3 ms·

I haven’t read the whole article but I’m deeply opinionated about this topic. I was a good but not great student in college. The computer science classes bored

I haven’t read the whole article but I’m deeply opinionated about this topic. I was a good but not great student in college. The computer science classes bored me to death. Years later, post college, I wanted to learn iOS mobile app development. I used the Stanford lecture series but couldn’t stay focused until … I tried 2x speed. All of a sudden it started making sense. When I got lost I hit pause, rewound, watched a few min at 1x. My feeling is that teaching and learning are gears in a machine. If they are mismatched in speed the student either gets lost, or purposefully gets themselves lost by daydreaming. 10 years later I still listen to podcasts and watch most of YouTube at 2x. It’s a sweet spot for me. When listening to a very interesting podcast (shout out to How I Built This w Guy Raz) I’ll often pause to write down notes, but I’m almost never feeling like it’s too fast to ingest. Sometimes I’m self conscious that I talk too fast around other people - giving them information overload. Too bad my brain and mouth don’t have a 1/2x button. Ha!

biesnecker 5y ago
I'm in a similar boat. 1.75x is probably the best speed for me for most speakers, but until I was able to speed up audio/video I also had a really hard time paying attention in lectures / watching informative content.
Kranar 5y ago
I am so happy you said this. I always felt like the majority of lectures and content overall is ceremony and that most of the actual substance comprises maybe 15-20% of the overall content. There are times when I can appreciate ceremony, especially if it's being given by a good performer, a great writer or a passionate lecturer. Unfortunately most teachers are not passionate or good lecturers, most educational videos are not that engaging, and many authors are not good writers, and so in most cases I could strip out 80% of the content and spare myself the boredom.
madmax108 5y ago
"I haven’t read the whole article but I’m deeply opinionated about this topic." Sometimes I truly feel like this should be the unofficial motto of HN ;) > 10 years later I still listen to podcasts and watch most of YouTube at 2x The sweet spot for me is between 1.5x and 1.7x (Usually speed controls aren't fine-grained enough to allow 1.7x but apps that do earn extra brownie points from me eg. VLC). It's always weird having to explain this to friends who tend to think that I'm always listening to is a rap documentary :-D
- nokcha 5y ago
  > Usually speed controls aren't fine-grained enough to allow 1.7x On most sites, you can set an arbitrary speed by executing a line of JavaScript in the debug console: document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 1.7; https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3027707/how-to-change-the-playing-speed-of-videos-in-html5 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3027707/how-to-change-th...

biesnecker 5y ago

I'm in a similar boat. 1.75x is probably the best speed for me for most speakers, but until I was able to speed up audio/video I also had a really hard time paying attention in lectures / watching informative content.

Kranar 5y ago

I am so happy you said this. I always felt like the majority of lectures and content overall is ceremony and that most of the actual substance comprises maybe 15-20% of the overall content. There are times when I can appreciate ceremony, especially if it's being given by a good performer, a great writer or a passionate lecturer. Unfortunately most teachers are not passionate or good lecturers, most educational videos are not that engaging, and many authors are not good writers, and so in most cases I could strip out 80% of the content and spare myself the boredom.

madmax108 5y ago

"I haven’t read the whole article but I’m deeply opinionated about this topic." Sometimes I truly feel like this should be the unofficial motto of HN ;) > 10 years later I still listen to podcasts and watch most of YouTube at 2x The sweet spot for me is between 1.5x and 1.7x (Usually speed controls aren't fine-grained enough to allow 1.7x but apps that do earn extra brownie points from me eg. VLC). It's always weird having to explain this to friends who tend to think that I'm always listening to is a rap documentary :-D

nokcha 5y ago
> Usually speed controls aren't fine-grained enough to allow 1.7x On most sites, you can set an arbitrary speed by executing a line of JavaScript in the debug console: document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 1.7; https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3027707/how-to-change-the-playing-speed-of-videos-in-html5 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3027707/how-to-change-th...