From Strombo to Jon Stewart, let's agree that some broadcast hosts can talk at the speed of lightning. They're smart and satirical even if they do sometimes trip over their own brilliance.

Indeed, the media are full of fast talkers from talk shows to sitcoms and newscasts.

But it's not just media types who motor along.

Texts, tweets, and technological gizmos are making communication ever faster and it's causing many of us to speak more quickly in our everyday lives to keep up with it all.

Ray Hull is a professor of communication sciences and disorders at Wichita State University in Kansas and he has done considerable research in the area of human neuroscience and speech.

"A decade ago," he says, "I measured the speed of speech of teachers, family members and those out in society at a rate of about 145 words per minute, the average rate of human speech.

Read full story.