
People Who Speed-Listen to Podcasts - Osiris30
https://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/meet-the-people-who-listen-to-podcasts-at-super-fast-speeds?utm_term=.jdJ8Pn6MBG#.ioEx4N69Mb
======
jldugger
> In fact, according to behavioral neuroscientist Stephen Porges, because
> recordings played at higher speeds are at a higher pitch, they are actually
> easier to hear.

Uh... that's not how modern speedup works. Here's a brief rundown:

1\. break the audio up into very small windows 2\. FFT audio in a window from
time domain to frequency domain 3\. FFT the audio back from frequency to time
domain, with an even smaller window (or larger, if you want to slow playback
down).

The frequencies resulting are the same, but shorter in duration. Obviously
there's some sampling bias that can creep in, but these algorithms are
generally pitch-stable.

~~~
gleenn
For anyone interested in a simple implementation of FFT, I found this neat
little example which was very grokkable if you speak Java:

[https://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/97data/FFT.java.html](https://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/97data/FFT.java.html)

~~~
tzs
For those who just want to play around with Fourier transforms, it is worth
noting that computers are fast enough nowadays that you can often get away
with a slow Fourier transform instead of a fast Fourier transform. The former
is O(N^2) as opposed to O(N log N), but is also much easier to understand. To
wit, in C, here is a function that takes a pointer to an input array of
complex numbers, and output array of complex numbers, and a count of how many
numbers are in the input, and does a discrete slow Fourier transform from the
input array to the output array:

    
    
      #include <math.h>
    
      typedef struct {
          double r;
          double i;
      } complex;
      
      void fourier(complex * x, complex * y, int np)
      {
          int n, k;
          
          for (k = 0; k < np; ++k)
          {
              y[k].r = y[k].i = 0;
              for (n = 0; n < np; ++n)
              {
                  double c = cos(2*M_PI*k*n/np);
                  double s = sin(2*M_PI*k*n/np);
                  y[k].r += x[n].r * c + x[n].i * s;
                  y[k].i += -x[n].r * s + x[n].i * c;
              }
          }
      }
    

This is a pretty direct implementation of the definition of a discrete Fourier
transform as given in equation 1 from the Wikipedia article on DFT [1].

On my iMac (3.4 GHz Intel Core i5), compiled with "cc -Ofast", here are
timings:

    
    
      size   time/FT   FTs/sec
      ----  ---------  -------
       128    0.24 ms   4167
       256    0.93 ms   1074
       512    3.8 ms     263
      1024   15.5 ms      65
      2048   65.6 ms      15
      4096  243 ms         4
    

That would plenty fast for many interesting learning projects, like a real
time guitar tuner for example.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discrete_Fourier_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Discrete_Fourier_transform&oldid=809829098)

------
furyofantares
I speed listen to podcasts (and audiobooks and speed watch lectures) for an
entirely different reason: I am able to maintain attention on the material. I
am sure I get less out of it than someone who is able to pay attention at 1x,
but I get nothing out of 1x and never got anything but frustration out of
lectures in school, so speed listening opened up a whole new world for me.

~~~
tw1010
Lectures isn't just about feeding the information into your brain. Half the
battle of learning what the professor has to say is to process the material in
your head, to let it bob around in your head a while. I often find that I can
get a lot of that work done while still in my seat, as long as I allow those
thoughts to bubble up.

In other words, allow creative thoughts about the things the lecturer is
saying to form – wander around in idea-space a bit – and think about them,
while simultaneously keeping up with the thread of the speech. You'll gain a
lot more from your time in the lecture hall, and it'll also be a lot more fun.
A lecture shouldn't just be (and doesn't have to be) dry information stuffing.

~~~
furyofantares
Genuinely, good for you. I’m glad that works for you. But it’s a strange
reply. I’ve described an attention disorder and a method for coping with it
and your suggestion is that maybe I shouldn’t have the disorder in the first
place. Which I agree with, but it’s not particularly helpful. I suppose that’s
not fair. Let me try again: I’d love it if I could mindwander a bit while
still paying attention to the lecture, the entire problem is that I cannot do
this. That inability is called an attention disorder. If I have time to
mindwander at all then I immediately get lost in my thoughts and am unable to
pay any attention to the lecture.

~~~
tw1010
Well, it's ambiguous from my perspective, with no more information, whether or
not the behaviour was a genuine disorder or just caused by bad habits (akin to
causes mentioned in the currently highest voted post[1]). It sounds like it
was the former, in which case I'm sorry. I guess I was also not really
thinking about it as a reply to you specifically, but rather to the entire
audience of readers here on HN who I wanted to give a heads up on, in the
context of your comment, that it's possible to experience lectures in more
ways than one.

[1] [http://nautil.us/issue/52/the-hive/modern-media-is-a-dos-
att...](http://nautil.us/issue/52/the-hive/modern-media-is-a-dos-attack-on-
your-free-will)

~~~
colechristensen
I don't think it's a disorder or a bad habit. People process information at
different speeds, if you're out of your comfort zone, that processing will be
inefficient.

