There was a Buzzfeed piece recently, exploring those people who listen to podcasts at super-fast speed. I don’t just mean 1.2x or something, but some of them listen at 3x speed or even faster.

Elsewhere, a Guardian writer thanked Netflix for allowing him to skip all the intros to TV series and the ability to skip the end credits.

To me, both of these are problematical, and not really to be encouraged. My biggest question would be, what are you trying to get out of what you’re listening to? Are you listening or watching for pleasure, or is it more a list ticking exercise?

“Yesterday, I did Ozark on Netflix, and I burnt through all of S-Town at 3x speed!”

The pacing of these series is important. While I wouldn’t pretend that every series needs all 13 episodes it was commissioned for, I have to wonder what kind of enjoyment you’re getting out of it if you’re racing through. It can be the equivalent of picking up a paperback copy of The Lord of the Rings, and then deciding that the Wikipedia plot summary is all you really need.

Recently I’ve been seeing adverts for a company called Blinkist which claims to boil down the ideas of business books into packages that take 15 minutes to read! While I’ve no doubt that some business books probably do only really contain one idea, and it perhaps should have been boiled down to something simpler, I know too that reading a book for several hours lets the ideas contained within seep into your mind better. The quick hit approach is not going to have that effect, and I wonder whether the ideas taken from such material might stay with you.

It’s like reading the York’s Notes of Julius Caesar rather than the Shakespeare play itself.

TV series introductions are key to setting the tone of the programme you’re about to watch. At their best, they can be beautiful artefacts that lower you slowly into the world that you’re about to enter. They say to, “Settle down and join us, where serial killers/dragons/mafia gangsters reign…” You put down your smartphone, and let the story takeover.

Similarly, at the end, the closing music brings you back to reality slowly once more. Certainly the credits also recognise the dozens or more people who were involved in the programme’s creation, but the tempo is a nice outro from what you’ve been watching. Of course on some network shows, this is instantly interrupted by trailers or continuity announcers desperate to keep the audience from channel surfing. And in the on-demand world, you have perhaps a three second window before the next episode starts automatically. I find myself desperately flailing around looking for the remote – particularly with Star Trek: Discovery where I might have the obnoxious After Trek start streaming. As far as I can tell, Netflix has no setting to let you turn this off. [Update: Thanks to James in the comments pointing out that there is a way to turn this off. Go to https://www.netflix.com/HdToggle and turn off Auto Play. Update 2: I found the same setting in Amazon. In the UK at least, go here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/settings?ref=atv_surl_aiv_settings and scroll down to Player Preferences and Auto Play.]

I understand that if you’ve just spend your Sunday afternoon binge watching all 8 episodes of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel back to back, you might be a little fed-up with intro sequences, but I wonder more what that says about you? Perhaps you should take a break between episodes?

And who on earth wouldn’t want to watch the pitch perfect Stranger Things opening credits each and every time it comes on? That series simply couldn’t have had a better opening sequence in all its simplicity.

What about podcasts? Well technology means that we can speed up audio without making every show sound like it’s voiced by people with ADHD on helium. And software will also take out silences – you know, the bits of space where you’re supposed to think about what has just been said. If you’re listening to a podcast with someone who has an especially languorous way of speaking, then that is surely part of the show? Are you listening to ideas and thoughts, or a horse race commentary?

I suspect that for many, this high speed reading/viewing/listening is really to enable them to say that they have “done” such-and-such. Tick another one off the list. You’re a complete-ist and in an age when new works never stop coming, you feel you must run just to stand still.

I say slow down.

Appreciate things for what they are.

You might actually get a little more out of it.