Young Americans Push Playback Beyond 1x as Platforms Widen Speed Controls (economist.com) 87
Young listeners are accelerating audio and video consumption, with an Economist/YouGov poll finding 31% of Americans aged 18-29 using faster-than-1x playback versus 8% among those 45 and older, as Apple, Spotify, newspapers' audio, Netflix, and YouTube expand speed controls, including YouTube's 4x for premium users.
YouTube reports more than 900 years saved per day from fast playback; a meta-analysis led by University of Waterloo researchers finds minimal test-score change up to 1.5x and declines near or past 2x.
YouTube reports more than 900 years saved per day from fast playback; a meta-analysis led by University of Waterloo researchers finds minimal test-score change up to 1.5x and declines near or past 2x.
Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm trying to teach myself how to do a revolved cut in Solidworks and your video is 15 minutes of jabbering.
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Couldn't agree more. Now and then some heplful viewer posts a timestamp to the actual useful part of the video.
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I swear people don't watch their own videos. No one wants to hear you yammer on about your channel and all of the other bullshit. No one is impressed with your long video intro. Get to the point.
Re: Of course (Score:3)
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Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
Videos need to be at least N length to qualify for different tiers of ads and sponsorship. Yamering on for a minute about what the video is about, for whatever reason, helps keep people through that critical first 30 second period, which boosts your viewership and tells the algorithm your content is worth watching. If the video has over 10k views you can pretty much always skip over the first 30-65 seconds
Re: Of course (Score:2)
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Yep. Speed controls and removal of the downvote count may have removed some of the ncentive for content creators to spend more time rehearsing/editing to put out higher quality content.
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I think I watched that same video last week. (at 2x)
Saved? (Score:3)
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I am pretty sure YouTube is not saving any time for these people. Perhaps they should say 900 fewer hours wasted.
It depends. If it's cat videos or unboxing videos or reaction videos at > 1x playback speed, yeah, fewer hours wasted.
But it could also be how-do-I videos. In which case... imagine if they weren't videos at all, and people could just read them. Reading speed is (usually) much faster than speaking speed. A mixed document with instructions in text, labels in picture form, and "like this" moments in quick video bursts would be best of all worlds, I think.
Re:Saved? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it could also be how-do-I videos. In which case... imagine if they weren't videos at all, and people could just read them. Reading speed is (usually) much faster than speaking speed. A mixed document with instructions in text, labels in picture form, and "like this" moments in quick video bursts would be best of all worlds, I think.
I despise a great many "How do I" videos.
"Where is the WPS button in my ASUS router?
10 seconds channel logo, 20 seconds preamble, 45 seconds on the sponsor, a plea to like and subscribe, then a poorly lit shot showing it's recessed below the model label.
Fuck every last poster of bloated videos saying what could be delivered in text in a hundred bytes or less. And, even more, fuck the people who need it delivered in this format. Please don't drag the world down to your level of functional illiteracy.
Now there are plenty of great instructional videos. My beef is not with them. I am a consumer of long form "how to".
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Google results have gotten so shitty, this is still better than being unable to find the answer at all.
And the AI stuff? Ask the question. Get the likely incorrect answer. Follow the links to sources and pray to find the correct answer.
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Agreed. Unfortunately the bloated video was can be monetised, whereas the simple instructions don't make much money. So the economics of the internet have created an intensive to deliver information as inefficiently as possible.
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10 seconds channel logo, 20 seconds preamble, 45 seconds on the sponsor, a plea to like and subscribe
Ah! For heaven sakes.. after watching such video please post the one-line answer to a Lemmy instance somewhere Or wherever the heck free information can be put and still be found these days without people having to waste time on excessively slow and long videos.
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Search engines no longer allow for literal keyword searches, so the answer still won't be indexed anywhere.
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Have a look at the SponsorBlock add-on. It will automatically skip over intros, preview segments, sponsored segments, self promotion like "like and subscribe", pre-music guff, end credits, all that stuff.
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I wonder if it would skip over your ad for it?
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But it could also be how-do-I videos. In which case... imagine if they weren't videos at all, and people could just read them. Reading speed is (usually) much faster than speaking speed. A mixed document with instructions in text, labels in picture form, and "like this" moments in quick video bursts would be best of all worlds, I think.
