5 ms·

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain somethin

by fetzu 2y ago

One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. It was bad enough with this wave of YouTube “guides” that take eight minutes to explain something which could have been done in a paragraph. Videos are also the worst searchable medium, really looking forward to having to scan through hours of content to find “that thing I saw six months ago”. Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
atoav 2y ago
> One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. I mean videos can be great for educational content. But the putting out a video takes significantly longer than watching it. And theoretically you could make it just as searchable as anything else. The problem is that people suck at communicating clearly and concisely already, add to that a narcissist guy who likes to see himself talk and you got a recipe for a major pain in the.. I am afraid the same people who really like to record voice messages will flock to this like moths to a lightbulb.
- rkagerer 2y ago
  flock to this like moths to a lightbulb In that sense it may act as a filter to help remove low-effort content from other channels I actually use (ie. not video).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
JohnMakin 2y ago
IMO it's because literacy rates are in the toilet.
- bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
  Is it the cause or the effect?
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Obviously not qualified to answer this but I think the drop in literacy is happened quite a while after youtube or even online video being a thing. I am a strong reader and get highly annoyed spending 5 minutes watching a video on a topic where I could get my answer in 10 seconds or less reading about it - I think most strong readers would feel the same. I see absolutely no benefit to getting information from a video (plus it’s hard to refer back to) unless you are not great at reading.
- tiptup300 2y ago
  disagree, I read a ton of news, have for a while I love long form video essays. The longer the better. Where for a off the cuff article I find I'm much less likely to read the whole thing unless it's really piqued my interest. Note that I'm not an especially fast reader.
- AlexAndScripts 2y ago
  I'm 18. I suspect this is related to attention span: Videos capture your attention far better and are more addictive. Additionally, while people can read, they're worryingly slow and they are so out of practice that the very act of extended reading tires them out - even if the subject itself is trivial. I think my reading speed is slightly above average among adults, and I can read text at my normal speed three times in the time it takes my peers to read it once. That's with brain damage. These are very intelligent people, it's just that my generation is moving away from reading. I've had discussions with friends who think academic papers should be replaced with videos. They find writing so time consuming and difficult that they think that an informative, animated video could be made with the same amount of effort as an academic paper. They also say that they're frequently distracted from the content due to the effort of reading itself. I've been surprised by the extent to which people use "person talks to camera" style videos for revision and re-learning, rather than reading condensed notes. They are significantly slower, you can't scan through until you find something you're unfamiliar with, and they're just plain dull. Despite that, they're one of the most popular ways to revise. Perhaps it's because you can zone out of videos, convincing yourself that you're learning without actively engaging with the content. Again, I don't mean 3b1b style animated lectures, I mean someone essentially paraphrasing the textbook to the camera. An similar phenomenon that also worries me is the lack of distinction between how people speak and how people write, and not in the "use straightforward language, not purple prose" way. People comma-splice entire paragraphs (if they use paragraphs at all) in a stream of consciousness rather than organising their thoughts.
  - hulitu 2y ago
    > Videos capture your attention far better and are more addictive It really depends on the video. A bad porn movie "captures your attention far better" than a corporate training video.
JohnFen 2y ago
I agree. I can only hope that this doesn't catch on. There's already too much information locked up in video form as it is.
dorfsmay 2y ago
Ads and subscriptions seems easier on sites for video than text. Nobody ever made significant money with blogs or other online text form, while some people make a very decent living just producing YouTube videos.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  Indeed. There are almost no rich poets, but more than a few rich songwriters.
dudus 2y ago
As someone that hates email and text messages I'd totally trade my time spent in meetings and writing or reading emails for watching and making videos. Searching within videos is a solved problem for Google.
- seoulmetro 2y ago
  >Searching within videos is a solved problem for Google. Yeah, we'll just never get to use it.
uuddlrlrbaba 2y ago
What a "get off my lawn" take. I think you are entirely undervaluing having access to video tutorials on virtually any subject. A paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something. Short form video, if you haven't noticed, is absolutely dominating social media and google has good reason to bundle and theme it for the workplace.
- fyrn_ 2y ago
  It is entirely unsearchable though
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    Definitely not "entirely" because there are ways that one can search in a video, it's just not widely available and not as useful as it could be where it is. One way to search in videos is to use Kagi search with the AI assistant. You can ask it questions about a video, and it will answer (generally pretty well). I think ideally it would should the timestamp(s) of where the information came from though.
- mostlysimilar 2y ago
  I don't think using dominant social media practices as a proxy for "good" is the win you think it is.
- muppetman 2y ago
  Can't believe you missed the chance to reply with a "Hot Take" video and instead opted for the old school 'Type in some text like a Grandpa' approach
- eviks 2y ago
  > paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something. It does, images existed long before YouTube, and plenty of tutorials used them Social media domination is usually associated with less productivity, so that's a negative factor
- fetzu 2y ago
busymom0 2y ago
Video tutorials can be good but YouTube's move to remove dislikes from videos made it impossible to figure out if the tutorial was good or waste of time.
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
- djmips 2y ago
  That's true but you can still skim the comments I suppose to get an idea.
  - busymom0 2y ago
    Yea, that's what I end up doing but it wastes more time. Before, I could just look at the like-dislike ratio and get an instant signal that a tutorial was crap.
    - Voultapher 2y ago
      You see in the data dear boss, we optimized engagement. Users use our platform for longer.
hodgesrm 2y ago
> Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!? Unless it's a fiendish plot to sell LLMs to prepare summaries of the videos. I'm at Google Next 24 and today's keynotes were pretty much AI from start to finish.
djmips 2y ago
They are not that unsearchable anymore. Text transcripts plus AI summarizations go a long way. Plus some things are really suited to a video format. It's much easier to watch someone fix the brakes on a particular model car than if they just wrote about it and even if they wrote about it with photos. The three dimensions you can pick out from video is infinitely superior. I also find that being shown how to use features in an IDE or 3D modelling program is much easier to follow in a video format. So video certainly has it's place.
hulitu 2y ago
> Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!? It's right there in the title, sir. /s Ah, and Microsoft. Management _loves_ video trainings.
CharlieDigital 2y ago
| Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!? I use videos when I make a front end feature PR. One video can clearly show the flow and behavior of some new feature in an information dense clip. Often with more clarity than a stack of 3-4 images. They are also good for some classes of front end defects. Easier to see it in action some times.
- ametrau 2y ago
  That’s a good example of it being used well. Unfortunately that’s rare and the majority use case is as a vehicle for ads.

