If you want to know something, do an experiment. Ride with different width tires. A good experiment would use the same bike and completely similar tires. For example Continental GP5000 exist in 700x23, 25, 28, 32. Compass/Rene Herse tires all use the same construction, from 700x26 to 700x55. Measuring how wide the inflated tire really is on a particular rim would help. Determining equivalent inflation pressure for the different width tires would help. Comparing an overinflated 700x42 on a hybrid to a underinflated 700x23 on a race bike tells nothing.
Someone tells me they do fun bike rides on X or they go fast on X, I will believe them. Do the same thing over and over probably you get good at it. This is never a reason not to try something different.
There's a limit on what you can directly compare. A bike that will take 700x32 is likely not designed to give optimum results with 700x23. A bike designed to go fast with 700x23 will usually not take tires much wider. Do the experiment you can with what you got.
One experiment is over. It took forty years to run its course. When tires as narrow as 700x18 came out in the late 70s everybody had to have them. They were claimed to be fast. Very fast. They were OEM on touring bikes. There are still riders loyal to those skinnies, willing to ride dried out garage sale tires to have what they were taught was best. But no manufacturer is willing to make new ones. When evaluating tires try to be smarter than the 700x18 loyalists.