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Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can sa

by mmooss 11mo ago

Who has time for videos? I know lots watch them, but wow - reading is so much more efficient. I can skip ahead - and skim - or revisit; I can annotate; I can save, transcribe (copy/paste), I read so much faster than even accelerated video can play .... and all so much more easily. By sticking to reading, am I missing out on content? Edit: Not a criticism of watching video, I'm wondering if I'm missing substantial things. If I didn't read, for example, I'd miss a lot that doesn't exist in video or audio. Same thing with podcasts.

jonahrd 11mo ago
I'm a much more auditory/visual learner, so these videos work really great for me. I'm glad that reading works for you!
- mmooss 11mo ago
  I'm not criticizing, sorry; just trying to understand. I find video more compelling, generally. Obviously video has more ways to communicate - graphically, empirically, etc. It's not that reading works more effectively, but far more efficiently.
bane 11mo ago
Let me turn your question around, what are the benefits of communicating science via video such that it's a very popular medium that people use to learn about science?
- mmooss 11mo ago
  I think video is much more compelling to people in many ways (similar to TV vs reading a book), including to me. Part of that is seeing a person talking to you with all the cues of expression, voice, etc. There's a lower cognitive threshhold for engaging. Video also has communication modes that text/print lacks: dynamic graphics and empirical video (showing the thing itself happening), audio, speech and expression (as described above). With all that, I find it quite frustrating to see it consume so much time that could be spent reading and processing several things. How do others on HN - intellectually curious and serious, often busy - reconcile that? Though my question is really, am I missing things by not watching video - things I won't realistically get through print? I mean high-quality things - I want the equivelant of a paper, review paper, or book by a professional in the field.
  - bane 11mo ago
    Thanks for answering! I'll ask you this question as another form of an answer. Is it possible you are making a false dichotomy expecting that the different media are expected to provide the same result for their relative consumers?
quamserena 11mo ago
3blue1brown has great math visualizations. I find the top 10% of YouTube videos are worth the time over reading, and the bottom 90% are comparable or slower. Those are also nice though because you can put them on while doing other stuff, like eating or doing the laundry.
senthil_rajasek 11mo ago
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” -Confucius [1] For certain concepts such as Linear Algebra, for instance books allow me to "do" and understand. Which is why I read more than I watch videos. 1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2826962/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2826962/
- jocaal 11mo ago
  Funnily enough, linear algebra is a good example of how doing doesn't lead to understanding. Just calculating eigenvalues and eigenvectors don't give you the geometric view of what is happening. Also talk to some engineering students who learned how to do matrix multiplication, but can't tell you what a vector is (it is not just something with magnitude and direction).
griffzhowl 11mo ago
It's similar to the benefits of attending lectures (or watching them on yt): there are more informal asides and intuition-pumps, and maybe more detailed explanations of intermediate steps in calculations than you usually get in books. And for videos specifically, it can obviously help understanding in many cases to have animated visualizations
- mmooss 11mo ago
  A good point. Personally, I've never liked attending lectures except for the chance to ask questions. If I must 'attend', I prefer afterward at 2x.
- MangoToupe 11mo ago
  Lectures have the added benefit of not relying on video, though. You can consume them when doing chores, driving, etc.
  - freefaler 11mo ago
    For serious lectures (not story telling like history or other humanities) you can't be doing anything on the side if you want to understand. Try listening to a math lecture, or chemistry lecture while doing dishes :) I found the same to be true with audiobooks, nothing serious can't be "just listened to". I've tried to "listen" to a good biology non-fiction on how live evolved from the primordial soup. Shit, in the first chapters there were covalency chemistry and other stuff that I needed to sit down and write to understand. Too stupid to do it while doing chores I guess...
    - mmooss 11mo ago
      I agree about serious lectures, but ... > not story telling like history or other humanities Those are not serious humanities lectures. The serious ones are not storytelling, but serious examination of the evidence or of its analysis. There are far more factors, complexity, and uncertainty in an historical event or process than in a petri dish, and the event can't even be reproduced. It's impossible to use the same kind of scientific method and obtain the same kind of certainty, and requires far more critical thinking, judgment, and analysis. What caused Andrew Jackson to be elected? There's a relatively simple story told, but the reality is enormously complex and uncertain.
andrewflnr 11mo ago
It's not science communication, but I don't know where to find anything quite like Perun's content in written form. It's military/economics issues, often pretty granular, at just the right level of detail for an interested layman.
- mmooss 11mo ago
  There are endless military and economic publications, from nonsense to easy overviews to serious research. What does Perun produce? Do you have an example? (I can suggest some if you are interested and give me a better idea.)
  - andrewflnr 11mo ago
    Between easy overview and serious research, probably just a bit shy of university intro course (depending on the university I guess). Some of the really fun stuff for me is organizational issues like procurement failures, corruption, etc. He also has does some pretty up-to-the-week analysis of major events (i.e. pretty recent, but late enough that the dust has settled and meaningful analysis is actually possible).
rf15 11mo ago
Who has time for reading? Audio content at least allows you to absorb information while your hands and eyes can be busy with other things: cleaning, driving, etc. Besides, teaching videos and also books often share a common weakness: low information density. Youtubers and Authors both like to talk so damn much without saying anything. Give me a good story or documentation catalogue any day, but stop mixing the two.
- mmooss 11mo ago
  > teaching videos and also books often share a common weakness: low information density Here we agree, but for books I don't need to read the low-density material. Review articles, for example, are fantastic. Scholarly books can be overwhelming due to density x size. > Audio content at least allows you to absorb information while your hands and eyes can be busy with other things: cleaning, driving, etc. Not with high-density content, IME.
legitster 11mo ago
I can watch/listen to videos while doing many other menial tasks pretty effectively (laundry, cleaning, washing, etc). Also, some of the videos are pretty dang entertaining.
II2II 11mo ago
I find videos are a convenient way to get an overview of something I'm interested in, yet not so deeply invested in that I want to learn it in depth. In other words, I can do the chores and learn a bit more about the world in the process. In that respect, I would say that reading is much less efficient. If it is something I am interested in learning in depth, then I would agree that books are usually more efficient. Well, with a caveat. Some people appear to record themselves as they pursue their hobbies, then post it to YouTube. (Sometime's it's organic. Sometimes it's partially planned out.) In those cases it is a bit like a very one-sided mentorship. The host will either realize they're doing something that they would never write about, whether it is in a script or a blog or a book, then discuss it. Other times they don't make note of what they're doing, for the same reason they wouldn't write about it, but you see it because they are doing it. Written communication can be lossy.
- mmooss 11mo ago
  > Written communication can be lossy. That's a great insight.
jraines 11mo ago
They are good summaries. They’ve essentially replaced low- to mid- depth magaize articles, and some of the high depending on the topic