------
cyberferret
I've tried it many times, but I just cannot consume podcasts at anything more
than 1x speed. Any more, and I begin to understand how someone on the autism
spectrum might feel in a normal social situation.

I too went through a phase of getting addicted to podcasts and subscribing to
almost every one that people recommended to me. But then I realised that I
simply could not listen to them all within my allotted 'listening time' \-
which is usually during a 1hr walk in the mornings.

So now I simply don't bother trying to keep up with listening to consecutive
episodes, no matter how much I enjoy the podcast. I just go to my list of
waiting episodes as I walk out my front gate, and hit 'play'. If it finishes
during my walk, I start another random one from the list. If I return home
before it finishes, I hit 'stop' and rarely go back to it unless it was
particularly informative.

I just treat my podcast list as a virtual sock drawer that I can reach in and
grab anything out of without looking. I no longer live with the FOMO anxiety
that I might miss a brilliant episode somewhere. I have too many other
important things to do in my day.

~~~
jldugger
I don't know if you're actually looking for advise here, but my recommendation
is that you start off slow. 1.05x is virtually indistinguishable. Every month
or two a rampup of .1x is equally indistinguishable, although there's a
plateau somewhere.

I should probably try bumping it up another .1x myself, now that I think about
this.

~~~
andai
Can confirm. Even in a single session I like to slowly increase the speed. You
get used to each one after a few minutes, and eventually you will turn it back
to 1x and be shocked by how slow it sounds!

------
pwinnski
One of my siblings is quoted in this article, and most people in his life are
annoyed both at how much time he spends listening to podcasts (even at hyper-
speed) and how much he talks about them.

I don't have a problem with listening quickly, it's the very long list of
podcasts that suggests misguided focus.

~~~
brandon272
It didn't occur to me that this could devolve into borderline dysfunctional
behavior, but it does make sense. I think my first instinct when reading the
article was that these folks are lucky to be consuming large amounts of
podcast content.

~~~
cabaalis
I had the exact opposite reaction; I was wondering how in the world they could
be functional with that amount of noise going into their minds. To each his
own, of course, but I cannot fathom how they could possibly be consuming that
amount of spoken word and still focusing on tasks at hand.

~~~
emodendroket
Well, you can't. They're either giving their work or the podcasts short
shrift.

------
legitster
I have a co-worker who does this emphatically. He's the type where everything
must be lifehacked to death. I get that it's a great way to speed through
content quickly, but I've noticed that he has no way to discern quality
anymore. In fact, he will avoid well produced, quality podcasts because they
move too quickly and include sound effects and music.

So yeah, I get it. But it seems to encourage the wrong sort of content - long,
windy, with no effort made into presentation or editing.

~~~
dzhiurgis
That must be me. I hate long winded, sound effected podcasts. It's just fluff
to mask average content.

Compare a16z with Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman (gosh even that name
sucks). a16z has no ads, no sound effects, no blabber, but absolutely
excellent content. Masters of Scale tho move slowly, keep repeating same
things and feels like it's targeting children, way more edited.

Edit: maybe it's just the format that makes it interesting. Google Cloud
Podcast, Good Day Sir, Software Engineering Daily - all have conversational
format, almost a debate.

~~~
legitster
Must be a difference in taste. If the podcast only consists of back and forth
conversation, I check out or look for a transcript (since I can read faster
than the fastest speed listener).

An episode of 99% Invisible though... I want to slow down and enjoy like a
fine wine.

~~~
dzhiurgis
English not a native tongue, so listening is faster to me. Plus gives eyes a
rest. But how does reading transcript different from normal text?

p.s. I do like 99% Invisible, my most recent find.

------
janwh
I do understand why people would want to speed up their podcasts backlogs—I'm
currently about 50% in, working my way through >500 hours of 5by5's Back To
Work with Merlin Mann. I've tried speeding that up but one thing in particular
causes me to stick with 1.1x at max: it's the connection with the hosts. It's
just information (both useful and less so) condensed to be hastily consumed
but it discards the dedication the hosts have put into it. Playing off of each
other. The inside jokes, the subtle differences in tone and timing.

Maybe I'm just not as good in processing such social interactions at a faster
pace than real-time. But I love "sharing a laugh" as if it's happening right
now. That feeling completely goes away when the audio is sped up.

~~~
Fnoord
Humor is a trick to help making information stick in your head. Not a new
trick; advertising uses that trick all the time.

There's no way that with speed listening or reading everything sticks equally
as listening or reading a 1.0x speed multiplier. It may feel like you got more
done, but in reality you did not. You're essentially fooling yourself, feeling
like you accomplished more than you did.

I do the same, but with movies/series. I "watch" them on a second screen
without being all the time focused to it. Except if its a really good
movie/serie. But if it isn't a good one, why watch it in the first place?

