Listening at half speed

Most people I know listen to podcasts at 1.5 or 2 times speed, including people who make podcasts. I understand why. There is too much to hear and too little time, and a voice at double speed still makes sense.

In August I tried the opposite. Not literally half speed — that turns everyone into a sleepy giant — but I stopped speeding anything up, and I stopped listening while doing something else. One episode a day, at the speed it was spoken, in a chair.

What I heard

I heard breath. I heard the small pause before someone says the true thing instead of the prepared thing. I heard a guest's voice drop when she talked about her father, which I had missed the first time at 1.8x while chopping onions.

Speed keeps the words and loses the person. The meaning of speech lives partly in its timing — the hesitation, the run-on when someone gets excited, the silence a good host leaves alone. At double speed those become noise to be compressed.

What I lost

I listened to far fewer episodes. I did not keep up. Several shows I like released whole series I have not touched.

I am fine with that. I would rather hear eight conversations than skim forty. It changed how I make Slow Signals, too: I cut less silence now. If you listen to the show and wonder why we leave the pauses in, this is why. They are part of what we said.

Lena · 23 August 2026, Lisbon