Whether it’s speeding up a vlog while on a commute or slowly following along to a how-to tutorial, every day YouTube’s viewers are choosing to watch videos at speeds that work for them. But, how exactly are these playback speeds being utilised on YouTube? Let’s find out.
Faster Speeds = More Time Saved
According to YouTube, users saved an average of over 900 years of video time per day when watching at faster speeds. To put this into perspective, that would be like listening to Baby Shark about 210 million times.
Currently, YouTube supports the following playback speeds:
- 0.25x
- 0.5x
- 0.75x
- Default
- 1.25x
- 1.5x
- 1.75x
- 2x
YouTube says that although most people watch on the default speed, users that did use the playback speed feature chose to watch videos a little faster. It’s reported that the feature was used to speed up content more than 85% of the time.
Aside from the default playback speed, the most often used is 1.5x, followed by 2x, and in third place 1.25x. As for custom speeds, the most used was 1.1x.
Night > Day
YouTube also found that viewers use the playback speed feature more often in the evening than they do in the daytime. 11pm is the time where the biggest spike is noticed.
Interestingly, in the morning the playback speed feature wasn’t used as often. However, as the day progressed, users started to dabble more with faster speeds. Naturally, there is a dip at dinner time, but thereafter, usage picked back up again. With regards to usage of 1.5x, these users demonstrate a spike between 9pm and 1am in their local time zones.