~~~
burkaman
Do you have any reason to believe this besides intuition? Anecdotally you'll
find lots of people who say they retain a lot more at 2x speed than 1x,
including me. Just look around this thread. Here's one study on this I found
with a quick search:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-015-0841-2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11528-015-0841-2)

My own intuition tells me that everyone probably has a maximum (and maybe
minimum) speed that they're comfortable with, and there's no reason to assume
that a podcast host's preferred speaking rate is the same as an audience
member's preferred listening rate.

Speeding up your primary focus is not at all comparable to consuming something
as a secondary focus. I agree that "watching" something in the background is
terrible for comprehension and retention.

~~~
Fnoord
Perhaps I am biased because although my English is quite decent it isn't my
native tongue.

I'm not sure if we're discussing the same thing here. I am talking about
_learning_.

Yes, there's also a lot of people who believe speed reading allows them to
read quicker. Sure, it might seem that way, but does the information stick? Do
you think anecdotal evidence to test if information was learned counts as
evidence?

Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr. Terrence Sejnowski didn't mention your proposed
learning method in their Learning How to Learn course [1]. They also debunked
speed reading in that course. If your proposed learning method works well,
they should incorporate it in their course. However, it seems to go against
the principles of chunking and overlearning.

[1] [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

~~~
burkaman
I can't find a definitive source, but the average adult reading speed seems to
be around 300 wpm. Popular podcast Hardcore History hovers around ~175 wpm
([https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*_PUpCqAQyCQ-
Whf02...](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*_PUpCqAQyCQ-
Whf02rdpdg.png)), so you'd need to almost double the speed to reach a normal
reading pace. So I don't think arguments against speed reading really apply to
this.

Of course it all depends on the host. If you find a podcast where the host is
already reading at 250 wpm, you'll probably have a hard time catching
everything at 2x speed.

~~~
frostwhale
Reading is not listening though, i'd imagine there's differences in how our
brain parses them. This is a very interesting, but exceedingly complex issue.

~~~
burkaman
There's a lot of articles and studies about that, here's a decent one:
[https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/listening-to-a-book-
instead-o...](https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/listening-to-a-book-instead-of-
reading-isnt-cheating.html)

I think reading and listening are not as different as they seem.

------
ilamont
A few years back I worked on a website that was very ADA compliant. Part of
the development involved testing for different use cases, including users who
have low vision. Some of the software for this audience reads through alt and
body text at what sounds like 4x or 5x the speed. It was practically
unintelligible to my untrained ears, but one colleague who uses screen readers
every day had no problem with it.

------
Unbeliever69
I never used to do this when I was young, but now that I'm getting older a
sense of haste has crept into my life. I speed listen to podcasts, YouTube
(non-music videos) and educational videos (such as technology learning modules
on Eggheadio, Udemy etc.). It took me some time to adapt to this style of
learning, but now, I wouldn't do it any other way. It makes me feel like I'm
packing more into my day and as you get older, this is a comforting thing.

~~~
dalbasal
I wonder if it's an age thing (seems counter to my intuition) or more of a
zeitgeist, sign of the times type of thing. The world (especially the
digital/knowledge world) is faster these days.

~~~
losteric
I believe the need for constant stimulation reflects today's world, while the
desire to focus on productive subjects tends to come with maturity (not age).

Personally, I think we're over-indexing on knowledge acquisition while
underemphasizing taking action.

------
rcarmo
I'm steadily in the Overcast 1.7x+ camp. The audio processing is nothing short
of phenomenal (if a drain on battery on my iPhone 6), and over time, I've
adjusted to the point where the speed seems natural and I can spare enough CPU
cycles to steer me through my commute.

Other commenters' points that it is also a sort of focus enhancer also ring
true to me--I have arrived at the office with nearly 100% retention of what a
specific recording was about, especially since I tend to listen to technical
podcasts like TWIML[1] (which focuses on stuff I do at work), and I get
nothing but value from being able to listen to two podcasts during my one-hour
commutes.

Softer stuff like Merlin Mann, Gruber, etc. I will either navigate with the
chapter guide or making liberal use of the skip buttons. I seldom (if ever)
listen to any kind of podcast at normal speed, except for some language
courses.

Even then, I tend to slow down only for languages like Mandarin or Hebrew
(which I'm less acquainted with). Spanish, French, etc. (which I know from
childhood) tend to be drawn out enough that I can even speed up a little :)

[1]: [https://twimlai.com/](https://twimlai.com/)

------
kentosi
Not just podcasts, I also do this with YouTube when someone talks really slow
or if it's an instructional video I just want to get the information out of.

