back cover to front, it just means you start reading that way. Somehow I've got so used to this it's my natural habit. Open a page, press End, boom, you're probably scrolled to the place in the article which you came for initially. I think this trick may also save us from confirmation bias. Author may try to convince us of something and we don't know their intentions. If we follow along, and the content starts with the stuff we agree with we might be persuaded to believe something that isn't true.