1.2 Speed

I listen to a lot of podcasts. I get my news this way. I listen to articles via podcasts. I listen to audiobooks via my podcast app.

I also reside in the MidAtlantic states of the USA. Not only do we tend to be fast talkers, we are sometimes fast listeners.

I listen to most of my podcasts on 1.1x or even 1.2x speed. (Any faster than that is too fast even for me.)

Now there are exceptions. If I’m listening to a podcast in a language I’m learning, or listening to an audiobook recorded in heavily-accented English or written in the 1800s – these are all cases where I might want to listen at 1x, so I can absorb more slowly.

I don’t think much of it until I switch back, and a podcast I usually hear at 1.2x is played at 1x and their call tones sound … unrecognizably slow.

And today I realized that I’ve been listening to a pair of podcasts that have a host of jingles in them that I sing along to. But I know them all at 1.2 speed. This is not quite like listening to a 45 on 78 (for those who have or remember vinyl tecords), but it is a bit faster.

And I didn’t realize I was having a vastly different experience from other listeners until today.

So there was that.

If you need me, I’ll be over here in my own, weirdly sped-up little universe.