Speed ​​is nothing without control, even for audio and video

The catchphrase of summer 2021 will also have to be revised. No more vocals of 10 minutes as The Giornalisti sang. This year, those who have friends, relatives and lovers who send river messages will be able to breathe a sigh of relief: thanks to the new Whatsapp function, the voice becomes just 5 minutes long. In fact, the most popular instant messaging app in the world has recently introduced a new function that meets the needs of the times: the ability to speed up the playback of voice messages by one and a half or even two times. A sector, that of speed changes, which has already been practiced on videos for some time: Youtube allows for example to slow down a video to slow motion, an ideal option for understanding certain internal passages, for example in a tutorial, or to speed it up to move forward. the movie in a boring spot. Returning to the vowels, the story is short but intense: opposed at the beginning, snubbed by many, now they are cleared almost everywhere, even if you try to put a stop to the rules of netiquette. For example: no to too short vowels, to say a short sentence it is more polite to write. And not too long, 20-30 seconds is the ideal duration, otherwise we might as well make a phone call. If we can’t call at that moment, at least let’s divide what we have to say into macro topics of less than a minute each. And we try to be concise, without pauses and second thoughts in the middle of the message. Finally: the receiver’s reaction. If he always responds to our vowels with a text message, perhaps he is trying to politely tell us that he does not appreciate this medium. Loved or hated, the new function certainly makes them more manageable and bearable, from class chats to those of relatives, from those of friends to those of work. The doubled speed does not always leave the message understandable, while that increased by one and a half times is often an efficient method to reduce listening times and capture the main concepts of the message. Not only for whatsapp: the “fast forward” function is always most used to save time. In 2006 a film with Adam Sandler hypothesized a scenario between the comic and the sci-fi in which with a remote control the protagonist was able to accelerate the events of his life, to reach career goals more quickly, or to “jump” boring or sad parties: traffic jams, family dinners, illnesses. This is what, after all, we have been doing for years with pay TV: we pause, we run advertisements, and in some cases we choose to watch an event or a film or a slow-paced TV series at a faster pace, perhaps with the help of subtitles. to read at a glance. The increased speed feature has also been around for some time for all major audiobook and podcast apps. A way to hear more words in less time, but how much of them is really assimilated? And above all we ask ourselves (in slightly apocalyptic tones): what good is it to listen to Anna Karenina at double speed just to pin on the medal of having “read” a classic? The debate between books and audio books, even without speed increased, it is almost as hot as the ebook versus paper. Over the years, studies have multiplied that have analyzed the ability to understand a text according to the method of use. The often conflicting results have led to one conclusion: we are still masters of our own destiny. What makes the difference on the ability to learn and remember is not so much the support or speed, but the purpose of the reader or listener, able to decide how much attention to give to a text or message, and not end up like Woody Allen when he said. “I took a quick reading course, I read War and Peace in twenty minutes. He was talking about Russia ”.