by fetzu 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

atoav 2y ago

> One of my worst nightmares, using videos to convey information. I mean videos can be great for educational content. But the putting out a video takes significantly longer than watching it. And theoretically you could make it just as searchable as anything else. The problem is that people suck at communicating clearly and concisely already, add to that a narcissist guy who likes to see himself talk and you got a recipe for a major pain in the.. I am afraid the same people who really like to record voice messages will flock to this like moths to a lightbulb.

rkagerer 2y ago
flock to this like moths to a lightbulb In that sense it may act as a filter to help remove low-effort content from other channels I actually use (ie. not video).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

JohnMakin 2y ago

IMO it's because literacy rates are in the toilet.

bobbylarrybobby 2y ago
Is it the cause or the effect?
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  Obviously not qualified to answer this but I think the drop in literacy is happened quite a while after youtube or even online video being a thing. I am a strong reader and get highly annoyed spending 5 minutes watching a video on a topic where I could get my answer in 10 seconds or less reading about it - I think most strong readers would feel the same. I see absolutely no benefit to getting information from a video (plus it’s hard to refer back to) unless you are not great at reading.
tiptup300 2y ago
disagree, I read a ton of news, have for a while I love long form video essays. The longer the better. Where for a off the cuff article I find I'm much less likely to read the whole thing unless it's really piqued my interest. Note that I'm not an especially fast reader.
AlexAndScripts 2y ago
I'm 18. I suspect this is related to attention span: Videos capture your attention far better and are more addictive. Additionally, while people can read, they're worryingly slow and they are so out of practice that the very act of extended reading tires them out - even if the subject itself is trivial. I think my reading speed is slightly above average among adults, and I can read text at my normal speed three times in the time it takes my peers to read it once. That's with brain damage. These are very intelligent people, it's just that my generation is moving away from reading. I've had discussions with friends who think academic papers should be replaced with videos. They find writing so time consuming and difficult that they think that an informative, animated video could be made with the same amount of effort as an academic paper. They also say that they're frequently distracted from the content due to the effort of reading itself. I've been surprised by the extent to which people use "person talks to camera" style videos for revision and re-learning, rather than reading condensed notes. They are significantly slower, you can't scan through until you find something you're unfamiliar with, and they're just plain dull. Despite that, they're one of the most popular ways to revise. Perhaps it's because you can zone out of videos, convincing yourself that you're learning without actively engaging with the content. Again, I don't mean 3b1b style animated lectures, I mean someone essentially paraphrasing the textbook to the camera. An similar phenomenon that also worries me is the lack of distinction between how people speak and how people write, and not in the "use straightforward language, not purple prose" way. People comma-splice entire paragraphs (if they use paragraphs at all) in a stream of consciousness rather than organising their thoughts.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Videos capture your attention far better and are more addictive It really depends on the video. A bad porn movie "captures your attention far better" than a corporate training video.

