It is known that we live in times of constant acceleration, of vertiginous changes, of transformation. But beyond "knowing," we "see." As it happens on TikTok or Instagram.
It is already a fully incorporated habit of not "waiting" more than a couple of clips to see the final result of a recipe (a patience previously demanded by television chefs), a home renovation, a weight loss or a tour of Europe.
And it's not just that everything is summed up. It's how content is created and consumed: at increased speed. Does this have its effect in real life?
Even YouTube allows you to speed up the playback speed of what is already going fast. You can also increase the rhythm of a podcast and even this same note if you decide to listen to it.
Our perception of the world – always looking at the cell phone – is already in timelapse mode.
Do we bank to watch a video at normal speed? If a TikTok doesn't hook us in the first few seconds, do we wait or scroll anxiously? And with taps on the screen we do not almost compulsively rush Instagram stories?
This is very social media, of course. From which we can "escape" if we do not have an account in any. But who escapes WhatsApp? Since there is the function of accelerating audios (May 2021) does anyone listen to them in standard speed (1x)?
The speed of WhatsApp audios can be increased by 50% or doubled. Photo Archive
That power to increase the speed by 50% (1.5x) or double (2x) what the other person has to tell us, is a balm for most.
It is a kind of "my listening, my decision". Similar to that key moment that marked text messages (SMS) versus calls. It is much more than saving the pauses of the "eeeeh" or more than three minutes of an audio. It is the faculty of printing a tempo of its own to the voice of others.
It is another way to dose our online availability.
In parallel to the fact that today the act of calling is taken as unnecessarily intrusive and even consulted before if "Can I send you an audio?", the real rhythm also requires an action ex profeso.
Once a voice memo is accelerated, by default the next ones are already at that speed. To listen again "in normal" you have to press again the number that appears next to the audio. This is no coincidence. WhatsApp knows a lot about "user experience".
Unlike the blue "read" tildes (which can be deactivated) or hide the time of the last connection (if you do it you will not be able to see that of others), the audio speed is the best rated WhatsApp function so far.
It's that life is at 1.5x. This sounds like reinforcing the theory that technologies have a linear impact on those who use them. But it is also known that it is not so so.
Mora Matassi studied punctually the use so "close" that in Argentina we give to WhatsApp.
The Argentine Mora Matassi has a master's degree in Technology, Innovation and Education from Harvard University and together with Pablo Boczkowski has just published "To know is to compare: Studying social networks through nations, media and platforms", by the hand of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He considers that "many variables moderate and interfere between the use of a technology and the user". That's why here we do not have the same relationship with WhatsApp that elsewhere they have with Telegram. Even if they have similar functions.
Although his research is global, it revolves around Argentina and provides several data on the "national" appropriation of this courier service. And the effect of its rhythm outside the chat.
In other countries its use is "discreet", to coordinate a meeting or organize a work. "On the other hand," says Matassi, "we assume thatWhatsApp is an institution of daily life management and deep sociability. It is seen as a counterpart to what is done in everyday life." Which can vary according to the stage of life, generation or age group.
Just as there is the perception that you can not "turn off", WhatsApp is always on the podium of any ranking of the daily use of apps. It transcends all classes. Then there's Instagram, then comes Twitter (niche and elite) and there's also TikTok.
That means that it is not less than WhatsApp is free and that it comes attached to many mobile phone plans. In addition, it is easy to use for people of different ages. Those who do not know how to handle themselves on Instagram, do use WhatsApp.
At the same time, Matassi, who is also a professor at the University of San Andrés, says that the success of the network itself generates network effects: the more people there are on WhatsApp, if you are not there you probably miss some things and that forces you to be.
More effects on everyday life? "Voluntary digital disconnection in Argentina seems more difficult to achieve than in other countries."
"I see very much reflected in the anxiety the acceleration in the networks. I see it in the waiting room in the office and on WhatsApp itself. And if it is an email, where they ask for recipes or study orders, they are offended if you do not answer them as soon as possible. It affects the doctor-patient relationship," Ximena Tapper, a specialist in endocrinology and metabolism at Hospital Austral y del Álvarez, told Clarín.
She is in the networks. She is a diabetes influencer, with nearly 140,000 followers on Instagram. So understand the rhythm. And it follows him.
"People are looking for quick and easy things. I also saw it reflected in a course we did. I gave them fiaca that they had to pay by transfer, send the proof of payment by mail and only once they had the confirmation could they access. We took it out. People are looking for direct access to information, in one click. When posting content I try to take it easier, but the pace (of demand) requires me to live accelerated inside and outside the networks, "he describes.
Ximena Tapper is a doctor and health influencer. She says that the networks require her to live fast-paced inside and outside of them.
Speaking of speed and demand, Instagram debuted a feature that enhances both. Precisely, it is called "Spontaneous" and borrowed the idea of Be Real, its direct competition, which promotes "being real, without filters".
The novelty allows you to upload photos or videos made instantly and simultaneously with the two cameras of the cell phone, the front and the rear.
The result of the spontaneous ones appears in the same upper lane of Instagram where the users' stories are, but to be able to see them you first have to make your own spontaneous.
When the "normal" pace seems slow
In an interview with the Spanish media 20minutos, the neuroscientist of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Diego Redolar, said that the evidence so far shows that "we should not think that this (due to the acceleration of audios and reels) generates changes in the structure of the brain."
But "it is a change in the way information is processed and this goes hand in hand with society, which we want things faster to access essential information."
Because the brain is "very plastic and gets used to working in a certain way," acceleration across platforms, he says, can make us less observant, "because of that way of paying attention exclusively to the general and not to the small details."
What about TikTok? Does the extensive consumption of your fast microvideos also "get used" to us off screen?
The first thing to clarify is that this social network was linked to an audience, strictly speaking, younger (just as Facebook was for mature), but long ago it ceased to be the platform "for children and adolescents" that it was.
The second thing to know is that networks should not be defined only according to how long they are used. They are more complex and their use is combined: videos that appear on Instagram and are commented on Twitter, are on TikTok. And yes, Twitter also has speed as something intrinsic. Although from the instantaneous.
If we want to know why we are stopped in General Paz, let's look for it in a tweet. In the present tense, the speed of the bird is necessary, not that offered by TikTok, which has an algorithm that combines "old" videos with newly published ones.
And, in reality, do networks and platforms accelerate the way users consume them or is it the other way around?
"It seems to me that the trend towards acceleration has more to do with a range of options that content producers and platforms give to users, than necessarily to the absolute experience of the users themselves," says Matassi.
From a subjective point of view, it is known that people associate different temporalities to different platforms. From an objective one, that is, how people dedicate time to different consumptions in the digital environment, we know that these can vary from consumption of seconds on platforms such as TikTok or Instagram to consumption of hours, such as on Netflix.
"So, there's the coexistence of 'I don't want to hear audio in more than 10 seconds of a work message,' for example, but 'I want to be able to watch my favorite series 6 hours straight.'"
Why do networks and platforms copy each other's functions that mess with the speed of content? "It is not strange that configuration options appear for the reproduction of content that tend towards acceleration, because there is the idea in the contemporary digital environment that the media go very fast, but we have less and less time."
WhatsApp also has what we want in terms of immediacy. "It's like the landline of before," says the Argentine expert. If you want to find a person "already", you look for them on WhatsApp. Not by Instagram, which also has direct messages, audios and calls, but in its use has "allowed" a slow response.
ACE
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