My problem was that I was watching Youtube videos (mostly pop-sci stuff) for too long and not doing anything. I solved this problem by watching them on 2x speed. My current problem is that I'm now watching 2x the videos.
Against 3x Speed
51–60 of 353 posts
Re: Against 3x Speed
#52Who says the 1x is the optimal speed to consume any information? Why stop there? Perhaps half, or even a quarter, would be better? Of course blowing through information as fast as possible doesn't do any good if you can't retain it, but I find it hard to believe that all the information out there is ideally paced for every listener. I've actually found that sometimes I will be watching a lecture at 2x for a lot of it…
that obviously isn't the authors point. The gist of the article is that treating the human mind like a hard-drive and trying to shove as much information into it, sort of like binge drinking, isn't a replacement for creativity, originality and contemplation, which is what genuine learning entails. And as far as speed goes, "1x" is the normal conversational speed we've been interacting at for many millennia, and regar…
> The gist of the article is that treating the human mind like a hard-drive and trying to shove as much information into it, sort of like binge drinking, isn't a replacement for creativity, originality and contemplation
It isn't, but sometimes to get to the point where you can be creative and original you need to have a bunch of boring information stored away in your hard drive as a prerequisite.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use the same youtube plugin mentioned in the article, and watch many videos at 2.5x-3.0x speed, for the exact reason that you state. There is a lot of "filler" content that I either a) already know or b) is not relevant to what I'm trying to learn. I'm really just trying to get through that content quickly. When I get to some really dense portion though, I will turn the speed down to 1x to learn it.
> When I get to some really dense portion though, I will turn the speed down to 1x to learn it. An alternative that often works is to open the transcript and simply read it. If you find something unclear you can click to jump to that point. Coursera classes have this feature too. Obviously doesn't work for everything, but it's especially useful when you want to know more about a subject you already know about (say a…
I've noticed that I'm fairly unusual in my generation (late millennial) in that I strongly prefer to consume information through reading compared to listening or watching. My brothers and friends and girlfriend all love stuff like podcasts or casual YouTube watching, but I find that the increased effort needed to arbitrarily change speed or skip around always makes me end up not retaining or enjoying the content I consume as much.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#54Who says the 1x is the optimal speed to consume any information? Why stop there? Perhaps half, or even a quarter, would be better? Of course blowing through information as fast as possible doesn't do any good if you can't retain it, but I find it hard to believe that all the information out there is ideally paced for every listener. I've actually found that sometimes I will be watching a lecture at 2x for a lot of it…
I always hated school and I just recently realized why. When I could pay attention everything felt wayy too slow for me. But when I couldn't pay attention I'd miss critical information in what felt like seconds
Re: Against 3x Speed
#55Who says the 1x is the optimal speed to consume any information? Why stop there? Perhaps half, or even a quarter, would be better? Of course blowing through information as fast as possible doesn't do any good if you can't retain it, but I find it hard to believe that all the information out there is ideally paced for every listener. I've actually found that sometimes I will be watching a lecture at 2x for a lot of it…
that obviously isn't the authors point. The gist of the article is that treating the human mind like a hard-drive and trying to shove as much information into it, sort of like binge drinking, isn't a replacement for creativity, originality and contemplation, which is what genuine learning entails. And as far as speed goes, "1x" is the normal conversational speed we've been interacting at for many millennia, and regar…
> And as far as speed goes, "1x" is the normal conversational speed we've been interacting at for many millennia, and regardless how fast you tune the podcast app, your brain likely hasn't evolved to follow a lecture at sonic speed.
In normal conversation, people speak in far too slowly for me, myself included at times. They will spend an entire sentence adding no content to what they conveyed with the first word, gesture, or even length of pause.
Just because it's the optimal speech production rate for many people, doesn't mean it's the optimal speech consumption rate for all people.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#56I get the point you're making - but honestly I have to raise the counter argument, which I think is equally valid. Take for example, the average lecture video. The information density is so low, that I'd imagine that a 60 minute video could be compressed into 10-12 minutes without any loss of information. It really depends on what you're listening to/watching.
Long before audio books were a public thing I received a special tape player for listening to audio recordings of my school textbooks because I have low vision. I was ecstatic to learn that I could adjust the speed and could still understand the book at something around 2-2.5x speed. I don’t know to what extent other bling or impaired persons use the speed controls but I’m guessing it’s designed because some people can process the information and others more slowly and this isn’t a bad thing per se. I also agree that the information glut is not a good habit but listening to something at a faster speed is not in abs of itself information glut. Sometimes the bottleneck in presentation speed is the speaker not the listener.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#57I'd argue that 95% of all learning, is learnt by doing. Merely listening to something without properly interrogating your understanding of it.. you will end up with a bunch of shallow and untested knowledge. At best, a boffin. It's imperative to build, discuss, interrogate, trial and fail.
Strongly agree. I would always fall asleep in class in college. Once I got into the workforce I would avoid this learning gap by creating side projects or taking extra work which was aimed at learning specific new things. If I sat through talks or presentations I would just information dump into a text file which I would data mine later. The taking of the notes helped some with retention, but organizing it according…
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Re: Against 3x Speed
#58Or maybe speed really isn't that important. Just make sure that what you are learning is important. There is a lot of information out there that just doesn't matter. Focus on what actually has an impact to you and not all of the things you think you "should" learn because someone else said so.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#593x speed is an accessibility feature for anyone who has trouble paying attention at slower rates. The rules of grammar mean that people often need to speak far more words than is necessary for some concepts. Pause and rewind buttons exist for passages which are actually information dense.
(The same is true of writing; entire paragraphs exist for no reason other than maintaining structure. Fortunately, well-edited works follow rules of paragraph style and structure -- first words, subect; final words, conclusion -- which enable effective skimming.)
Re: Against 3x Speed
#60I agree with other commenters: it's all about the content.
I listen to most podcasts at 2x at least because they often are too much chatter or are repeating things I know. But sometimes I pause them to think when something new arises. In other cases, like some types of YouTube videos, I watch at 0.75x because they are way too fast and have no white-space, way too dense.
And in all of this, the MAIN thing I learn is WHAT the podcast was. I don't learn the deepest understanding of some subject. I learn THAT the subject exists (a very specific bit within a subject sometimes).
Here and there, I encounter some truly applicable, practical concepts, and then I have to put them to use and revisit them in order to really learn and master them.