Podcasts rank high on my list of favourite things, which is why I spend a lot of my time complaining about them.

Yes, I’ve become one of those podcast people. The sort who constantly bemoans the fact that podcasts are being ruined by excessive monetisation, advertising, and production companies’ relentless attempts to cross-pollinate (because if you like The Rest Is Politics, surely you must also want to listen to The Rest Is History, The Rest Is Money, The Rest is Gravy etc.)

The annoying sort.

And yet, earlier this week I was genuinely mortified to discover, courtesy of my friend Anna, that some people now listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed so they can get through more content.

Normally when compiling these musings, I paraphrase the thoughts of others and condense them into a single provocation that I can spend a few paragraphs arguing against before asserting my thought supremacy (needless to say, I had the last laugh).

On this occasion, however, I’ve opted to replay our entire WhatsApp exchange full…

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Tom: Thank you for the podcast recommendation. I must admit, I’m scared of new podcasts in case it turns out I like them.

Anna: Is that a bad thing?

Tom: Yes, in the sense that I already have about 40 hours of podcasts added to my feed every week, so I’m constantly behind. I can’t add a new podcast without axing an old one. And I don’t have anything I want to axe.

Anna: Have you tried upping the speed you listen to them? My boyfriend has been doing it with his, and he’s become so accustomed to it that he’s reached a speed where, if I overhear them, I have absolutely no idea what is being said. But it does mean he gets through all of his podcasts.

Tom: But that’s not a real experience, is it? Why take something as uniquely human as a podcast and distort its format so that it no longer reflects the way humans speak? Podcasting isn’t supposed to be like cramming for exams. A few years ago there was a service launched that summarised books in 15 minutes for the time-poor reader. I remember thinking, “What’s the point?! Either read the book or don’t!” I hope the service has failed.

Anna: That’s different though, because it’s changing the content. Listening to a podcast quickly is still the same content, it’s just faster, and you end up adapting to it so it sounds normal and you still get through everything they’ve produced. I do think I would agree with you if I was listening to fiction, but I primarily listen to marketing podcasts, where I just want the key takeaways.

Tom: It still isn’t the form that the creators intended. They took the time to have a human conversation. Whether you can adapt to a quicker version or not is by the by. You can adapt to listening to The Beatles at 1.5x speed, and you’ll be able to get through the whole back catalogue and learn all the songs faster, but that seems to be missing the point. Like life, the podcast should be about the journey, not the destination. And if a marketing podcast is only good for its key takeaway, maybe you should switch to a podcast that is more worthwhile to listen to in full.

Anna: I get where you’re coming from, but you genuinely can adapt to the quicker pace. Listening to music sped up would be weird.

Tom: Not once you’d adapted to it. The fact that you can do it doesn’t make it right.

Anna: Funnily enough, my boyfriend really ascribes to the ‘life is about the journey’ quote.

Tom: Then he should practice what he preaches!

Anna: But if you only have x hours to listen in a week, and can’t get through all the content you want, surely this is a legitimate solution?

Tom: Maybe it should be taken as a sign that you can’t have everything you want in life, and you have to choose what matters most, rather than trying to hack the system.

Anna: Do you think podcast hosts would rather someone listened to their work sped up, or not listen to it at all?

Tom: It’s a fascinating question. Presumably some podcasters want audience more than anything else. But if that’s the overarching goal, rather than the desire to say something/create something meaningful, again, is it really a podcast worth listening to? I accept this is the purist in me speaking. And I also accept that if a podcast is more akin to conventional radio, then maybe it matters less. Even then, if a podcaster has taken the time to have a real human conversation, I’d like to believe that they’d want their audience to experience it properly.

Anna: But when you train yourself to listen to the sped up version, it does sound normal to you, and you still listen to it in full. The only difference is you’ve trained yourself to take it all in more quickly.

Tom: Do you really absorb it in the same way? And is the experience as rich as it is when listening to a normal conversation? What if your boyfriend suddenly wakes up and finds normal everyday human conversation slow and stultifying?

Anna: Fair point. I did wonder why he keeps falling asleep mid-conversation. But it still seems like listening to it sped up may be better than not listening at all.

Tom: I’m thinking about publishing this conversation in full on my website.

Anna: Go for it, and see how everyone agrees with me.

—

Life is short, time is precious, and knowledge is a glorious thing.

It was only after our WhatsApp exchange had concluded that I realised Anna had spent the entire conversation playing devil’s advocate, arguing for a position she didn’t actually hold in a bid to keep me honest and test the parameters of my thinking.

And that’s a wonderful thing.

Maybe the more significant lesson is that, whatever one’s opinion of 1.5x podcasting, the value of a good sparring partner should never be understated.

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash