I love tracking my everyday screen time. It’s something more essential than fun, because that’s what helped me curb my excessive YouTube watch time.
That’s the level of impact YouTube has on my daily life. It’s my daily learning tool and one of my main sources of entertainment.
Depending on what I watch on the platform, I make the necessary adjustments to the YouTube settings to get the best viewing experience.
However, “best” is also subjective and depends on whether it’s an entertainment video or something I need to skim through to gain insights into a specific topic quickly.
When it’s the latter, I always set the playback speed to 2x. Until last week, I thought that was what I needed to watch those types of videos that don’t demand close attention.
A hidden YouTube gesture proved me wrong when I accidentally discovered it last week, and I’ve grown used to it quickly. It could be because I have used the feature in all types of videos in the last few days.
I’m now so dependent on the hidden YouTube feature that I can’t watch videos without it. Here is why.
How YouTube’s tap-and-hold gesture transformed how I watch videos
I don’t buy into the idea that watching videos in fast-forward mode is a sign of an attention span crisis. It’s about utilizing time more effectively.
However, it shouldn’t come at the cost of comprehension. 2x speed works perfectly for me in most cases. Anything above that, I’ll likely fail to understand most of the video.
But I didn’t know that setting the playback to 2x speed was this easy until a few days ago.
All I have to do is tap and hold anywhere on the video playback screen, and YouTube will start playing at 2x speed.
It’ll keep playing at that speed until you lift your finger off the playback screen. It also works in Incognito mode.
I use it every day to watch some parts of videos at double their default speed, because that’s the most practical use of the feature.
You wouldn’t want to tap and hold on the playback screen for the entire duration of the video. That would create obstruction and kill what was supposed to be a good viewing experience.
I mostly use it at the start of the video to move past the intro fluff quickly. Before this, I used to double-tap to skip, but the problem with this trick is that there is always a chance of missing something important in the intro part.
With the tap and hold gesture, I can skim through the intro, while not missing anything important. I can do the same in any portion of the video.
The feature still isn’t perfect
The sun has its spots, and so has this tap-and-hold gesture on YouTube. I’m not mad about it, but I would love to see the gesture do more than just fast-forwarding.
For example, it should include an option to allow users to continue watching the video at 2x speed until they change their mind.
Maybe it should display a prompt asking whether the users want to continue at the same speed. Or maybe introduce something like tap-and-hold, and then swipe right to continue watching at 2x speed.
Another tweak I’d love to see is 1.5x as an option. While this might be a bit tricky to implement, Google will surely be able to win those people over who can’t comprehend at 2x speed. The 1.5x playback speed will make the tap-and-hold gesture more inclusive.
Lastly, I would love to go backwards this fast the same way. So, instead of allowing users to tap and hold anywhere on the playback screen, YouTube should assign the right side for fast forwarding and the left for going back.
I’m not keeping my hopes up, though.
I’m never going back to watching YouTube the old way
YouTube’s tap-and-hold gesture gives me the freedom to switch back to the default playback speed right when I need to, and it’s the easiest way.
I rarely watch the entire video at the default 1x speed these days after I discovered the gesture.
The gesture didn’t replace the importance of the traditional way of setting video playback to 2x — it just solved a different kind of problem I didn’t know existed until I started using the feature.
In the last couple of days, I have used the tap-and-hold gesture to watch all kinds of videos that are boring in parts. Instead of skipping those portions, I fast-forwarded them.
This way, I don’t have to live with the anxiety of worrying that I might have missed something really important. It’s truly a game-changer for how I watch YouTube videos.
There is no going back now.