I despise a great many "How do I" videos.
"Where is the WPS button in my ASUS router?
10 seconds channel logo, 20 seconds preamble, 45 seconds on the sponsor, a plea to like and subscribe, then a poorly lit shot showing it's recessed below the model label.
Fuck every last poster of bloated videos saying what could be delivered in text in a hundred bytes or less. And, even more, fuck the people who need it delivered in this format. Please don't drag the world down to your level of functional illiteracy.
Now there are plenty of great instructional videos. My beef is not with them. I am a consumer of long form "how to".
This.
Most vidoes are minutes of "hey welcome to my video, I'm some random tosspot who thinks acting like I'm famous will make it true. Smash that like and subscribe button, here are my sponsors which don't even operate in your city/country/planet, hit my like button, subscribe, like me, like me, like me" often followed by meaningless drivel and it's not until 15 minutes in do you get to any kind of meaningful information.
Video is the slowest means to learn anything at the best of times, let alone once
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That's a great idea. Needs a cool name though. It's like beyond text. Super text? No, hyper text!
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perfect!
Re:Saved? (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. It's a response to the unfortunate rise of instructional videos. That's an inefficient way of learning about most things. I can read faster than you can talk, and I can quickly scan a page of text to find the information I'm looking for. With a video, I can only turn up the playback speed to waste a little less time. But that's mostly what people want to make these days. In any search for "how to ___", half the hits are probably videos instead of text.
Re:Saved? (Score:5, Interesting)
I speed it up, turn off the sound, and turn on closed captioning (CC). Turns YouTube into a speed reading machine.
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I speed it up, turn off the sound, and turn on closed captioning (CC). Turns YouTube into a speed reading machine.
Well, a reading machine anyway. Even at 2X, the usual max, someone talking is still slower than my reading. 4X might turn the trick and at least catch-up to my actual reading speed.
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I hate when there is an interesting news headline and I click and it's a fucking video.
If I wanted video, I'd watch tv. If I am reading news online, I want to READ the fucking news!
I just close the window when I end up on some stupid news video.
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My default on YouTube is 1.75x but it just means I get to the ads more quickly.
Alvin chipmunk? (Score:2)
does 2x shift the frequency?
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no
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I am pretty sure YouTube is not saving any time for these people. Perhaps they should say 900 fewer hours wasted.
Well, that's only true if they didn't spend those 900 "saved" hours watching other YouTube videos.
Overall this seems like an incredibly pointless metric.
Meshuggah - Bleed 2.5x speed (Score:3)
NEED MORE CAFFEINE TO PROCESS!
About the only ones I speed up are some of the folks doing political coverage that seem to speak at 1/4th the speed of a normal human. Maybe they started doing it because they knew people were listening/watching at higher speeds, but it's super annoying for a guy that just wants to hear things at normal, conversational speed. Articulation does not require you to speak at 1/4th normal speed. And even if you're doing it to work against the people trying to watch everything at faster speeds, you're creating a feedback loop of dumbassery by slowing yourself down.
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They'd talk faster if they weren't worried about getting sued or fired because someone has thin skin and can't handle facts.
Video killed written media and now we pay the pric (Score:2)
That's because videos are terribly efficient. You used to be able to skim an article in 30 seconds and get all of the important information. Now it's a 45 minute video explaining that the bash command you need is du -sh /path/to/folder
to get the folder size.
Do I need to listen to two podcasters ramble for an hour? No I do not. Not only do I want to play it back at 2x speed. I also want an AI to cut out the 90% of fluff.
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Simple - they'd rather read (Score:3)
The reason is simple. They are used to consuming much more of their information in text form, particularly when communicating. You can read much faster than normal speech rate. So listening to someone actually speak the words is like slow motion. Those of us that grew up having to use the telephone (as in, you know, to talk to someone on the phone), or carrying on conversations in person, were conditioned to that speed, so we don't perceive it as slow compared to reading - they are just two different things.
Now... the younger generations can't hardly carry on actual conversations with people because they are so out of practice and barely learned the skill (I'm talking on average - not all are like that). Have you ever had a voice-only phone conversation with someone under 20? It's weird and awkward, because they don't know the subtle communication cues and timings that make that work when you can't see the other person. The rare times our kids call us voice-only they are saying "Hello?" before we can even answer the phone.
