The Science of Accelerated Playback | Hacker News Reader

The Science of Accelerated Playback

2 pointsnomilk2 comments

TL;DR: faster playback translates to better engagement and retention.

Average adult reads prose text at 250 to 300 words per minute (wpm). By contrast, the average rate of speech for English speakers is ~150 wpm, with slide presentations often closer to 100 wpm. As a result, when given the choice, many viewers speed up video playback to ~1.3~1.5 its recorded rate to compensate for the difference.

Many viewers report that accelerated viewing keeps their attention longer: faster delivery keeps the viewer more engaged with the content. In fact, with a little training many end up watching videos at 2x+ the recorded speed. Some studies report that after being exposed to accelerated playback, listeners become uncomfortable if they are forced to return to normal rate of presentation.

Source: https://github.com/igrigorik/videospeed#the-science-of-accelerated-playback

Depending on the speaker and content, I find YouTube videos are better for me at about 1.15x to 1.25x. Although 1.3x to possibly 1.5x is usually understandable, it's not comfortable to listen to for long and my comprehension seems to go down at those speeds.

Often just as important, I find starting about 20% into a video usually skips mostly unimportant filler and saves a lot of time. I love content creators who value their viewers time and understand we wouldn't have clicked on the video unless we already knew the topic from the description so it's redundant to "tell us what they're going to tell us." We also really don't need to see the same stock 10-15 second animated show intro repeated every time. A 3 to 5 second logo stinger is more memorable and engaging.

Typical YouTube info-content is a completely different format than a TV show and should be much more concise and tightly edited to get immediately to the central value for viewers. I've challenged some content creators I know to actually try to cut too much from their intros and get to the meat too fast. Their views and subs invariably increase when they jump into things faster than feels normal to them.

> I love content creators who value their viewers time

Tom Scott's intros are a good example (straight into the topic with zero fluff). Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWL40q3DMoQ

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