Having hotkeys ">" and "<" also help control the speed when needed.

~~~
erikb
Yeah instructional videos are awesome on 1.25 (or 1.5 if the English is good).
And you can still slow down and even pause if something is harder to
understand. I wish this would've been possible already when I went to school.
How many hours could've been saved...

------
crispyambulance
I find 1.5x to be OK, but 2x always ends up sounding too choppy and abrupt.

It is clear that the playback software shifts the pitch downward so it matches
the 1x pitch, but there's still some "artifacts" that show up when you go
beyond 1.5x.

Is there a precise word for this kind of distortion? besides "choppy"?

Also, I wonder how far you could get in time compression by merely removing
spaces between words without actually compressing the words?

~~~
dec0dedab0de
_I wonder how far you could get in time compression by merely removing spaces
between words without actually compressing the words?_

That is interesting, but a good speaker uses spacing to better convey their
message. In order for it to work, it would have to somehow take into account
rhythm. Perhaps just cutting longer spaces instead of spaces between words.
Maybe even starting with the creator, or users tagging unnecessary bits such
as coughing, or reaching for a drink.

~~~
Osmium
It's also the case that often there _aren 't_ spaces between words. One of the
surprising things when you first start doing audio analysis is that the pauses
between words that you perceive aren't actually there in reality -- which
makes them a lot more difficult to 'remove' algorithmically.

~~~
thedirt0115
+1 -- this is part of why learning foreign languages can be so difficult.
There aren't really pauses between words. Your brain has to learn to figure
out word boundaries. Check out this waveform for the phrase "on our website":
[https://swphonetics.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/speecheonour...](https://swphonetics.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/speecheonourwebsite.jpg)

~~~
philsnow
I remember clearly the ~week I was finally able to "lex" syllables out of
spoken Chinese. I went from feeling like I was trying to catch butterflies out
of the air with my bare hands, to feeling like the whargarbl dog.

------
xutopia
I speed up only to 1.25X or not at all. I find there is a sweet spot between
listening faster and actually taking in what is being said. I used to do 2x
but found myself forgetting the contents rather than remembering like I
normally would.

------
desireco42
I used to listen to x1.2-1.4, I don't do this anymore. I just mark them all
read and listen to what I really am interested in. I do have more then... well
around 80+...

Anyhow, I wanted to share an anecdote, I am listening to 'Note to Self' and
host is sharing her feelings and concerns and fears... And I am thinking, this
lady is so nervous and jumpy and her friends too. So next time when I was
opening an app, I am thinking, do I really want to listen to this nervous lady
telling me about how to handle social media... then it dawns me that she just
sounds nervous because I've been listening on 1.4x and everyone will sound
nervous if they talk about their feeling on speed.

So there...

------
emodendroket
> Take 34-year-old Jason Strickland, who works for a land surveyor in Winston-
> Salem, North Carolina. He listens to around eight hours of podcasts at work
> every day, and listened at normal speed until he came upon the Movies by
> Minutes series of podcasts, which analyzes iconic movies minute by minute.
> (In other words, every episode is devoted to one minute of a movie.) When he
> found it, the hosts had already completed the original Star Wars trilogy,
> which was 378 episodes, plus a few special episodes, so he started
> downloading 50 episodes at a time and listening at 2x speed. "It took about
> a month per movie to get caught up," he said, explaining that he would
> listen to whatever podcasts were on his current listening list in the
> morning, and then power through the Movies by Minutes episodes in the
> afternoons. "Once I was current, I would then go find another show to
> download and get caught up, repeating this for all the shows."

Unless I'm doing something mostly physical or mindless I can't listen to a
podcast and work at all.

------
cerealbad
2x speed often gives you better than 50% content retention. speed consumers
are doing their own version of manual audio search, by unconsciously skipping
over non-information and slowing down or repeating perceived relevant noise
(or just toggling on/off focused attention).

a more aggressive version of this is actually skipping 15-20 minute chunks of
audio at a time and trying to pick up contextual clues about the preceding
chunks to verify if they are worth listening. the greedy approach often pays
off here if you are just looking for one or two specific portions in a giant
pile of noise. you might end up doing 10 skips and listening to 8-15 minutes
of 90 minutes of content.

information addiction leads to a sensation of impending doom. the knowledge
you would like to access and understand is spreading like a dark cloud and
your global-time is counting down.

my solution was to read the ~15 core books and retain their surface sensation.
the rest is now processing and categorizing "new" information, pattern
matching categories and bias detection to remove false positives.

------
ALee
I'm an Overcast user who cranks it up to 3x+ speeds, minimizing silences and
voice boosts. The experience is enhanced when you have earbuds (or some type
of noise-cancelling). I also find that when I do it during an athletic
activity like biking, I somehow can listen to more things probably because I'm
doing something rote.

The real key to all this though is when someone finally creates this for
online articles or books - sure, I could download a version, format change in
calibre and then have it read to me via Voice Dream, but I need a better voice
than the technical voices nowadays. I would definitely pay for this.

Lastly, this also occurs in other media for me - pretty much any movie before
1990 can be watched at 1.5X on VLC. Similarly, every YouTube clip is set to 2X
usually as well. It may sound exhausting, but you just get used to it after a
while.

------
jbgreer
Related: I speed-watch all non-music videos at least at 1.25x or 1.5x,
sometimes 2x.

I wonder how many people select tech videos based on length? Surely YouTube /
Vimeo etc. has studied this? I wish there was a search option that let me
filter content based on length.