I have a similar issue but somewhat backwards from that. I'm a fast typist, and still use an actual keyboard for most of my messaging and text entry (like this comment on Slashdot). So my handwriting absolutely sucks because I want to try to write information as fast as I can type it.
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I believe that's subvocalization. Sublingual means under the tongue.
I can speed read up to about 1,500WPM, but as you say, it depends on what I'm reading, and what level of retention and comprehension I'm looking for...
Re:Simple - they'd rather read (Score:5, Funny)
I always read aloud - and project like I'm in a theater, for the benefit of everyone nearby.
You should see me reviewing ingredient labels when I'm at the grocery store. People act annoyed, but deep down I know they really appreciate it...
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Why wasn't this a Monty Python skit???
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And yet, they *choose* to get their information on YouTube, instead of going to print sites with similar content!
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You should slow down and read the post more carefully. The title and post didn't say "The Old Never Uses Playback Beyond 1x" or "Only The Young"
I can't get through the paywall but I bet the linked article doesn't exclude you either.
I mean JFC, anytime someone says "X Are Doing Y" there is always someone who is not X that shows up and goes: "What about me?! I might be doing Y!"
I'm one of those old farts who speed up playback (Score:1)
I listen to podcasts on 1.8x generally. I'm so used to it that on the odd occasion I hear them at normal speed they sound weird to me.
For YouTube and other videos I very commonly nudge it up to 1.1 or 1.25 as available.
"Come on! I don't have all minute!"
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Turn on closed captioning, turn off the sound, and you can hit 2x/3x.
Blame the algorithm (Score:3)
YouTube incentivizes videos to be over 10 minutes. [splicedonline.com] Consequently, videos are made longer than they have to be. Watching them in high speed just compensates a problem that YouTube created in the first place.
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Youtube is promoting engagement content not the concise.
ironic
the "how to" videos of 2010 were so much shorter and too the point
Now they have a splash logo, 3 minute talking head into, sponsor intermission, 15 seconds of how to and then 1 minute of "check out my other videos"
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As does using SponsorBlock that let you skip sponsors, intros/outros and tangents in videos to get down to the 2 second bit you actually want.
High speed playback is useful for people who speak slow though just to get them to speak at a more normal pace.
It's about what content gets *listened* to (Score:3)
I'm old. I consume all kinds of content at variable speed depending on how interested I am in it and what I need out of it.
Because I'm *reading* it.
More and more young people *only* listen to and watch videos. You skim some articles? They're doing the same thing, but reading less.
The other factor is, especially on YouTube, videos are garbage. The algorithm/ad model rewards length. There's lots of really interesting, informative stuff on YouTube, but dragged out to an hour for five minute content. It's going to make AI summaries seem way more useful than they should be to the same crowd.
You Won't Believe This One! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, guys! SlashbotAgent here and today where going to talk about the need for accelerated viewing and listening. Is it real? Is it pervasive? Is it what the cool kids do? Well, you're about to find out cause I'm about to start a deep dive and get into the nitty gritty of it all.
But, first, I want to mention our sponsors, Slurm. Not just another drink, Slurm is the best shit you've ever guzzled. I don't drink anythng else and you shouldn't either.
Now, before we start our deep dive into accelerate viewing and listening, please don't forget to hit the linke and Subscribe buttons below. I really count on those likes and subscribes. Thanks. And, if there's anything you'd like me to cover in these videos, let me know in the comments below and I see about covering them as topics in future videos.
So, it seems that Slashdot broke a story that young people are watching videos and listening to podcasts at accelerated speeds. There's lots of speculation as to why. But the truth will blow your mind. Are you ready? I interviewed a bunch of young people and I asked them why they watch and listen at accelerated speeds. Do you know what they said. I'll tell you.
They said that they have to do it because life is too short and these formats suck at conveying information quickly, like printed text. But they went further and lamented that as well as the format being too slow, the presenters talk too much and waste far too much time on stuff not related to the subject matter. It turns out that Poor medium choice, combined with poor scripting and content, further compounded by an uninteresting personality makes people what to get it over with quickly. Shocking! I know. And we'll dig deep into this.
