Why Not?
Though there are undoubtedly technological considerations involved in "speed
listening" that aren't present in "speed reading", I'm not at all
sure that such a thing is technically impossible. Technology already exists that
permits speeding music up to a certain degree without changing pitch, but "speed
listening" would seem to demand something on a much more advanced and complex
level - on both the transmitting, and the receiving, sides. What's more, though
we might be able to achieve "speed hearing", "speed listening"
would still seem to require a level of concentration on the side of the listener
that might make this entire endeavor not particularly worthwhile.
And of course at the very essence of any print medium is its ability to be divorced
from one-to-one time. We read (which includes skimming) precisely because we can
set the pace of our reading, which suggests that even if "speed listening"
is a technical possibility, it's quite unclear why it might be a desirable one.
Go to: The tedium of real time.