~~~
ovrdrv3
Youtube sort of has a filter available - Short (under 4 mins) or Long (Over 20
mins)

------
caoilte
It's a product of the inherently cut-price / amateur nature of the medium.

Give me a well scripted well produced drama, comedy stand-up routine or
documentary and I want to listen to it at 1x.

Everything else is information sparse ad-libbing off of semi-improvised
material re-hashed from books and articles then strung together with
conversational back scratching. Or the one dimensional drone of someone
reading from a book/script.

Is slow-core a thing yet? Audially ram-packed soundscapes lovingly crafted
over months of careful layering of complementary edits that rewards the
patient and attentive listener with hours of meat-speed re-listening. Sounds a
bit hipster tho.

~~~
remir
I agree. The podcasts I enjoy the most are produced by radios (CBC, NPR, BBC)
because there's not much fluff, inside jokes and rambling from the hosts. The
audio is good, the content is good and well presented by the hosts. Sometimes
there's sound effects or music, but it's not a problem.

But stuff from Twit.tv is simply unbearable to me.

------
otterpro
I watch/listen at 1.25x-1.5x for some Vlogs and Youtube videos because the
pacing is just too slow. A lot of Youtubers and Podcasters just drone on and
on, or speak at a very slow pace, that I just lose interest. When pacing is
done right, its actually fun to watch/listen to, and there is always something
interesting, and I find it enjoyable to watch at 1x. The
scene/topic/point/illustrations switch quickly to the next one, and the story
moves forward without wasting precious time. One example of good pacing is
Casey Neistat's vlog. Unfortunately, most Youtubers just don't.

~~~
nimz
Veteran podcast hosts speak relatively slowly, so that it allows for the
widest range of listening speed comfort levels amongst their listeners. People
can then use their podcast player to customize how fast they like to listen.
This is an easy way to tell apart the experienced and inexperienced podcasts.

------
buryat
One thing you notice after speed-listening is how slow humans speak in real
life

~~~
cyberferret
The ironic thing (for me) is that I actually tend to speak too fast in real
life. People are _always_ asking me to slow down or repeat myself. I have to
force myself to talk slowly.

Yet, I cannot listen to podcasts on anything more than 1x speed. Must be a
processing issue somewhere in my brain that causes this disconnect...

------
SimonPStevens
I'm fairly convinced that audio books are deliberately read slower than normal
speech to cater for the widest possible audience. I don't think people new to
audio books are put off by it being slower than necessary, but if you found it
too fast to follow you would give up fairly quickly. So by recording at a slow
speed that caters for something like 90% of listeners you retain the maximum
number of listeners.

This is basically a long winded way of saying that I think audio book makers
expect the average person to bump the speed up a little.

[I listen to audio books on Audible at around 2x speed.]

~~~
legohead
I could see doing that for academic material, but when I listen to
fantasy/scifi (which I do most of the time), I enjoy the voice acting too much
to speed it up. In some cases it makes the books a lot better than they were
written.

~~~
visarga
Can you give examples of audiobooks that have great voice acting?

~~~
legohead
Sure: [https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Blade-
Itself-A...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/The-Blade-Itself-
Audiobook/B014LL6R5U/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1511283060&sr=1-1)

The voice actor, Steven Pacey, is so amazing I've considered listening to
other books he's narrated solely due to his performance. I haven't quite gone
that far yet, though :) However, I do recommend this book/series -- if you
like fantasy.

------
0xCMP
I listen to tons of podcasts at faster speeds, but rarely beyond 2x. It really
does feel like people are talking so slowly sometimes. I often do it so I
don't get bored, wander off in my mind, and miss a huge part of the podcast. I
still wander off, but it's far less and it helps getting through the backlog.

I make sure to keep the list to a minimum though. Sounds like these guys are
listening to way too much.

------
brianbreslin
I listen to podcasts and audiobooks at 1.5x. When I hear them now at regular
speed, the hosts voices sound strange to me. Even more strange is when I
listen to my friends' podcasts at 1.5x when I know their voice in normal
speed. I would like to try 1.75x, but none of the common podcast or audiobook
apps have that fine grained adjustment. 2x is too fast for me.

~~~
froindt
I've found PocketCasts (on Android, not sure of iOS) to be my favorite app. It
allows 0.1x resolution. It won't get you 1.75, but 1.7 or 1.8 will be nearly
identical.

------
alg_fun
I listen to books and articles via text to speech application for over 3
years. Currently i am able to listen comfortably at 3.6x speed. I don't know
how to test comprehension through. My friend says i might be able to think
faster than other people, because of superhuman listening powers i now posess.
Don't know how to test that either.