But, first I want to thank our sponsor Planet Express. They'll get you packages there. Maybe. If they feel like it. And, it's not too far. They're the mid-est. I can only recommend them because they pay me.
By the way. If you're liking the show so far, please hit that Like and Subscribe button. I'm counting on you.
Anyway! Who would have guessed that young people would want to consume their media at accelerated speeds? Let me tell you what I think. These kid today, they're different. They just don't realize how much work it is to produce a video of this quality and the amount of time I have to put into research and...
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Already +5 so I can't mod you up any further but this is art
Slooooow Speech (Score:3)
It seems like excessive video length is being incentivized because so many podcasters speak so slowly I have my player default to 1.5. If the player glitches and plays at 1.0 it's like I played a 45 at 33 rpm and they sound like they're on Valium or something.
At 1.5 they sound like my friends and I talk.
I literally lose attention when listening to many people at 1.0 (while doing other tasks).
If it's highly technical or music or a few normal people who make hobby videos I slow it down to 1.0.
Yet so many comments on the videos I listen to at 1.5 say, "slow down, you talk too fast!"
It's wild - I am glad we all have a choice. I almost never watch a video on X because the speed controls on their website are almost always broken.
Re: Slooooow Speech (Score:2)
Scrubbing fast playback (Score:2)
The only time I find faster playback useful is for online courses without much filler in them.
I use faster and slower ... (Score:2)
I often use 75% speed when listening to foreign language videos.
However, as other have already said, pointless blathering is a major problem. I find the best solution to that is to skip to the next video. Blathering at 150% speed is still blathering.
I thought everyone was doing this? (Score:2)
There are so many videos that have a fuck ton of padding in them.
Either jumping around or setting to 1.5 speed makes it more bearable.
A recorded lecture (I don't mean something built for a video format) is very slow because it is live. So there is lot of dead space in the video. And accelerating it makes sense.
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On the other hand, quite a bit of my lectures is timed to the audience reaction. If you cut out the time I give people to think, you will not have the time to think either and you will miss the most important parts.
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Absolutely, I do that in person as well. But in person and video are different situations medium.
In general, recording a live lecture makes a poor video lecture. It is better than no lecture at all, so there is value to it. But unless it is heavily edited (which I find makes it hard to watch for a live lecture), then the video tend to have lots of slack for the "let me point out this thing" or for the "the slide deck is out of sync because I pressed backwards instead of forward" or "I wanted to write on the
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You seem to be getting really crap recordings.
Not news. Fast playback has been around for decade (Score:2)
Many colleges amd universities that go the extra mile to support the military and who also offered video-taped courses were using the large format video tapes (not vhs or beta) and machines that supported variable playback speed. It wasn't special, it was just one of their features.
Tens of thousands of people took those courses. Out of the roughly 30 or so people I ran into at one classroom location or other, no one played tge tapes at 1x.
I'd wager that we were representative of the body of students use vid
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"I do wonder, though, if a person is watching a streaming movie for entertainment, why speed it up?"
Use case: You have an appointment to go to in 2 hrs and the movie (less credits) is 2 hrs 5 min. You will barely if at all notice the 4% speed up, but you'll be able to finish in the time slot available.
I used to think WinDVD's feature where you specify the time at which you need to finish watching was really cool, though I never ended up using it.
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Okay, I can see that. I'd watch something shorter. I dislike rushing ;-)
We have failed our children. (Score:3)
They have little sense of time, or of proportion. They're all too busy either making low-quality garbage videos or consuming low-quality garbage videos to actually practice mindfulness, presence, and gratitude. Luke Skywalker had that problem back in 1977 kids, and by 1984 Master Yoda was beating it out of him, figuratively speaking. The current elder generation can't find young workers who can read a pick ticket in a warehouse or a "Notes" box on a customer's pizza order, let alone have the presence to learn a real skilled trade; from welding to IT to engineering. And I blame the collective "us" for just letting your parents do whatever it was they were doing at the time and not pushing them a little harder. Some Gen-Z-ers still have problems with "don't leave the frozen chicken out on the counter top overnight because "food safety"" and "if you don't understand it, it might be dangerous. Learn something about it first, then you won't be surprised when you get your hand cut off." But their bevvy of in-game characters is most impressive. Too bad they can't monetize that phenomenon easily. -- I'm completely serious about this. I fear that we are going to have to endure a abnormally statistically large sample of really dumb people through the end of my life, and it's a pretty good call that they'll manage to damage or kill more of the general population, statistically-speaking, than in generations past.
