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Against 3x Speed

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Re: Against 3x Speed

#71

Post by elil17 »

daenz wrote: post #5
saivan wrote: post #4

I 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.

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.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sponsorblock/

This lets you skip filler content automatically for many popular videos.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#72

Post by another_story »

Something I noticed is a lot of people replying are focused on the playback speed, and then defending their choice of faster playback speed, all why missing 80% of the article which had nothing really to do with how fast you watch videos.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#74

Post by muzani »

I find myself listening to recipe videos at max speed while Aristotle is practically at half speed. Some things are so information dense that you need to go over parts a few times.

If you're listening to something at 3x speed, maybe it's a hint to be reading harder books?

An exception might be something like a history book. The 48 Laws of Power doesn't make sense if you just read the summary, but the stories themselves are very easy to read.

A lot of good books are very information dense though, where you have to stop after a few sentences and search for the meaning (internally or externally). Even for a good novel... sometimes you have to set it aside and lie down and stare at the ceiling for a moment.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#75

Post by tempestn »

trabant00 wrote: post #67

The few podcasts I listen to, I do so in 0.2x speed or even less. Not by slowing the playback speed, obviously, but by pausing and rewinding very often to think about what has been said and even take notes if I find something that resonates with me. Most podcasts though I listen to at infinite speed, meaning I don't listen to them at all. You can go through them 2-3x speed because there's really nothing there. It's l…

At 3x, sure. But I regularly listen to podcasts at about 1.3-1.4x, depending on how quickly the hosts talk. When you actually are paying attention, 1x can just be really slow sometimes. I think of it more like bringing it to a comfortable speed where I don't feel like I have to wait for them to get on with it, than trying to speed through it as quickly as possible. I, too, will sometimes pause to think (or talk) about what I've just heard though, so perhaps by your metric I'm at less than 1x on average too...

Re: Against 3x Speed

#76

Post by tempestn »

saghm wrote: post #53
gumby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 co…

It depends on the type of information, for me. I love podcasts (history, policy, some news) but when I'm trying to research a topic or find instructions on something, or that kind of thing, I also vastly prefer text. Kind of drives me crazy when the most relevant source I can find is a 15 minute youtube video explaining something that could be distilled into a paragraph of text.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#77

Post by jholman »

thepasswordis wrote: post #7
daenz wrote: post #5

Earlier 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.

Which addon are you using for youtube?

I wrote a bookmarklet. Works on all non-iframe audio and video.

javascript:void%20function(){document.querySelector(%22video,audio%22).playbackRate=parseFloat(prompt(%22Set%20the%20playback rate%22))}();

Here's a non-interactive version

javascript:void%20function(){document.querySelector(%22audio,video%22).playbackRate=2.7}();

Re: Against 3x Speed

#78

Post by emodendroket »

Barrin92 wrote: post #47
emodendroket wrote: post #43

Who 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…

Except that there is no "standard speed" for speech, let alone one that we've been using across cultures and languages for "millennia." People speak at different speeds depending on many factors from personal idiosyncrasies to emotions to a desire to hit a specific timing (it's not an accident that radio presenters get exactly the same time every time; they modulate the speed at which they are reading depending on the density of the information they have to deliver). Lectures, in particular, are often intentionally delivered in an unnaturally slow pace, which makes sense for maximizing comprehension, but means the pace may be very, very slow for someone who wishes to review mostly-familiar material. The idea that it's impossible to follow a lecture sped-up under any circumstances is just not at all in accord with my experience.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#79

Post by Barrin92 »

colanderman wrote: post #55
Barrin92 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ge…

>They will spend an entire sentence adding no content to what they conveyed with the first word

It might actually be worth considering if that's the result of people truly adding nothing, or if it's the result of not being attentive enough to how others communicate, and what they communicate. People pause for good reasons and they repeat themselves for good reasons that aren't always obvious. It takes time to mull over speech, and there is detail in speech that is not going to become apparent when someone thinks of a lecture or a book as just a means to 'consume information'.

In a sense true understanding always requires reproduction. People will think the lectures they attend are slow, yet they retain not even 20%. Because they do not know what they miss until they themselves reproduce it. It's even very questionable to think that something can be 'consumed' faster than it can be produced if the goal is genuine learning. You could read a book like SICP quickly and think you 'got all the information', but to actually learn everything that Sussman and Abelson put into it you probably need to work on it as long as it took them to write it.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#80

Post by plank »

Reading many of the comments, it seems most agree that listening at a factor>1 is better. As a fast reader (books, not audio nor video, never really tried that myself) I wonder how this can be understood with the 'common knowledge' that when speaking (presenting) one should slow down. E.g., let those meaningful pauses endure.
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