View Full Version : Fast talkin'.......
Has anyone else noticed that people on TV/news/commercials are talking faster than ever? Sometimes it sounds like the Fast Forward is working. I'm sure it's just our present-day state of trying to rush and get everything in, in a shorter amount of time. But I don't like it, and sometimes my brain can't even keep up with the conversation. Slow down already!
Everything seems to move very fast now. I wasn't so aware of it until I recently retired and stepped out of the hurry, hurry syndrome. I used to think as far as media is concerned that it started with Sesame Street. Tiny little bits thrown out and then onto the next thing. Just watching the news one sees the five second story and then on to the next. And yes, they talk very fast.
Twenty years ago or so I remember watching the first ever Coke TV commercial from the early 1950's. It was some guy on a horse doing a lame trick and then in case they hadn't bored me the first time, they showed it again but closeup and in slow motion. My reaction at the time was "my god, that's the most boring commercial I've ever seen. Did it actually inspire anyone to go buy a coke???" Things have been getting faster ever since.
I don't think it's part of an effort to get more "stuff" in for whatever definition of stuff any particular case might be. After all, anyone who has ever spent more than 20 contiguous minutes watching any of the cable news networks knows that they just keep repeating the same few stories over and over and over and over and over. I think it's actually more a matter of the people producing the content being afraid that, just as I got bored watching an old coke commercial, so too will people get bored of watching something that isn't fast paced enough and scroll/fast forward right past it.
I agree about the fast talking and 45 second "news" bits. It's why I like to watch public TV to at least delve a little deeper. I find so many people read headlines only, never read a book or even a long article in a magazine. There's no point in having a talking news anchor read you the headlines that you can read for yourself on the internet, hence the continuing decline of local news.
I just listened to a podcast about this site. http://www.theskimm.com/recent It's a daily newsletter of articles that can be read quickly so that one has a superficial level of knowledge about the day's current events. The creators were interviewed in the podcast. Apparently the target audience is millennial women. I can just imagine how fun it would be to go,to a party where the majority of people had used this site as their main source of info about the world.
Its not just talking that is faster, the video is faster. You must change the screen in fractions of a second, in a frantic way. There are constantly flashing images.
Rapid screen changes makes sense if the goal is to appeal to a generation that grew up playing fast paced video games. To those of us who did not it can be a bit overwhelming. But thankfully I at least know how to use the remote well enough to find the off switch so it's all good.
........ But thankfully I at least know how to use the remote well enough to find the off switch so it's all good.
:+1:
I wonder how much it has to do with the audience - and how much it has to do with making money from advertisers? If you can squeeze in yet another commercial, it's more revenue. Conversely, cramming a commercial into a fewer number of seconds may be cheaper for the advertiser?
Some networks "compress" (actually run them faster) reruns so they can cram more commercials in.
I wonder how much it has to do with the audience - and how much it has to do with making money from advertisers? If you can squeeze in yet another commercial, it's more revenue. Conversely, cramming a commercial into a fewer number of seconds may be cheaper for the advertiser?
Some networks "compress" (actually run them faster) reruns so they can cram more commercials in.
And they also edit down the theme songs/credits. In the old days theme songs were several times longer than they are today.
SO likes to watch the morning news. (I'm not sure why. I've watched a few times. It's certainly not to get news because they don't generally say much news. And about 60% of the broadcast is commercials anyway. I can eat an entire bowl of cereal in one commercial break.) One of the things they've started doing is putting useful information up at the same time as the ads. They load the edges of the screen with the traffic cams and weather forecasts, while the commercial gets maybe 60% of the screen. I assume this is because they know that people fast forward the ads so if they have useful info at the same time maybe people won't.
yes, it is true. I've also noticed when calling customer service they are talking too fast for me to process info. Cannot hear all of it and do not have sufficient time to respond. This is because some of those call centers have the employees timed and only allow them a limited number of minutes to resolve a situation. I have no patience with this and recommend asking to speak to a manager. After all, aren't we paying for customer service as part of our bill?
A friend of mine worked for awhile from home in a call center position. She was routinely dinged for talking too slowly. Apparently other call takers solved the problem by just disconnecting mid-call. Customer service, my arse.
catherine
6-20-16, 11:18am
I think I have decent presentation skills, but I am ALWAYS very conscious of my habit of speaking too quickly. I think it's a subconscious fear that people will get bored; that they're thinking, "Let's get this boring presentation overwith already!"
I had a recent telephone presentation in which I heard some muffled speaking in the distance in between my slides. I asked about it and they said that there was a Japanese client who spoke very little English, so he had an interpreter translating.
That really helped me slow down, and take deep pauses in-between slides.
yes, it is true. I've also noticed when calling customer service they are talking too fast for me to process info. Cannot hear all of it and do not have sufficient time to respond. This is because some of those call centers have the employees timed and only allow them a limited number of minutes to resolve a situation. I have no patience with this and recommend asking to speak to a manager. After all, aren't we paying for customer service as part of our bill?
That kind of limitation is a misuse of the technology, in my opinion, if it's actually originating from management. (Sometime call centre trainer/consultant here!)
Most if not all call centres work to an average talk time/handle time -- they have to, since that's how they set staffing levels. (If you think the calls are going to average 5 minutes and they average 20, you're going to have a ton of people on hold for a lloooonng time.) Thing is, these are averages -- which means that if two calls take 2 minutes each, the next one can be 11 minutes and you'd still be within the average.
In the call centre training work I've done, it's sometimes difficult to explain this to call centre staff. I've encountered lots who insist that the average is the maximum, no matter what their managers say.
It seems ridiculous to lose a call centre job for talking too slowly unless it's really over-the-top slow and annoying customers. Most agents are way too quick for me, too!
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