Why do words start to look weird when typed/written/read too many times

[Soubriquet]

It’s so weird

I know what you mean, I guess it’s because really words are just an arbitrary noise and combination of squiggles we’ve decided are letters when they’re written down…

I’ve just been searching online and apparently it’s called ‘semantic satiation’

Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.

Wow that’s really fascinating actually

I know exactly what you mean. I use the shortened version of my name mainly, but I had to type my full name into a legal document a few times recently. I started questioning myself if I was spelling it correctly, and by the last time I typed it I felt like I didn’t recognise my name at all, it just looked weird!