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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   2446 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 31, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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How do you find so much time to watch videos? Are you just much more patient than I am?

I can't stand watching videos at less than 2x speed and often speed them up to 3x or even 4x.

The problem is that most YouTube videos are poorly scripted, edited, and paced. Watching them at their original speed feels like torture.

I don't feel like I miss anything important. There's no loss in comprehension. And I think that everyone should at the very least try increasing the playback speed. It's really just a matter of getting accustomed to a faster pace. Once you do, you'll never go back.

I would have assumed that a question like this would select for the outliers, people boasting about their content consumption speed. But it seems like I'm the only one here. Anyone else?

How do you find so much time to watch videos you're not enjoying?

Just filling time with slop

This sounds a lot like speed reading. You can increase your reading speed without losing comprehension based on information density. This means a lot of nonfiction books you can speed read because they typically spend 200 pages to convey 1-5 key ideas. But if you were going through a physics textbook, you can speed read all you want but you're not going to retain any information. I guess it depends on what kinds of videos are being watched.

Unlike speed reading, it's not easy to adjust your consumption rate on the fly. I find it very annoying having to rewind the video when watching at faster speeds if I miss something and want to rewatch it. If I feel I need to speed through the video I actually just use the right arrow key to skip a few seconds and read the subtitled text than increase the video speed. I think it really depends on the video. I usually read for knowledge and watch for entertainment, so I don't really increase the video speed because I'm trying to enjoy my time watching the video, not optimize for speed. I read fiction slower, too.

YouTube doesn't have a speed option faster than 2x, so you'd have to go a bit out of your way to get the videos to play faster.

I remember this when looking at my reading speed for various things

Fiction I typically read at 600 words per minute it's really easy to read and you don't need to remember every single sentence.

Textbooks though I'm reading at 100-200 words per minute. Typically every word matters and the information density is often high enough that reading 1 page creates a lot of noteworthy information.

I watch youtube video's with my hands on the J K and L keys and mash J/L to rewatch/skip various bits, and I almost always do 2x speed

While I generally agree with your comment, I think in my own case, 2x speed is usually closer to reading than speedreading, in that I'm still able to follow pretty closely, not merely get it because it's low in information density. It doesn't feel like I'm forcing my brain to comprehend faster, it just feels like I'm causing them to get through what they're saying at a less ponderous speed. Of course, they vary in how information-dense they are, so I will slow down depending on the video.

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