by mmooss 11mo ago

jonahrd 11mo ago

I'm a much more auditory/visual learner, so these videos work really great for me. I'm glad that reading works for you!

mmooss 11mo ago
I'm not criticizing, sorry; just trying to understand. I find video more compelling, generally. Obviously video has more ways to communicate - graphically, empirically, etc. It's not that reading works more effectively, but far more efficiently.

bane 11mo ago

Let me turn your question around, what are the benefits of communicating science via video such that it's a very popular medium that people use to learn about science?

mmooss 11mo ago
I think video is much more compelling to people in many ways (similar to TV vs reading a book), including to me. Part of that is seeing a person talking to you with all the cues of expression, voice, etc. There's a lower cognitive threshhold for engaging. Video also has communication modes that text/print lacks: dynamic graphics and empirical video (showing the thing itself happening), audio, speech and expression (as described above). With all that, I find it quite frustrating to see it consume so much time that could be spent reading and processing several things. How do others on HN - intellectually curious and serious, often busy - reconcile that? Though my question is really, am I missing things by not watching video - things I won't realistically get through print? I mean high-quality things - I want the equivelant of a paper, review paper, or book by a professional in the field.
- bane 11mo ago
  Thanks for answering! I'll ask you this question as another form of an answer. Is it possible you are making a false dichotomy expecting that the different media are expected to provide the same result for their relative consumers?

quamserena 11mo ago

3blue1brown has great math visualizations. I find the top 10% of YouTube videos are worth the time over reading, and the bottom 90% are comparable or slower. Those are also nice though because you can put them on while doing other stuff, like eating or doing the laundry.

senthil_rajasek 11mo ago

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” -Confucius [1] For certain concepts such as Linear Algebra, for instance books allow me to "do" and understand. Which is why I read more than I watch videos. 1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2826962/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2826962/

jocaal 11mo ago
Funnily enough, linear algebra is a good example of how doing doesn't lead to understanding. Just calculating eigenvalues and eigenvectors don't give you the geometric view of what is happening. Also talk to some engineering students who learned how to do matrix multiplication, but can't tell you what a vector is (it is not just something with magnitude and direction).

