Platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, YouTube and Netflix allow users to increase the playback speed of audio or video content by up to two times, a feature that appears to bring more practicality to everyday life, but which in fact can stimulate an increase in anxiety in people who use this feature frequently.
According to information, the restriction on the number of characters in the posts, the rapid popularization of short videos on social networks such as Instagram and TikTok and fast-paced music contribute to people developing anxiety more quickly compared to the common use of the Internet.
“When you use audio and video acceleration tools constantly and indiscriminately, you are ‘training’ your brain to assimilate information in an accelerated way, to live in an accelerated way”, explains Post PhD Dr. Fabiano de Abreu Agrela, who completes by saying “it is not possible to accelerate real life, which causes the brain, shaped by the speed of the internet, to find barriers to function at the same pace in the real world”.
Because they are relatively new functions, there are still no studies on the impact of accelerating videos and audios on the brain, but these resources are part of a great process of stimulating anxiety on the internet. With that, the recommendation is for people not to get used to listening to audios or watching videos in 2x so as not to get their brain used to this reality.
Do you usually speed up audios and videos or don’t you have this habit? Tell us, comment!