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Against 3x Speed

perell.com

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Re: Against 3x Speed

#81

Post by wallacoloo »

> Though you can pick up the gist pretty fast, relationships need time to blossom.

a lot of the arguments make me think of two different approaches to a task: breadth-first v.s. depth-first. for most tasks, you almost always want a balance of the two. in general, when you're young you explore the breadth of relationships; and after a time you understand which aspects are most important to you, and you pursue the depth of a smaller set of relationships.

now there's a lot of surface-level media out there. the kind that tells you about some thing without explaining it. you might listen to a broad overview about current topics in electrical engineering. by doing so, you learn about the avenues available to you and then later you go and do a deep dive into the specific avenue you want.

> The world rewards people who develop expertise in a specific subject.

indeed (modulo that your "specific subject" could just as well be a niche blend of classical subjects). pushing the envelope requires a deep approach to learning -- the version where you listen at 1x, pause, and then draw new conclusions/connections that even the author missed. but if you're still in the earlier, discovery phase of your growth? then what you really want is the 3x speed, breadth-first overviews.

not all information is equally valuable. if, by using 3x speed, you can more quickly locate the areas of study which are highly valuable to you at the expense of failing to integrate a bunch of information that is of low value to you, that can be a fair tradeoff. understand the tradeoffs; be explicit.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#82

Post by visarga »

JackPoach wrote: post #63
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.

It's not just density, many books are pure nonsense. So 200 books of pure nonsense a year won't teach you much. They'll just introduce you to a ton of terrible ideas.

Hey, that's how AI's learn as well. Reading up all the nonsense indiscriminately and making no effort to make the ideas consistent. But it's better than not reading because you get exposed to a larger variety of text so you can draw upon them when it's time to get creative.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#83

Post by 1123581321 »

I agree with the article's points about active learning and retention. I also agree that certain speed multipliers can become aspirational due to social media FOMO. However, most audio is listened to for entertainment or to pick out certain topics or keywords for closer listening. Tuning the speed helps with both of those goals. Depending on the listener, entertainment might be set at 1-1.5x with skipped silences. Scanning ranges higher, up to the cited 3x in some players.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#84

Post by jules »

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…

I've noticed that reading is faster than listening at 3x speed. A quick way to test this is to enable subtitles.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#85

Post by rsanheim »

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.

This ignores the point (that Perell makes in the essay) that learning via lecture is a horrible way to learn much of anything to begin with.

Now I could see a counter point where you speed up a lecture, find the new information that interests you, and then use that as a jumping off point for repetition. For example, dive deeper into other sources, take notes, use flash cards, try applying what you've learned, and so on.

But just consuming 10 mins of new info from a full lecture at 2.5x speed and then moving on probably isn't doing much long-term learning.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#86

Post by klabb3 »

allenu wrote: post #19

I think I've spent too much time on learning and also too much time in planning earlier in my career and life. I think it's a blind spot if you're an analytical type. It ends up being an excuse to not complete things. There's always something else that you "need to know" that blocks you. Nowadays, I realize that it feels good to learn new things, but if it's not in service of an actual "deliverable" of some sort, I d…

> I think I've spent too much time on learning and also too much time in planning earlier in my career and life. I think it's a blind spot if you're an analytical type. It ends up being an excuse to not complete things. There's always something else that you "need to know" that blocks you.

I'm in this text and I don't like it. Jokes aside, I want to do and experiment more but I struggle with analysis paralysis and striving for perfection, often upfront.

I need to move in the direction you did. How did you break out of this pattern? How do you deal with thoughts like "there's a better, cleaner way to do this and if I just analyze I can find it"?

Re: Against 3x Speed

#87

Post by rsanheim »

antognini wrote: post #29

A year ago a friend encouraged me to start a podcast about the history of astronomy [0]. Talking to people who have listened to the podcast has been really eye-opening about the difference in comprehension/absorption between creating a podcast vs. listening to it. I would notice that other podcasters in the "History of..." genre would sometimes say things like "you might remember we talked about such-and-such related…

This makes total sense. Whenever I've given a talk on a subject, I end up learning it much better than before, and these are topics I'm supposed to know quite a bit about =).

The act of teaching or explaining something really helps you to see the subject in a new way and understand it in new and deeper ways. Probably one reason that good pair-programming helps everyone involved, even if its a much more senior person paired with someone with less experience.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#88

Post by skrebbel »

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.

The article uses 3x speed as a metaphor for a broader mindset. It's not actually about 3x speed.
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