To each his/her own, but I’m not on board with this. The pacing is completely lost at higher speeds. (I tried 2X for audio books and podcasts, but found I liked the natural rhythm of regular speech more than I liked saving time and/or cramming more into my time.)
In related news, cocaine is FANTASTIC!
The CBC and other radio stations have started snipping out the short/micro pauses from interviews, so as to get more syllables in. It drives me to turn the radio off.
Decades ago Nickelodeon’s Turkey TV had a funny segment for a “speed watching” class. Watch Roots and Gone With The Wind in one half hour session!
Satire is being eaten up by reality, and it seems like it’s happening faster and faster.
As much as I loved my first Tivo, I hate that all of these time-shifting/streaming services have turned a leisure pursuit into a semi-gamified chore.
A few years ago I actually started looking for reasons to stop watching shows and anytime I find that there is more than one episode of a particular show in the queue I’ll ask my wife “Why do we care about this series again?” (I’m looking at you “Supernatural”)
160% might be a bit too fast, but I tend to watch a lot of shows at 120 or 130% unless there’s a character who talks faster than most people. I have ADD and this reduces the urge for me to turn off the show and come back later because it feels like less of an attention sink. Definitely great for shows that waste your time with build up when you know exactly what’s going to happen and you just want to get to it instead of waiting five minutes for the long reveal.
Ultimately, like everything else, don’t expect everyone to experience media “the way it was intended.” On occasion I’ll also watch action scenes of movies with music playing in the background and ambient noise and maybe playing a video game. I don’t control what my brain likes, I just do what it tells me.
It could be bad
Too fast. But how 'bout not watching crap shows at all?
I might have to start watching porn at 160% speed. Maybe it’ll make the music sound better. Bmchkaww!
I don’t think I can do this.
There’s nothing wrong with my hearing (AFAICT), but there does seem to be a problem with my verbal comprehension; that is, I have trouble separating multiple audio streams, especially when those streams are from multiple people speaking. I often watch TV with subtitles so that I don’t have to go back and re-listen to the dialogue that I’ve missed (sometimes multiple times).
Having the speech go faster just seems like it’d exacerbate the problem.
I actually go the other way: some nights, the best thing to fall asleep to is some video that I play slowed down to somewhere between 0.75x and 0.5x (I use VLC). I usually don’t watch, just listen, and I find the slower pace quite soothing. I often do it using episodes of shows that I know inside out (e.g. Seinfeld).
Yeah same. If a new show starts to accumulate too many episodes before i start watching i usually just delete it. It does become an item on a to-do list and we already have too many items on our lists.
What’s the betting that these people will end up unfulfilled and suffering from depression.
Take your fucking time man. Christ!
I often want to know what happens but not have to watch a show at regular speed. Consider it like skimming an academic text. You don’t have to read every word of every line to get the gist of it. These are cultural artifacts that you might want to absorb, but you don’t want to have to waste time.
A lot of shows drag out a story to fill out the time slot that the show was produced for, so a story that might naturally be told in 30 minutes gets dragged out to 48 minutes plus commercial breaks. Speeding up the slow dialogue or unnecessary scenic shots can adjust for that.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t sit back and enjoy some shows or movies as they were intended. You can’t watch the opening sequence of 2001 and get the full effect. It’s up the viewer to pick and choose what they want to experience in what way.
I’m not surprised. I’ve been listening to my podcasts and audiobooks at 120-125% (depending on the app) since I started listening to them. I do the same with YouTube. My brain has already adapted, and I now find normal-speed audiobooks to… be… too… slow… to… list… en… to… at… norm… al… speeds…
BUT if you don’t watch Supernatural how will you ever find out what happens to Rory Gilmore’s boyfriend Dean?
My SO has been watching several seasons of Supernatural recently. We joked that it would be funny to see Sam and Dean show up in Star’s Hollow and have Rory go up to Sam and say, “Dean, what are you doing here?” and Sam would respond, “I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean.”
Maybe they have to resolve an issue with Grandpa Gilmore’s ghost?
And then of course my SO informs me of several meta episodes of Supernatural that make reference to Gilmore Girls…
I can see the value of this with news and informational shows, where it’s the content, not the delivery, that’s important. But shows that depend on timing, pauses, normal human behavior? If getting it over with is more important than the quality of the experience, I think I’d rather just read a synopsis and call it a day.
I already know what will happen in Supernatural:
- Brother will be rescued from impossible situation by other brother.
- Enemy will find a common cause and become an ally.
- Ally will disagree and become an enemy.
- Brother will act in a way that other brother finds to be wrong.
- Other brother will save everyone in an heroic act that leaves himself in an impossible situation.
Season ends. Repeat. FOREVER.
As for Rory’s ex-boyfriend. We’ll just have to wait for Netflix to release the new Gilmore Girls season.
(Yes, I know. The first step is to admit that you have a problem.)
