by Google
YouTube offers its users several options for watching videos as efficiently as possible. In this article, we will focus on playback speed. Why do some people prefer to watch videos faster?
Different viewing options
If you are on data, you will probably reduce the video quality to save as much data as possible. If you see something interesting in the video, you can zoom in on it on your phone and examine it in more detail. If you just want to skim through the video, you can effectively rewind it with a small preview to see exactly what is happening there. On YouTube, you can also watch the most played moments, which can save you time if you only want to see the most important things.
Playback speed
Playback speed can definitely save you time when watching videos. It's a feature that YouTube introduced in 2010 that allows you to slow down or speed up the content you're watching. Whether you're watching a tutorial and need to get to the most important part as quickly as possible, or you're tired of watching the Czech president's New Year's speech at normal speed.YouTube found that speeding up videos saves people up to 900 years of time every day. They compared it to listening to the song "Gangnam Style" almost 113 million times.
Currently, YouTube allows you to watch videos at 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, Normal, 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, and 2x speed. It's probably obvious to you that most people watch videos at normal speed, but when they do use the speed change, it's most often speeding up. Most at 1.5x, followed by double and then 1.25x. Those who chose their own speed most often went at 1.1x - a little more than normal, but not much!
Different devices
YouTube also noticed that different video viewing speeds depend on the devices on which the content was watched. On home devices such as Smart TVs or consoles, viewers watched most often at normal speed and then at 1.25x, while viewers through the browser watched most often at double. Android and iOS users most often watch videos at 1.5x speed.
Day vs. night
If you use the playback speed feature, it is quite possible that you do it at night. It has been found that viewers slow down or speed up content in the evening, but most often at 11 p.m.
On the other hand, in the morning, people are not used to speeding up videos too much and probably prefer to watch them in peace over coffee than on the go. As the day goes on, the usability of this feature also increases, with the small exception of lunch, when, again, people enjoy videos while eating at normal speed.
Many YouTube users use the speed up or slow down of videos, but for some, even this range that YouTube offers is not enough. There have been requests to offer three times or even higher speed up. As time goes by, everything speeds up and people seem to have less and less time for everything, so it's possible that in the future we'll see this option when watching videos.
