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I love tracking my everyday screen time. It's more essential than fun because it has helped me curb my excessive YouTube watch time.
That's how much of an 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, I adjust my YouTube settings for the best viewing experience.
However, "best" is subjective and depends on whether it's an entertainment video or something I need to skim to quickly gain insights into a specific topic.
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 videos that don't demand close attention.
A hidden YouTube gesture proved me wrong when I accidentally discovered it last week, and I quickly got used to it. Maybe it's because I have used the feature on all kinds of videos in the last few days.
I'm so dependent on this hidden YouTube feature now that I can't watch videos without it. Here is why.
How YouTube's tap-and-hold gesture transformed how I watch videos
I now use my 'watch time' more effectively
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 most of the time. At anything above that, I'll likely miss 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 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 parts of videos at double speed, because that's the most practical use.
You wouldn't want to tap and hold on the playback screen for the entire video. That would be disruptive and ruin what should have been 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 that trick can make you miss something important in the intro.
With the tap-and-hold gesture, I can skim the intro without missing anything important. I can do the same in any portion of the video.
The feature still isn't perfect
It's lacking a few features to improve the viewing experience
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 keep the video at 2x speed until you change your mind.
Maybe it should show a prompt asking whether you want to keep 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 win over people 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 backward this fast, too. So, instead of letting users tap and hold anywhere on the playback screen, YouTube should assign the right side to fast-forward and the left to go back.
I'm not holding out hope, though.
I'm never going back to watching YouTube the old way
YouTube's tap-and-hold gesture lets me switch back to the default playback speed when I need to, and it's the easiest way.
These days, I rarely watch the entire video at the default 1x speed 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 parts, I fast-forwarded.
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.