~~~
kevingrahl
Mind sharing what application you‘re using?

Is there something open source that works great?

~~~
alg_fun
I use voice aloud reader for android. It is has awful ux but allows up to 4x
speed.

------
tw1010
Isn't it a bit strange that what some these people are listening to is not
particularly educational, but is rather entertainment? Speed listening a show
which deconstructs movies frame by frame, that's kind of silly. For what
reason? Definitely not for the entertainment value. (Or not completely.) FOMO,
perhaps. A need to be able to keep up with the conversation at work and with
friends, possibly. I'm just curious what's going on in the backs of these
peoples minds, because it seems incredibly irrational. I'll admit that even I
have had periods in my life when I have done this. Some flavour of addiction
and a habit of getting things in a very short time-span is definitely part of
it. But I'm not even sure I am fully aware of all the pieces of the
psychological puzzle which would explain it.

------
WheelsAtLarge
Speed listening seems like a win win but it's not if you are trying to learn.
One of the rules of learning is that you must pay attention to what you are
learning something that's hard to do with speed listening. If you just want to
be entertained then I can see its benefits.

~~~
hrktb
Perhaps think of listening as a direct equivalent to reading.

People who focus enough will read a book at the right speed their brain can
best process the information. But that speed is not the same for everyone,
some people will go through a book twice as fast as others while extracting
the same amont of learnings, and we won’t tell them they read at the wrong
speed.

If it’s true for books, why would it be different for audio contents ?

There’s really no special rule that makes 1x playback a golden speed,
especialy considering some podcaster speak faster in person than when they
record for instance. Or the otherway round, podcats like ATP have the silences
auto-trimmed to some extent making it denser than when they record.

To each their speed.

------
sjm
I get this works for people on certain types of podcasts, but surely with
well-produced podcasts (e.g. Heavyweight, Love & Radio, Reply All, S-Town...)
the pauses and pacing is a meaningful artistic choice, one that a 2x speed
just rushes through like an impatient child.

------
mihau
Is it only me or does anyone also feel like focusing on podcast "speed-
listening" is waay easier than reading an article ?

no distractions, no ads, no external links == no million tabs open, ->> you
cannot easily scroll and tldr stuff <<-

~~~
anotheryou
use pocket (and on android: ivona tts :) )

------
Kluny
I don't do podcasts, but sometimes I'll do video tutorials, and the best sites
(Microsoft University, Lynda.com, etc) have both transcripts and the option to
listen at double speed. I always take advantage of both options. Hearing and
reading the material simultaneously helps it stick in my mind better, and
listening at double speed effectively cuts in half the time it takes to
complete the course, which makes me feel SO much better about spending another
couple hours in front of the computer at night, instead of going outside to
play.

------
pyreal
Discovering the YouTube speed options setting rocked my world. I found it
difficult to watch many videos - especially instructional - because the
speakers were just such slow talkers. I come from the Eastern Canadian
province of Newfoundland where many speak our own unique fast and abbreviated
English dialect - especially in tiny rural areas like where I live. Listening
to "mainland" North Americans speaking English is painfully slow. Now I can
set them to 1.25-1.5X and be close to the speed that I'm used to in
conversation.

------
nickjj
I find that audio quality plays a huge role in playback speed tolerance.

I can enjoyably listen at 2x for some people, but others I cannot go beyond
1.5x and I've been listening to audio at 1.5x or 2x for a long time.

It's much less about their pace too. It's overall line quality and how clear
they enunciate words.

For my own recordings I try hard to make them feel good at 2x (even tho I
naturally speak fast and manually edit out pauses). About 10% of the people
who take my developer courses listen at 1.5x or 2x and have enjoyed the clear
audio experience.

~~~
xinyhn
Absolutely agree. A few podcasts I listen to that I would consider very high
production quality I can easily do 2x and some of the more casual content ones
I have pushed to 3x. However, some of the fringe, sounding like they are
recorded on a phone become difficult to understand even at 1.5x.

