To fight the growing wave of podcasts released each day, a group of people have started listening to their favorite shows at hyperspeed. The only problem: They might not be comprehending much.
Welcome to Inefficiency Week. Over the next five days, we’re going to take a look at what we lose when we get lost in the chase for efficiency. We’ll explore the ways it’s changing the games we love to watch. We’ll remember its failures across the pop culture spectrum. And we’ll report on what it’s doing to our lives — romantic, physical, and otherwise.
I don’t know when exactly it began, but I do remember where. Around four years ago, squeezed in between the counter and the refrigerator of my college dorm kitchen, I scrolled through the Podcasts app and saw six different episodes I wanted to listen to. They were all released that day, and I knew tomorrow there would be another six. Faced with this impossible task, I saw the “1x” button and thought, “How would this…
