Adrian Chiles, a broadcaster and Guardian columnist, has voiced his frustration over a growing trend in short-form social media videos: the removal of pauses between sentences and clauses. He describes the effect as speakers sounding as if they have lost control of their speech, with words tumbling out in a disjointed torrent.
The rise of breathless editing
Chiles first noticed the phenomenon in videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. Initially, he thought his phone or broadband was malfunctioning. But he soon realised that creators were deliberately cutting out pauses, including breaths. One creator told him, “You’ve got to edit the breaths out to keep the pace up.” Chiles estimates each removed pause lasts between 0.1 and one second. He questions why creators do not simply speak faster instead.
Chiles notes that in real life, no one speaks without pausing for breath. He contrasts this with audiobooks played at high speed, which still feel more natural. He argues that the trend is both a symptom and a cause of madness, and he never thought he would miss punctuation so much.
Impact on viewer engagement
Chiles spoke to several people under 30 working in the field. They were initially puzzled by his complaint, as the editing style is so normal to them. They explained that without removing pauses, viewers would not watch beyond the first second. Chiles, who admits to a short attention span, insists he can hold focus for more than one second between sentences.
He recalls his early days at the BBC, where editors spent time “de-umming” interviews by splicing tape. He sympathises with the soul-destroying nature of removing every breath, even in modern digital editing. He clicked on a 47-second video about Andy Burnham’s wife, which was breathless but had subtitles with punctuation.
A broader concern for discourse
Chiles worries about where this trend will end. Words are already pared down to a minimum; after breaths, what next? He fears for sanity and civilised discourse. Despite the trend being brilliantly executed—with shots changing at breath points—he calls it an assault on the senses.
The article concludes with Chiles inviting readers to submit responses of up to 300 words for publication in the letters section.
