Or, more straight-forward: how long does it take the average reader to read a single comicstrip?

In an interview, the late Charles Shultz gave the figure of eight seconds.

In a recent interview here on Comixpedia, "Tallying Up a Sheep's Accolades: An Interview with Adrian Ramos," the figure of four seconds is given.

I've always assumed Shultz's figure was probably created by some number-crunching by United Features (how long ago, I'm not certain). I'm pretty sure Ramos is just giving an off-hand guestimate.

In both cases, the comic format in question would be a three-to-four panel gag-a-day variety.

It has gotten me thinking: does ANYONE have any "authoritative" statistics on how long the average reader takes?

Okay, let me change the question slightly.

I have been informed by a tech-minded third party that it is possible for web-cartoonists to find out how long people are taking to read thier comics simply by going over the records of how long people are staying on pages before hitting the "next" or "previous" links.

How many out there who are drawing web-comics have done this, and how long WERE people taking to read the individual strips (on average or guesstimate)?

This question also goes out to people who host sites with several comics on them. What averages do you see in your reports?