------
pawelwentpawel
I speed-listen to lectures, usually 2x. It not only allows me to eat more
information within a limited time frame but also keeps me much more focused
than listening to them at a normal speed.

~~~
wlesieutre
There's a blind guy in my office building and I sometimes hear his iPhone
doing voiceover in the hallway. If I didn't know better I'd have a hard time
believing there are even words in it.

------
jccalhoun
I find that if I listen to podcasts at faster speeds I can get them but it
requires I pay more attention to them. However, I am usually listening to a
podcast and doing something else at the same time (like posting on
hackernews). I find that the moderate pace of podcasts means I can drift my
attention back and forth between the visual stimuli and auditory stimuli more
easily.

(maybe I could learn to do it with podcasts playing more quickly but I don't
think I listen to enough podcasts to do that)

------
anotheryou
I have to speed-listen, not to drift off when things are too slow. Podcasts,
unlike good movies, often lack details to focus on when the plot is slow.

Any good android and windows player recommendations? I can recommend:

windows: windows media player (surprisingly good, once you found the playback
speed menu)

android: antennapod (sadly you can only cycle through speeds one way, which is
really annoying). But it has the benefit of supporting chapters,
subscriptions, auto-downloading and removing files etc.

------
zanny
I subscribe to a few dozen podcasts with AntennaPod... didn't even consider
speeding up playback. Going to try 1.1x this week. I do like retaining
information and I usually like to think about what my podcasters are talking
about (Like Stuff You Should Know / Radiolab) so I can't see myself speeding
it up that much.

I just never even realized this was a thing, and that that 1.0X next to the
playback buttons actually did something...

------
divbzero
I’ve tried this before and have mixed feelings about it.

1\. Speed-listening certainly increases the number of words I hear, but does
it actually increase the amount of ideas I absorb?

2\. To what degree does speed-listening impact my ability to engage fully in
normal-speed human conversations?

(Also, do some podcast producers speed up their recordings and edit out
silences _before_ publishing? For example, I suspect a16z does this with their
podcasts.)

~~~
linuxliaison
I certainly edit out those silences from my podcast.

Often when I'm listening back, those pauses are just too long, especially when
you're the only one talking.

In regards to speed-listening, I just don't think it's a good idea. If you're
rushing through anything (or at least _feeling_ rushed), more often than not,
you're not truly enjoying it.

------
joshschreuder
If you haven't tried it yet, have a go at playing back videos you watch at
1.1x. Over the space of a 50 minute TV show or more, saving 10% of your time
is pretty useful.

I don't think I've run into anything where I have been distracted by 1.1x,
besides theme songs to shows I am familiar with which obviously don't sound
like what you expect. It's basically unnoticeable.

------
himom
I speed listened to the Stanford iOS course. Some lecturers just talk too
slowly, pause too often or speak with low information density.

------
camiller
On the rare occasion that I can just sit and listen I'll use anywhere from
1.7x-2.2x. More commonly when I'm driving I rarely got above 1.2x. I just
can't retain anything if I go faster while driving.

I hadn't heard of the silence skipping feature but just checked and my player
of choice (Podcast Addict) has it. Just turned it on so I'll see how that
goes.

~~~
isostatic
How badly is your driving skill effected when you listen to a podcast? I won't
listen to audio books in the car because it takes concentration away from what
I should be doing (safely operating a mechanical killing machine at 70mph)

~~~
petercooper
I can't speak for camiller, but I'd say it improves my driving. It engages a
totally different part of the brain, and listening to spoken audio stops my
mind from wandering and daydreaming by chatting to itself. For similar
reasons, I listen to audio books while going to sleep (obviously, the physical
and visual stimuli while driving ensure I don't fall asleep _then_ ;-)).

------
zzz95
This is very surprising, as I often end up constantly rewinding and re-
listening. Most of the time my mind wanders off to contemplate the
repercussions of what I am listening to and sometimes I just want to take time
to process. Is this normal or am I too slow? Are people binge listening to
really lightweight podcasts or is it something else!

------
bearcobra
I recently changed my Pocket Casts settings to trim silence and play at 1.8x
for most of my subscriptions. The only exceptions are shows that do a lot of
audio production like Reply All, RadioLab and The Adventure Zone. I've even
found myself adjusting to the faster speed on comedic podcasts, which has been
the most surprising to me.

------
mrlyc
This sounds great! I have 680 GB of podcasts recorded at 128 kbps which
equates to 1.35 years of constant listening. I could definitely listen at a
higher speed while doing housework, gardening or washing the dishes. I'd be
concerned about doing it while driving, though, as that requires (for me, at
least) a lot of concentration.

------
RmDen
It depends on the podcast.. something like twit, Joe Rogan, motley fool, stuff
you should know, Jocko podcast I listen to at 2x since some of those are 2-3
hours and I don't lose anything at that speed(At least I believe I don't).
Hardcore history I do at 1x... everything else is at 1.5

------
fsiefken
Some podcasts provide transcripts, I find them much faster to read then to
listen to. Also being selective at what podcasts and episodes you listen to
helps. Speed reading selective long reads (previously saved with DevonThink or
Pocket) or speed listening to them in the dark is what I do.

------
eco
One odd thing I found while listening to conversational comedy podcasts at
1.5x was that I found them to be funnier. I believe it's because if the pause
before someone says something very clever is short it makes it even more
impressive (and funny) that they thought of it.

------
eco
For audiobooks I tend to start the book off at 1x for the first few hours
because it's hard to follow while they are establishing characters and
environment when you speed it up. Once I have a feel for those I gradually
speed up to 1.4-1.7x (depending on the narrator).

