Podfasting: I Tried Listening to Podcasts at 3x and Broke My Brain [Steve Rousseau/OneZero]
Most of us are familiar with binge watching and speed reading, but there’s a relatively new mode of conspicuous consumption that’s emerged in recent years: podfasting. First profiled in 2017, podfasters love listening to podcasts so much that they’re speeding them up — 1.25x, 1.5x, and even 2x speed — in order to fit more into their day.
I listen to about 15 hours of podcast weekly, and normally do it at 2x-2.5x speed when listening through AirPods, which is what I do most of the time.
In case you’re not familiar with how this works: Podcasting software like Overcast, the app I use, adjust the tone of voices when you speed up the play, so it doesn’t sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. In the case of Overcast in particular, the software also normalizes speaking volume and chops out little bits of silence.
In my experience, different apps use different algorithms to speed up play. I’ve tried Overcast and Castro, and they are both terrific, but I prefer Overcast’s audio quality, and better ability to “podfast.”