As machines have increasingly competed for our attention over the past century, the average amount of time people have devoted to listening to one another during their waking hours has gone down almost by half, from 42 percent to 24 percent. And now even the time spent listening to recorded speech is going down, as speed-listening has become the new speed-reading. People listen to audiobooks at twice the original speed, often while doing something else like exercising or driving. Apps like Overcast allow people to listen to podcasts in double or triple time; a practice called podfasting. And
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