------
rctay89
Is there a way on Android/iPhone to both listen to a podcast _and_ music at
the same time? Unfortunately, earphone time is limited for me, and too often I
choose one over the other at the expense of my learning, no prizes for
guessing which...

------
solomatov
I usually listen to audibooks at 2x speeds and lectures on at least 1.5x
speed. It was hard to get used to first, but after a couple of months of
practice, I think, I have good comprehension at these speeds. I wasn't able to
increase speed though.

------
mattlondon
I love 2x playback for videos - I like to catch up on various work internal
meeting recordsings etc at double-speed. I wish netflix would add 2x to its
shows!

It takes a bit of effort but isn't so hard to get used to. Love it.

~~~
nrhodes
The Video Speed Controller Chrome extension
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-
contro...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-
controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk?hl=en)) allows you to speed up
Netflix or any video that uses HTML 5 for playback.

~~~
ivan_ah
This ^ is worth its weight in gold. The ability to adjust speed in increments
of 0.1 is really good. You can watch a lecture at 1.7x 1.8x or if the speaker
is slow, then up to 2.3x and more...

On the topic of 2.3x video watching, I've observed that "question periods"
after lectures are very difficult to watch at 2x speed. It seems the pace of
"lecture speech" is deliberately slower for most prepared speeches, but when
it comes to live question-answer periods rates jumps up. Has anyone else
noticed this?

------
k__
I often listen to everything informational (not infotainment) on 1.5 - 2 thw
first time. It's harder to scan audio than writing and I don't have all day to
find useful stuff.

Sadly many things are video/audio nowadays

------
malydok
Speed aside, I can't imagine listening to any attention-demanding podcast for
more than 3 hours. Apart from straight up brain strain it wouldn't result in a
lot of knowledge retention.

------
thefifthsetpin
I remember the first time I heard the intro music to the fivethirtyeight
politics podcast at 1x speed. Had a completely different feel from what I had
grown accustomed to.

------
everling
Relevant Portlandia:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JLWQEuz2gA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JLWQEuz2gA)

------
JoshMnem
I listen to Udemy courses and YouTube videos at 1.5x to 2x speed, depending on
the speed of the talking. You can improve the listening comprehension with
practice.

------
Dowwie
Podcasts aren't just about content. That's part of why they're so great. Speed
through an audio book but not a podcast!

------
hateful
I started doing this with youtube science channels, especially after PBS
Spacetime changed to that new guy.

------
mavhc
I listen to podcasts at 1.70x currently with Annetta, and talk TV shows at
1.3x with xbmc or mxplayer

------
scottlegrand2
I watch deep learning course videos at 2-3x depending on the speaker's
cadence.

------
ec109685
> He listens to around eight hours of podcasts at work every day, and listened
> at normal speed until he came upon the Movies by Minutes series of podcasts,
> which analyzes iconic movies minute by minute.

Interesting job that provides enough down time to listen to podcasts at faster
than normal speed 8 hours a day.

~~~
MartinCron
Or a profoundly uninteresting job.

~~~
ThePadawan
Or a job with very high requirements on response time, but very low
probability of problems, such as security guard, emergency server technician,
night shift at a pharmacy or hotel front desk.

------
timthelion
It seems to me that this is really a matter of condensing low density fluff.
I've read 1/2 page papers on computer science that took me days to get
through. The problem wasn't my reading speed.

~~~
cortesoft
Subject 'density' isn't something that can be just ramped up and down at will.
Not everything can be conveyed at the same level of 'density' as those 1/2
page computer science papers you are referencing.

You can think of it like compression in computer science; not every file is
equally compressable.

------
toephu2
Slow down guys...learn to enjoy life at normal speed, seriously, you don't
need to act like you're in the rat race 24/7.

~~~
mrob
In most podcasts the value is in the information, not the timing. 2x speed is
more enjoyable (or maybe a relaxing 1.5x speed if you don't feel like
concentrating) because there's less boring waiting involved.

~~~
Cyph0n
Depends on the podcast honestly. If it's a comedy podcast, listening at 2x
defeats the point.

Even if it's a purely educational podcast or audiobook, any form of pacing or
diction is lost at 2x, which, ironically, makes the story boring as well imo.

~~~
amputect
My two favorite podcasts are Sawbones and Welcome to Night Vale. I don't,
like, personally care if people listen to them at high speed. It doesn't bug
me and I don't judge them for it. My personal experience (descriptive, not
prescriptive) follows:

Sawbones is an edu-comedy podcast about medical history, and I tried listening
to it faster and just didn't enjoy it as much. I really enjoy the comedic
timing and interplay between the hosts, and it's already information rich
enough that I feel fine listening to it at normal speed is fine.

One of the things I really like about WtNV is the almost menacing, deliberate
pacing of the narrator. His speech is so perfectly even, regardless of the
content, that it's almost hypnotic. I tried that at 1.25x and it felt off, but
again it's a personal preference thing.

