YouTube playback speed. How do people watch videos most often?

YouTube offers its users several options to watch videos as efficiently as possible. In this article we will focus on playback speed. Why do some people prefer to watch videos faster?

Various tracking options

If you're on data, you'll probably lower 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 even with a small preview to see exactly what is happening there. You can also watch the most played moments on YouTube, which can save you time again if you want to see only the most important.

Playback speed

The playback speed definitely helps you save time while watching videos. It's a feature that YouTube introduced in 2010 and 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 address at normal speed.YouTube found that speeding up videos saves people up to 900 years of time every day. They compared it to the fact that it's like listening to the song "Gangnam Style" almost 113 million times.

Currently, YouTube allows you to watch videos in 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, Normal, 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, and 2x speed. It is probably obvious to you that most people watch videos at normal speed, but when they use the change of speed, it is most often an acceleration. The most in 1.5 times, then twice and then 1.25 times. Those who chose their own speed were most often 1.1 times faster - a little more than normal, but not by much!

Miscellaneous Devices

YouTube also noted that different video viewing speeds depend on the devices on which the content was viewed. On home devices such as Smart TVs or consoles, viewers watched most often at normal speed and then at 1.25 times, while viewers via a browser mostly watched at double speed. Android and iOS users most often watch videos at 1.5 times the speed.

Day vs. night

If you use the playback speed function, it is quite possible that you are doing it during the night. It was found that viewers slow down or speed up the content in the evening, but the most at 11 pm.

On the other hand, in the morning, people don't tend to speed up videos too much and probably prefer to watch them in peace with their coffee rather than on the go. As the day goes on, so does the usability of this feature with the small exception of lunchtime when, again, people enjoy videos while eating at normal speed.

Many YouTube users take advantage of speeding up or slowing down their videos, but for some, even this range that YouTube offers is not enough. There were requests to offer three times or even higher acceleration. As time goes by, everything speeds up and people seem to have less and less time for everything, so it is possible that we will see such an option when watching videos in the future.