About 80% of students in Russia watch lecture videos in accelerated mode

Knowledge is better absorbed if you take notes even with accelerated browsing. This is the conclusion reached by the analysts of EdAgency, an educational product development company, after analyzing dozens of studies from 2014 to 2025. They also found out how digitalization has affected learning. The results of the study were reviewed by Izvestia on July 10.

"In today's digital world, people are rapidly accelerating their information consumption. One of the striking indicators of this trend is watching videos at high speed. According to a recent study by Chen et al. (2024), 83% of the 191 undergraduate students surveyed reported watching lecture videos at speeds above 1x, and 53% indicated that accelerated speeds (for example, 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, 2x) are better suited for learning," the experts added..

Also, according to them, two experiments were conducted: participants watched 15-minute lectures on unfamiliar complex topics — paleontology and economics — at a speed of 1x or 2x, while some took notes at the same time. It was found that the test results decreased slightly with increasing speed, and there was also an advantage of taking notes for memory regardless of the method (laptop or handwritten).

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Their results were higher than those who had been trained by an ordinary teacher.

Analysts said the claim that "the average attention span of a human is 8 seconds (less than that of a goldfish)" went viral after a Microsoft Canada report (2015). In fact, the average person in the digital age can hold their attention on one screen for about 47 seconds. Over the past 20 years, children's ability to concentrate has not changed, but adults have become a little more attentive: their results have increased by an average of 1.2 points.

Frequent viewing of short videos on social networks correlates with lower academic scores and lower concentration levels, experts emphasized.

"In 2014, the main measure of engagement was the time spent watching and clicking on an issue. By 2025, researchers have acquired more sophisticated tools that allow them to literally look into a student's head during a video. The main trend of recent times is the transition from passive viewing to active interaction," the analysts added.

According to them, while in 2014 videos were mostly lecture videos, by 2025 students and platforms expect videos to engage the audience in action.

In order to keep students' attention, educational content in video format should be short and complete, information should be structured, and presentation should be lively, with visual explanations and interactive elements, the experts concluded.

On July 9, it was reported that the transition of universities in the Russian Federation to a new model of education will begin in 2026-2027. They clarified that since 2023, the pilot project has included MAI, MISIS, Moscow State University, Baltic Federal University, St. Petersburg Mining University, Tomsk State University.