[camiller]

On the rare occasion that I can just sit and listen I'll use anywhere from 1.7x-2.2x. More commonly when I'm driving I rarely got above 1.2x. I just can't retain anything if I go faster while driving.

I hadn't heard of the silence skipping feature but just checked and my player of choice (Podcast Addict) has it. Just turned it on so I'll see how that goes.

[infogulch]

1.3x on a new podcast is about my limit. But the more I listen to a specific podcast and the more I get used to the hosts voices the faster I can speed it up. E.g. I've listened to ATP for a couple years now and I'm up to 2.3-2.5x now. I can barely hit 3x and still comprehend, but I really have to strain to understand, which is a bad idea since I mostly listen while driving.

When I first started listening to podcasts in general and played around with the multiplier even 2x sounded like completely incomprehensible gibberish to me. The strangeness of super speed becomes apparent again when it starts autoplaying when someone else can hear. Their confused look is kinda funny though haha.

[isostatic]

How badly is your driving skill effected when you listen to a podcast? I won't listen to audio books in the car because it takes concentration away from what I should be doing (safely operating a mechanical killing machine at 70mph)

[petercooper]

I can't speak for camiller, but I'd say it improves my driving. It engages a totally different part of the brain, and listening to spoken audio stops my mind from wandering and daydreaming by chatting to itself. For similar reasons, I listen to audio books while going to sleep (obviously, the physical and visual stimuli while driving ensure I don't fall asleep then ;-)).

[wccrawford]

I've listened to audio books in my car for years now, and the worst thing that happens is that I'll fail to listen to the audio for a while if anything important happens while driving.

It has never, ever happened the other way.

[camiller]

Pretty much what petercooper and wccrawford said. There are times when I have to roll back 30 seconds, but I've never caused an accident or failed to react to some other drivers poor skills. That said, everyone is different, do what works for you, even if that is abstaining!