Should you play your next book at twice the speed?

9 days on the road, that’s the average time spent in one-way commuting to work in 2018, according to the U.S Census Bureau. And if you happen to be a resident of one of the many megacities around the world (well, there are 32 cities with more than 10 million people as of 2020), then you’re up for a long commute to work.

We’re not done yet, there is also time commuting to:

• Run errands
• Visit family or friends (sigh, life before all the lockdowns)
• Waiting in lines, or for something to get done.

All these minutes can’t help but look like wasted time, and in a world obsessed with productivity, they just feel wrong!

Overcoming the Chipmunk effect

Before the 2000s, there was only one way to consume media files: at normal speed. Trying to speed through media files would have resulted in squeaky, high-pitched sounds, known as the Chipmunk effect. Then comes Apple into play!

In 2004, Apple succeeded in overcoming the “Chipmunk effect’, introducing its variable playback speeds into its iPod software, as Brian Feldman notes in his article in “The Atlantic”. Since then, there has been an increasing trend of consuming audiobooks & podcasts.

In 2007, the “Getting Things Done” blog recommended “adjusting the playback speed of your audiobook or video to a maximum of 150 percent” to complete the book more quickly.

What’s the latest discovery in your discipline, or what is this new book about? There is a long — endless- feed off recommended videos, dozens of books you want to read (or listen to), amusing podcasts; who isn’t intrigued to hear about the latest anthropological discovery or the newly released gadget?

But your day is just 24 hours, just like mine.

Here comes the Speed Listening

In 2015, “The Atlantic” called Speed listening “The New Speed Reading,” which has been long hailed as a technique to absorb more information in less time.

We talk slower than we read, so listening to your favorite audiobook will always take longer than reading it.

While the average reading speed is 200–300 words per minute, the average speed of English language speakers is only at 150 wpm.

So a 2000 word text could be read in 10 minutes, while it’d need 14 minutes of speech. (approximately 30% increase).

You can play audio files at rates ranging from 1.25x to 2x. The standing question would be: Should you do it?

Does speeding through a book means less focus?

Studies of comprehension have found, unsurprisingly, that as words per minute increased, comprehension decreased slowly and then at a more accelerated rate (on a curve, in other words). However, researchers also “found that learning efficiency increased as the word rate was increased until a word rate of approximately 280 wpm was reached.

Some apps allow you to cut the silences in podcasts, instead of increasing the playback speed of the voice, which shortens the overall podcast, thus saving you some time.

If you explore the land of the Internet, you will find various viewpoints on this. Did your podcast take a shorter time? Probably. Was it the same without the podcaster’s deliberate stops, to empathize, reflect, or just let something sink in? Probably Not.

Others see the increased playback speed as a technique that forces them to focus on whatever they’re listening to because if you miss one minute, the narrator would have already moved way ahead.

Takeaway Thoughts

• Increase the speed in increments, especially if you’re listening in a language other than your native tongue, try 1.25x, then 1.5x, and so on.
• Consider the topic & your energy level.
• Don’t get intimidated, you’ll catch up with the topic soon enough.

Personally, it was a successful experience, but I had enough focus to concentrate on the narration at hand, you know these random connections that you form sometimes between a topic you’re reading or hearing about and another one that you may have previously consumed? This became way harder with speed listening.