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Cover of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper

Book · Non-fiction, memoir and self-help

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity

by Alan Cooper

Page count, estimated reading time and reading quiz: everything to know before you start The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity, and the Vread challenge to get to the end.

Pages
261
Reading time
≈ 4 h 40 min
Checkpoints
11
Genre
Non-fiction
Take the challengeAlready have the app? Open the book

Free on iPhone and Android.

How long does it take to read The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity?

At 261 pages, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity is a medium-length book. Expect about 4 hours 40 minutes of reading to finish it, based on 250 words per page and an average reading speed of 230 words per minute. A fast reader will go quicker; a careful read (or reading in a second language) will take longer.

At 30 minutes a day, that is about 10 days of reading. At the median pace of Vread readers, 72 pages per reading day, it takes 4 reading days. For a book of this length (250 to 399 pages), Vread readers who finish it take a median of 4.7 days between the first and the last checkpoint (Vread Reading Barometer 2026).

Reading days to finish it
30 minutes a day10 days
Vread median pace (72 pp./day)4 days

Estimates; see the method at the bottom of the page.

Prove you read it

The Vread challenge: 11 checkpoints

  1. Checkpoint 1, page 24
  2. Checkpoint 2, page 47
  3. Checkpoint 3, page 71
  4. Checkpoint 4, page 95
  5. Checkpoint 5, page 119
  6. Checkpoint 6, page 142
  7. Checkpoint 7, page 166
  8. Checkpoint 8, page 190
  9. Checkpoint 9, page 214
  10. Checkpoint 10, page 237
  11. Checkpoint 11, page 261

In Vread, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity is split into 11 checkpoints, one every 24 pages or so. At each checkpoint, a question covers the passage you have just read: a correct answer validates the step, and your progress moves forward like a training plan.

The challenge: validate all 11 checkpoints through to the last page. No giant quiz at the end, no summary to copy out: short questions along the way that prove the book was actually read. It also works as a reading quiz to check your understanding before a test.

Also available in French on Vread.

Illustrative example

Checkpoint 1/11pp. 1–24

What a checkpoint looks like

A short, precise question about the pages you have just read: a character, a place, a choice.

The answer is in the text: reply in the app.

This is not a question from The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity: to avoid spoilers, the real questions stay in the app.

Answer in the app, one checkpoint at a time.

Summary, quiz, reviews: frequently asked questions

How many pages is The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity?
The edition listed on Vread has 261 pages. The exact count varies by edition (paperback, hardback, ebook).
How long does it take to read The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity?
About 4 hours 40 minutes of reading, or 10 days at 30 minutes a day.
Is there a quiz on The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity?
Yes: the Vread app has 11 reading questions on The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity, one per checkpoint, unlocked as you read.
Where can I find a summary of The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity?
Vread does not publish summaries: the app supports reading the book itself, part by part. Checkpoint questions cover what you have just read, which makes them a good way to check you did not miss anything.

Read The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity with Vread

Add the book to your library, read at your own pace in whatever format you use, and validate each checkpoint. Vread is free on iPhone and Android.

Take the challenge

Written by Vread from its catalogue data (page count of the listed edition, checkpoints, ratings aggregated from 10 ratings). No summary or publisher text is reproduced. Reading times are estimates; see the method in the Vread Reading Barometer (in French).