When I was in film school I naively assumed that everyone there was a movie purist and into the same (arguably pretentious) art films that I was. I was shaken from my belief when a friend from the program told me that he routinely fast forwards through the slow parts of movies when he watches them and that he would never see a movie more than 2 hours long in a theater. I never would have imagined that Ira Glass of all people might be the equivalent of a movie fast-forwarder. Now I'm afraid that there might be an outtake of the Scorsese series where he admits to the same.

I feel vindicated! I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years. Not only does every talk too slow on podcasts, but I get to listen to twice as much content.

You probably should not try to go from 1x to 2x though. Work your way up slowly.

As a New Yorker, 1.5x is the sweet spot for me. I call it Scorsese speed.
That said, the comedic effect of listening to an audiobook at .5x—which will make even Michelle Obama sound utterly soused—is not to be missed.

Why not just watch movies by reading the Wikipedia entry instead?

I’m kidding, sort of. Just wondering where listening to podcasts or audiobooks at 2x fall on the continuum of reading the Cliffs Notes instead of a novel or having ChatGPT doing your homework. IMO, if you’re 2xing the audiobook for James or Deacon King Kong, you’re doing it wrong. Atomic Habits? 3x that sucker (or skip it and read a novel).

1.25x is about the most I can do, faster than that and the distortion starts to become too distracting

If the point of a thing is experiencing it (e.g. stories, films, music), then I would never speed it up. With these things, mood, tone, pacing, and atmosphere are crucial. I want to be immersed and transported into that space where my imagination mingles with that of the works' creators.

If the point of a thing is learning (most podcasts and non-fiction audio books), I will go 1.5x - 2x. In those cases, information density is key, not just for "efficiency", but for keeping me engaged at all. The spoken word at normal pace is too sparse. I even find that live lectures are difficult to stick with, unless I'm simultaneously doing something else.

I am an inveterate 1.25 listener, for literally as long as the option has been available, but there are some podcasts, such as This American Life, where I listen at to 1.0. I say closer, because I use Overcast and it has its own process to drop silences, which usually is like 1.05-1.10 in real time listening. And when I add the 1.25 to this, it's more like 1.35. If I want to listen at 1.5 or above, I'm re-listening and focused on finding something specific, or I just start skipping until the podcast is interesting again.

The other necessary example is music-focused podcasts. 1.0 is critical if they are going to play a clip from a song. Which means that every episode of 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey that I've listened to is quite a commitment.

I get the 1.5 and above for information podcasts, as Ira mentions and someone else in the comments brings up, but at 2.0 I'm not even really listening anymore, it's just words floating by.

My annoying and too-judgmental take is that 1.5 and above is for "consuming content", not for engaging with the work of creative people.

I agree that most podcasts can be listened at 1.5x (my top limit) or more.

What Ira brings up about "a talker in clumps" is key here: so many podcasts have like really long pauses, silences. Overcast — an iOS podcast player — has this "smart speed" feature that cuts all the silences as you go. This feature combined with a higher speed, enables you to consume podcasts in a much more efficient way, even if increasing the speed is not your thing.

1.5x + smart speed is the way to go.

I am a pretty fast reader, and a visual learner, so I read the transcript if there is one. That said, I am not a big podcast fan, so needing to get through my podcast listening list faster isn’t really a problem for me, though based on various friends media diets, that list is pretty long for a lot of people. Twice speed sounds too hectic for me, but we all have our own sensory input limits!

Everyone says you should read to your child every night and they'll become a reader. Well, I read to my son religiously well into his early teens and instead of making him a reader it made him into a listener. Now, in his 20's he "reads" audio books and listens to tons of podcasts at 2X.

Seeing the comments, I hesitate to say this, but I use VLC Player to watch tv shows at x1.77 speed.

I have a hard time imagining enjoying speeding up any podcast that is supposed to be entertaining (as well as or) rather than informative. Comedy in particular really relies on timing.

Hard no. The pauses, the slow talking is part of what some people are. I don’t just want to hear what someone thinks - I want to hear it in their voice.
A good example: John Gruber has long pauses. I can definitely see why people may find that off-putting. But that’s John’s voice to me.