Is there a right way — or wrong way — to listen to an audio book?
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To speed up or not speed up. Audiobook lovers are debating listening speeds on social media. Should you listen at regular speed or should you bump it up to two or even three times faster?
In early January, Audible decided to join the debate with a TikTok video featuring celebrities sharing their favorite playback speed.
“The best listening speed for an audiobook is at the speed at which it was recorded,” actor Phillipa Soo suggested. Jeff Daniels and Glen Powell agreed.
Novelist Kimberly Belle admitted to starting at regular speed, only to “flip it up” once she got into the story.
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Writer Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez was more emphatic, “I think people who go real fast are, I don’t want to say psychopath, but...”
Audible’s head of brand and content marketing, James Finn, said the company’s video was intended to spark a good-natured conversation about playback speed saying, “I love seeing the passion. I love seeing the discussion around it.”
According to Audible, seven percent of users have at least tried listening at higher speeds. Regular speed (1x) is the most common, followed by 1.2x, 1.5x, 1.7x and 2.0x. The top genres for sped-up listening are Erotica & Romance followed by Business & Careers.
Finn argued the video was not trying to tell anybody what speed they should choose. But some TikTok users were quick to criticize the video. TikToker Stephanie Mitropoulous said the ad came across as “condescending.” Lauren Robin Amanda said the video felt like an example of “big corporations putting out ads that essentially make fun of their consumer base.”
For some audiobook enthusiasts, higher speeds are the key to consuming more books. Book lover, Tony Pica, better known on social media as “Tony P,” said listeners on YouTube and Instagram seem to prefer slower speeds but TikTok users really like to crank it up. He mentioned seeing a TikTok user boast about finishing 600 books in 2024 by listening at 3x speed. So Pica played an audiobook at 3x for his followers.
To the untrained ear, it resembled a gargling groundhog. “I don’t think that’s for me,” Pica said. “I don’t think it would be an enjoyable experience.”
So, just how fast can you play audio before you have trouble absorbing it? Ashley Chen, a PhD student at UCLA, conducted a study to test this.
“We had participants listen at one time speed, which is normal speed,” Chen explained. “We also had them listen to it at 1.5 times speed, 2x speed and 2.5x speed.”
The results showed that comprehension and retention began to decline at speeds faster than 2.5x.
Even if you can understand the words, does something get lost at warp speed? Nan McNamara, an audiobook narrator who’s recorded nearly 350 audiobooks, thinks so.
“We’re trying to create a world that when you put those earbuds in or however you listen, you're swept away,” she said. “It’s a very intimate, very vulnerable place to be. So speeding it up, I’m not sure that you’re going to get everything out of it. But, having said that, if it means you’re not gonna listen to an audio book because you can’t speed it up, then speed it up!”
And no one has to know.
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