3 ms·

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

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 and then want to drop down to regular speed for certain trickier parts.

Barrin92 5y ago
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 regardless how fast you tune the podcast app, your brain likely hasn't evolved to follow a lecture at sonic speed. I actually think deliberately slowing down, if not in literal speed but at least by re-reading or re-listening is a skill more people should practice. More attention to what's already there and less attention scattered on novelty is an underrated ability. Think of it like this, if you want to be a great classical musician, you could study the same few Bach pieces for decades and you wouldn't stop learning. How bizarre is it to think you actually need to ingest hours of new information every week?
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  > 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.
- colanderman 5y ago
  > 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.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    >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.
    - colanderman 5y ago
      If I can predict exactly which words someone is about to say, the words add no information for me. Maybe they are there due to the confines of grammar, or maybe they are useful to other listeners, but they are not useful to me, and I can afford to speed through them. I will pause and replay if I was wrong.
      - 5y ago
- emodendroket 5y ago
  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.
weird-eye-issue 5y ago
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
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  But when I couldn't pay attention I'd miss critical information in what felt like seconds Time flies when you're having fun! It's also why we always hear "It just came out of nowhere! It all happened so fast!" when referring to automobile accidents. It's because our attention was not where it should have been.
  - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
    I'm not sure your first sentence really hits the mark. Not paying attention in class isn't really "having fun" :P

Barrin92 5y ago

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 regardless how fast you tune the podcast app, your brain likely hasn't evolved to follow a lecture at sonic speed. I actually think deliberately slowing down, if not in literal speed but at least by re-reading or re-listening is a skill more people should practice. More attention to what's already there and less attention scattered on novelty is an underrated ability. Think of it like this, if you want to be a great classical musician, you could study the same few Bach pieces for decades and you wouldn't stop learning. How bizarre is it to think you actually need to ingest hours of new information every week?

cmeacham98 5y ago
> 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.
colanderman 5y ago
> 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.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >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.
  - colanderman 5y ago
    If I can predict exactly which words someone is about to say, the words add no information for me. Maybe they are there due to the confines of grammar, or maybe they are useful to other listeners, but they are not useful to me, and I can afford to speed through them. I will pause and replay if I was wrong.
    - 5y ago
emodendroket 5y ago
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.

weird-eye-issue 5y ago

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

JohnWhigham 5y ago
But when I couldn't pay attention I'd miss critical information in what felt like seconds Time flies when you're having fun! It's also why we always hear "It just came out of nowhere! It all happened so fast!" when referring to automobile accidents. It's because our attention was not where it should have been.
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  I'm not sure your first sentence really hits the mark. Not paying attention in class isn't really "having fun" :P