griffzhowl 11mo ago

It's similar to the benefits of attending lectures (or watching them on yt): there are more informal asides and intuition-pumps, and maybe more detailed explanations of intermediate steps in calculations than you usually get in books. And for videos specifically, it can obviously help understanding in many cases to have animated visualizations

mmooss 11mo ago
A good point. Personally, I've never liked attending lectures except for the chance to ask questions. If I must 'attend', I prefer afterward at 2x.
MangoToupe 11mo ago
Lectures have the added benefit of not relying on video, though. You can consume them when doing chores, driving, etc.
- freefaler 11mo ago
  For serious lectures (not story telling like history or other humanities) you can't be doing anything on the side if you want to understand. Try listening to a math lecture, or chemistry lecture while doing dishes :) I found the same to be true with audiobooks, nothing serious can't be "just listened to". I've tried to "listen" to a good biology non-fiction on how live evolved from the primordial soup. Shit, in the first chapters there were covalency chemistry and other stuff that I needed to sit down and write to understand. Too stupid to do it while doing chores I guess...
  - mmooss 11mo ago
    I agree about serious lectures, but ... > not story telling like history or other humanities Those are not serious humanities lectures. The serious ones are not storytelling, but serious examination of the evidence or of its analysis. There are far more factors, complexity, and uncertainty in an historical event or process than in a petri dish, and the event can't even be reproduced. It's impossible to use the same kind of scientific method and obtain the same kind of certainty, and requires far more critical thinking, judgment, and analysis. What caused Andrew Jackson to be elected? There's a relatively simple story told, but the reality is enormously complex and uncertain.

andrewflnr 11mo ago

It's not science communication, but I don't know where to find anything quite like Perun's content in written form. It's military/economics issues, often pretty granular, at just the right level of detail for an interested layman.

mmooss 11mo ago
There are endless military and economic publications, from nonsense to easy overviews to serious research. What does Perun produce? Do you have an example? (I can suggest some if you are interested and give me a better idea.)
- andrewflnr 11mo ago
  Between easy overview and serious research, probably just a bit shy of university intro course (depending on the university I guess). Some of the really fun stuff for me is organizational issues like procurement failures, corruption, etc. He also has does some pretty up-to-the-week analysis of major events (i.e. pretty recent, but late enough that the dust has settled and meaningful analysis is actually possible).

rf15 11mo ago

Who has time for reading? Audio content at least allows you to absorb information while your hands and eyes can be busy with other things: cleaning, driving, etc. Besides, teaching videos and also books often share a common weakness: low information density. Youtubers and Authors both like to talk so damn much without saying anything. Give me a good story or documentation catalogue any day, but stop mixing the two.

mmooss 11mo ago
> teaching videos and also books often share a common weakness: low information density Here we agree, but for books I don't need to read the low-density material. Review articles, for example, are fantastic. Scholarly books can be overwhelming due to density x size. > Audio content at least allows you to absorb information while your hands and eyes can be busy with other things: cleaning, driving, etc. Not with high-density content, IME.

legitster 11mo ago

I can watch/listen to videos while doing many other menial tasks pretty effectively (laundry, cleaning, washing, etc). Also, some of the videos are pretty dang entertaining.

II2II 11mo ago

I find videos are a convenient way to get an overview of something I'm interested in, yet not so deeply invested in that I want to learn it in depth. In other words, I can do the chores and learn a bit more about the world in the process. In that respect, I would say that reading is much less efficient. If it is something I am interested in learning in depth, then I would agree that books are usually more efficient. Well, with a caveat. Some people appear to record themselves as they pursue their hobbies, then post it to YouTube. (Sometime's it's organic. Sometimes it's partially planned out.) In those cases it is a bit like a very one-sided mentorship. The host will either realize they're doing something that they would never write about, whether it is in a script or a blog or a book, then discuss it. Other times they don't make note of what they're doing, for the same reason they wouldn't write about it, but you see it because they are doing it. Written communication can be lossy.

mmooss 11mo ago
> Written communication can be lossy. That's a great insight.

jraines 11mo ago

They are good summaries. They’ve essentially replaced low- to mid- depth magaize articles, and some of the high depending on the topic