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> Online video is in its infancy now, but within a few decades, it will have become the modern equivalent of the book We're already there. When you want to lea

> Online video is in its infancy now, but within a few decades, it will have become the modern equivalent of the book We're already there. When you want to learn how to do something where do you go first?

sam_lowry_ 6y ago
Definitely not Youtube.
- sempron64 6y ago
  I don't use Youtube for detailed technical documentation, but I watch a lot of conference talks and lectures on technical topics. I also like to watch other people programming to pick up their small tricks and the details of their setup. This is invaluable information that would otherwise be inaccessible except by acquiring it by chance at the workplace, a meetup, or a conference. Youtube's the first place I go to learn about any topic I'm a beginner on, especially topics which require manual skills, like home repair, automobiles, playing an instrument. It is a repository of the informal knowledge of mankind that is unprecendented in scale, breadth, and probably depth. It may be more revolutionary than book-learning in how it has disseminated knowledge to the world, and large parts of it would have incalculable value in being preserved. I only wish the Internet Archive had the sort of resources necessary to back up Youtube, but that seems unlikely to happen given the huge amount of storage necessary.
- elboru 6y ago
  Not even to know how to create, disassemble or repair something in your house/car?
_jal 6y ago
You must live a very different life than I do. Video has so very many problems... - search doesn't even deserve to be called 'search'. I search on a well-known name from the news, Youtube shows me results from a band for a video I watched a month ago. - you must consume a nontrivial amount of a video to determine if it is any good. - information density is terrible. - most people are not practiced at being on camera, and you end up focusing on that rather than whatever you wanted to learn. - You can't reference things. What are you going to do, build your own index of '&skip=' links? - people feel the need to be funny, cute, or worse get a marketing budget and feel the need to create a "brand" with the time you're trying to use to learn something. - copy/paste. Enough said. - and so on. If video were somehow optimal pedagogy, there would be no arguments about reopening in the face of Covid - we'd all just watch TV. In conclusion, video sucks.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "video sucks" Completely and strongly disagree. You seem to focus on educational videos, and just regarding that I consider youtube one of the greatest educational tools in all of history. I've learned so much through watching youtube videos, much faster than I would have learned it by reading about it. This is especially the case with learning things that have a visual component, like learning GUI apps, painting techniques, etc. There's no substitute to watching a master painter work, for example, and you've got dozens if not hundreds of them on youtube. Regarding information density, I've found "a picture is worth a thousand words". It might not correspond to kolomogorov complexity or the sort of information that compsci people are used to, but just like looking at a painting (which is arguably equivalent to a single frame of film/video) can convey and enormous amount of information that even a book can not equal, the amount of such information conveyed by moving pictures can be almost infinitely greater than print. Of course, the amount of information will differ from video to video and book to book, but it does not to justice to say that for video "information density is terrible", unless you're talking about something like a video of someone reading something (though I find even there, I can listen to speech at a much higher rate than I can read, and usually listen to videos at 2x or 3x speed, so can consume way higher amounts of verbal information through audio or video than I can through books). If you step outside the realm of educational videos, your argument becomes even less tenable. The "information density" of a music video, for example, is terrible? Compared to what? There literally is no equivalent. Or how about a film, or watching someone sing on camera? Outside of educational videos, talking about information density in these contexts seems to be missing the point of such videos entirely.
  - basch 6y ago
    But if I am looking for a specific thing, I want to be able to skip. I want a transcript first world, where I can skim, ctrl+f, click, and THEN the video plays. It's fine if you want to watch a whole video, but the amount of "Hey there campers, dont forget to subscribe" almost outweighs actual content. I find the idle banter and chatter on podcasts equally distracting. Scrubbing through a video to find what you are looking for is infinitely more annoying than scrolling down a page of screenshot with captions. I, like your parent, if I run into a video, will press back and try and find an article first, and then use the video as a last resort. For some process type things, like you describe, things I'm less familiar with, like a mechanic working on a car, a video might be easier. I do very much like the rev interface for transcript/video. https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/MHjYIxnUkQQJMJ605Wjoq9PFre6W9dAjsY7xB9UOupqCxAtuYBHrCMdN4i_ROQyEOVxVhRz-u4a8jZGizZIL6s7Apeo?loadFrom=PastedDeeplink&ts=496.01 https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/MHjYIxnUkQQJMJ6...