JohnFen 2y ago

I agree. I can only hope that this doesn't catch on. There's already too much information locked up in video form as it is.

dorfsmay 2y ago

Ads and subscriptions seems easier on sites for video than text. Nobody ever made significant money with blogs or other online text form, while some people make a very decent living just producing YouTube videos.

jgalt212 2y ago
Indeed. There are almost no rich poets, but more than a few rich songwriters.

dudus 2y ago

As someone that hates email and text messages I'd totally trade my time spent in meetings and writing or reading emails for watching and making videos. Searching within videos is a solved problem for Google.

seoulmetro 2y ago
>Searching within videos is a solved problem for Google. Yeah, we'll just never get to use it.

uuddlrlrbaba 2y ago

What a "get off my lawn" take. I think you are entirely undervaluing having access to video tutorials on virtually any subject. A paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something. Short form video, if you haven't noticed, is absolutely dominating social media and google has good reason to bundle and theme it for the workplace.

fyrn_ 2y ago
It is entirely unsearchable though
- Zambyte 2y ago
  Definitely not "entirely" because there are ways that one can search in a video, it's just not widely available and not as useful as it could be where it is. One way to search in videos is to use Kagi search with the AI assistant. You can ask it questions about a video, and it will answer (generally pretty well). I think ideally it would should the timestamp(s) of where the information came from though.
mostlysimilar 2y ago
I don't think using dominant social media practices as a proxy for "good" is the win you think it is.
muppetman 2y ago
Can't believe you missed the chance to reply with a "Hot Take" video and instead opted for the old school 'Type in some text like a Grandpa' approach
eviks 2y ago
> paragraph on the internet doesn't show you step by step visually how to do something. It does, images existed long before YouTube, and plenty of tutorials used them Social media domination is usually associated with less productivity, so that's a negative factor
fetzu 2y ago

busymom0 2y ago

Video tutorials can be good but YouTube's move to remove dislikes from videos made it impossible to figure out if the tutorial was good or waste of time.

wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
djmips 2y ago
That's true but you can still skim the comments I suppose to get an idea.
- busymom0 2y ago
  Yea, that's what I end up doing but it wastes more time. Before, I could just look at the like-dislike ratio and get an instant signal that a tutorial was crap.
  - Voultapher 2y ago
    You see in the data dear boss, we optimized engagement. Users use our platform for longer.

hodgesrm 2y ago

> Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!? Unless it's a fiendish plot to sell LLMs to prepare summaries of the videos. I'm at Google Next 24 and today's keynotes were pretty much AI from start to finish.

djmips 2y ago

They are not that unsearchable anymore. Text transcripts plus AI summarizations go a long way. Plus some things are really suited to a video format. It's much easier to watch someone fix the brakes on a particular model car than if they just wrote about it and even if they wrote about it with photos. The three dimensions you can pick out from video is infinitely superior. I also find that being shown how to use features in an IDE or 3D modelling program is much easier to follow in a video format. So video certainly has it's place.

hulitu 2y ago

> Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!? It's right there in the title, sir. /s Ah, and Microsoft. Management _loves_ video trainings.

CharlieDigital 2y ago

| Who in their right mind would think that video could be a productivity tool!? I use videos when I make a front end feature PR. One video can clearly show the flow and behavior of some new feature in an information dense clip. Often with more clarity than a stack of 3-4 images. They are also good for some classes of front end defects. Easier to see it in action some times.

ametrau 2y ago
That’s a good example of it being used well. Unfortunately that’s rare and the majority use case is as a vehicle for ads.