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Yep. It is like collective attention deficit disorder. Things take time. A video is not the speed version. Yes, you may get some buzzwords or general idea, but no, you will not get the important parts. And if the video is crap, do not watch it in the first place.
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Depends on the content (Score:2)
If I'm listening to music, I'm not speeding it up because I'm trying to enjoy the music, and getting through the song faster doesn't do anything positive for me. Same for a movie, speeding up playback destroys the enjoyment with no compensating advantage.
Now, if I'm trying to distill some content from a talk, then I will speed up the audio. How much I speed up the audio depends on how clearly the speaker is speaking, as well as how well I can understand the person's accent and delivery style. Most of the
Compliance training videos (Score:3)
Those of us who have to take compliance training videos for hours on end each year, also push the speed up to 2x, when possible. At 59, I'm not young, but I have no problem following the information at 2x speed.
WAY too many words with WAY too little actual content.
This is probably why young people are doing this on YouTube too.
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OH MY GOD!!! YES!
We are using two different platforms and one of them does not have speedup options. I like the other one so much better!
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The absolute *worst* one is a California sexual harassment course. California law requires that you spend a certain amount of time taking the course. So if you go too fast, it shows a countdown timer, like 8 minutes, and you have to wait for it to get to zero before you can go to the next section, then another 8 minutes of waiting, and so on. It invites you to "reflect on what you have learned" during that time. SO stupid! Since I work from home, I used that time to put away some dishes.
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Reflextions are a useful exercise. But that just sounds silly!
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Those of us who have to take compliance training videos for hours on end each year, also push the speed up to 2x, when possible. At 59, I'm not young, but I have no problem following the information at 2x speed.
WAY too many words with WAY too little actual content.
This is probably why young people are doing this on YouTube too.
I wish I could do this with mandatory training but they deliberately leave that option out... What adds insult to injury is that they deliberately leave in longer pauses for the thicker people, so 2x would just bring it up to a normal, non-thick human speed.
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thank goodness (Score:2)
mpv falling behind again (Score:2)
So the big news here is that all the cool media players spy on their users.
But does mpv? Users are obviously demanding this feature, or else these stats wouldn't be available. How hard is it, to add code to betray the user and tell someone else how fast they watch videos? Free Software just doesn't keep up. All it does it work perfectly, time after time, until the user dies of boredom from the lack of drama.
All the time (Score:2)
Gettinf through videos that are mostly just talking heads needs 2x, most content is fine at 1.5x. Glad Youtube allows this and their speedup algorithm does reduce the chipmunk effect. Items in the general news that are talking heads I just skip... too painful when there is no text summary. Maybe an old fart but can still read way faster than these jerks can babble.
Speed reading (Score:1)
Fast is good! (Score:2)
I (67M) use the Android app AntennaPod to listen to most of my podcasts at 2.5X. There are a some that I listen to more slowly, one because the host naturally talks very fast, and a couple of others because they're "artsy" and too much acceleration spoils the art. But I don't play any of them at 1X.
I also use MythTV to watch the evening news at 1.5X; I would watch it faster except that's as far as I've been able to get MythTV to take it.
haha now I'm young (Score:2)
In the 1980s I had a VHS player that allowed double speed playback with pitch correction. This was very useful especially listening to GHW Bush give speeches, since he was slower than a snail stuck on molasses.
Of course I speed up tons of videos. Only audio I listen to is music; no need to speed it up. Too bad they removed the option from android tv.
BTW research indicates that faster speech increases comprehension.
I watch Jeopardy at 1.5x (Score:2)
I watch Jeopardy at 1.5x on my DVR, it not only takes less time (combined with skipping commercials), but makes it more challenging too.
Most Youtube videos I watch at 1.25x, regular speed is usually "just wrong" slow. But I'll go up to 1.5x depending on the speaker and how long the video is. I don't like to go faster than that, I'd rather start skipping around 5 sec at a time with the arrow keys.
I've even used 0.75x on videos in Japanese, and I can read it well enough that the captions help too.