sam_lowry_ 6y ago

Definitely not Youtube.

sempron64 6y ago
I don't use Youtube for detailed technical documentation, but I watch a lot of conference talks and lectures on technical topics. I also like to watch other people programming to pick up their small tricks and the details of their setup. This is invaluable information that would otherwise be inaccessible except by acquiring it by chance at the workplace, a meetup, or a conference. Youtube's the first place I go to learn about any topic I'm a beginner on, especially topics which require manual skills, like home repair, automobiles, playing an instrument. It is a repository of the informal knowledge of mankind that is unprecendented in scale, breadth, and probably depth. It may be more revolutionary than book-learning in how it has disseminated knowledge to the world, and large parts of it would have incalculable value in being preserved. I only wish the Internet Archive had the sort of resources necessary to back up Youtube, but that seems unlikely to happen given the huge amount of storage necessary.
elboru 6y ago
Not even to know how to create, disassemble or repair something in your house/car?

_jal 6y ago

You must live a very different life than I do. Video has so very many problems... - search doesn't even deserve to be called 'search'. I search on a well-known name from the news, Youtube shows me results from a band for a video I watched a month ago. - you must consume a nontrivial amount of a video to determine if it is any good. - information density is terrible. - most people are not practiced at being on camera, and you end up focusing on that rather than whatever you wanted to learn. - You can't reference things. What are you going to do, build your own index of '&skip=' links? - people feel the need to be funny, cute, or worse get a marketing budget and feel the need to create a "brand" with the time you're trying to use to learn something. - copy/paste. Enough said. - and so on. If video were somehow optimal pedagogy, there would be no arguments about reopening in the face of Covid - we'd all just watch TV. In conclusion, video sucks.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"video sucks" Completely and strongly disagree. You seem to focus on educational videos, and just regarding that I consider youtube one of the greatest educational tools in all of history. I've learned so much through watching youtube videos, much faster than I would have learned it by reading about it. This is especially the case with learning things that have a visual component, like learning GUI apps, painting techniques, etc. There's no substitute to watching a master painter work, for example, and you've got dozens if not hundreds of them on youtube. Regarding information density, I've found "a picture is worth a thousand words". It might not correspond to kolomogorov complexity or the sort of information that compsci people are used to, but just like looking at a painting (which is arguably equivalent to a single frame of film/video) can convey and enormous amount of information that even a book can not equal, the amount of such information conveyed by moving pictures can be almost infinitely greater than print. Of course, the amount of information will differ from video to video and book to book, but it does not to justice to say that for video "information density is terrible", unless you're talking about something like a video of someone reading something (though I find even there, I can listen to speech at a much higher rate than I can read, and usually listen to videos at 2x or 3x speed, so can consume way higher amounts of verbal information through audio or video than I can through books). If you step outside the realm of educational videos, your argument becomes even less tenable. The "information density" of a music video, for example, is terrible? Compared to what? There literally is no equivalent. Or how about a film, or watching someone sing on camera? Outside of educational videos, talking about information density in these contexts seems to be missing the point of such videos entirely.
- basch 6y ago
  But if I am looking for a specific thing, I want to be able to skip. I want a transcript first world, where I can skim, ctrl+f, click, and THEN the video plays. It's fine if you want to watch a whole video, but the amount of "Hey there campers, dont forget to subscribe" almost outweighs actual content. I find the idle banter and chatter on podcasts equally distracting. Scrubbing through a video to find what you are looking for is infinitely more annoying than scrolling down a page of screenshot with captions. I, like your parent, if I run into a video, will press back and try and find an article first, and then use the video as a last resort. For some process type things, like you describe, things I'm less familiar with, like a mechanic working on a car, a video might be easier. I do very much like the rev interface for transcript/video. https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/MHjYIxnUkQQJMJ605Wjoq9PFre6W9dAjsY7xB9UOupqCxAtuYBHrCMdN4i_ROQyEOVxVhRz-u4a8jZGizZIL6s7Apeo?loadFrom=PastedDeeplink&ts=496.01 https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/MHjYIxnUkQQJMJ6...