Reid is noted for his social awkwardness and prodigious brilliance, which draws on his analytical way of thinking and establishes him as the encyclopedic brainiac of the group. He has an affinity for words - from reading and scrutinizing texts at an astounding 20,000 words per minute (an average American adult reads text at 200–300 words per minute) and his rambling of long explanations and tangents (prompting Morgan and other team members to have to tell him to be quiet). He tends to miss social cues at times (for example, unknowingly changing the subject of a conversation). Reid also had a hard time feeling empathy, among other emotions, until after the events of season two, stating that he could understand what the victims felt before they died to Morgan in "Fear and Loathing". Matthew Gray Gubler has also commented on the differences between Reid and similarly odd character Garcia: "She represents everything he is not, she is very tech oriented and I would like to imagine he is more like 1920s smart, books and reading etc." Reid is a technophobe and does not use either email or the new iPads. Gubler tweeted that Reid is also germaphobic. On par with being an eccentric genius with trouble conforming to social behavior, the show has hinted at symptoms correlated with schizophrenia, (minor) autism, and Asperger's Syndrome, as evident by his bursts of long-winded commentary, his impressive academic history (three PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering) in a short amount of time, and adverse reactions when touched by strangers. It is speculated that he may also have slight obsessive-compulsive disorder, particularly from a scene in "Out of the Light" where Morgan slightly moves an item in the home of Marcus Talbot (who suffers from it), and Reid immediately places it back to its previous spot. Despite his odd demeanor, and his family's history of mental illness, he has never been diagnosed with an official condition.