No one told me about this hidden YouTube feature – now you can't watch videos without it

I love tracking my daily screen time. It's more substantive than fun. Because it helped me curb my excessive YouTube viewing time.

That's the level of influence YouTube has on my daily life. It's my daily learning tool and one of my main sources of entertainment.

Depending on what you watch on the platform, make the necessary adjustments to your YouTube settings for the best viewing experience.

However, “best” is also subjective and depends on whether it's an entertainment video or something you need to skim to quickly understand a particular topic.

In the latter case, I always set the playback speed to 2x. Until last week, I thought I needed it to watch types of videos that don't require attention.

YouTube's hidden gestures proved me wrong when I stumbled upon them last week, but I quickly got used to them. It might be because you used this feature on all kinds of videos in the last few days.

I'm now so dependent on YouTube's hidden feature that I can't watch videos without it. Here's why:

How YouTube's tap-and-hold gestures are changing the way you watch videos

I disagree with the idea that watching videos in fast forward mode is a sign of an attention span crisis. It's about making better use of your time.

But don't sacrifice understanding. In most cases, 2x speed works perfectly. Anything more than that and you may not be able to understand most of the video.

But I didn't know until a few days ago that setting the playback speed to 2x speed was so easy.

Just long press anywhere on the video playback screen to play YouTube at 2x speed.

Playback continues at that speed until you take your finger off the playback screen. It also works in incognito mode.

I use this every day to watch some of my videos at twice the default speed. Because this is the most practical use of this feature.

You don't want to keep tapping on the playback screen for the entire duration of the video. This creates a glitch and ruins an otherwise good viewing experience.

I mainly use this at the beginning of the video to quickly get through the fluffy parts of the intro. I used to double-tap to skip, but the problem with this trick is that there's always a chance you'll miss something important in the intro.

Tap and hold gestures let you skim through the intro without missing anything important. You can do the same for any part of the video.

This feature is not perfect yet

Just like the sun has spots, so does this tap-and-hold gesture on YouTube. I'm not mad about it, but I'd love to see this gesture do more than just fast forward.

For example, you should include an option that allows users to continue watching the video at 2x speed until they change their mind.

There should probably be a prompt asking the user if they want to continue at the same speed. Or you can introduce features like tap and hold, which lets you swipe right to continue watching at 2x speed.

Another adjustment I would love to see is 1.5x as an option. This might be a bit difficult to implement, but Google will definitely be able to attract people who don't get it twice as fast. 1.5x playback speed makes tap and hold gestures more comprehensive.

Lastly, I'd like to try going backwards just as quickly. So instead of allowing users to tap and hold anywhere on the playback screen, YouTube should assign the right side to fast forward and the left side to fast rewind.

But I won't disappoint.

I can't go back to watching YouTube like I used to.

YouTube's tap-and-hold gesture gives you the freedom to quickly switch to the default playback speed whenever you want, and it's the easiest way.

Since discovering this gesture, I rarely watch entire videos at the default 1x speed these days.

This gesture does not replace the importance of the traditional method of setting video playback to 2x. I just solved a different kind of problem that I didn't know existed until I started using this feature.

For the past few days I've been watching all kinds of partially boring videos using tap-and-hold gestures. Instead of skipping those parts, I fast forwarded.

That way you won't have to live with the fear of missing something. Really important. the Really It's revolutionized the way we watch YouTube videos.

There is no turning back now.