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Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

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Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#91

Post by maus42 »

aout wrote: post #88

"Plenty of people can deal with text better than they can spoken language" That's a joke right ?

Why it would be?

I sometimes have trouble conversing in crowded places if there's lot of other people having their conversations loudly. Not much trouble, though, but listening to the only one thread of discussion requires bit extra mental effort.

Then there are people who don't speak clearly, and you have to ask them to repeat what they said...

And all this in my native language. I find dealing with written forms of any foreign language I know much easier than the spoken language. (Both "understand" and "produce by myself".)

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#92

Post by heisenbit »

Humans are wired to seek validation.

Consumption of media that expresses resonant emotions is to a degree validating.

However expressing and understanding myself and seeing myself emotionally and intellectually understood by peers is validation on another deeper level. The composition and writing of text has been shown to excite other areas of the brain than simple speech (there is a whole school on writing therapy).

There is always going to be a need for an immediate way to consuming and reacting. That market is served by twitter and snap-chat. Then there is the need for longer, carefully considered deeper thought. Thought where emotions have been deliberately moderated to provide breathing space for facts.

Video may provide more bits per second and via the eyes is more directly wired to our decision system. But the emotional space is already take by twitter and snapchat. The deliberation space is taken by text. It is not clear to me video will grow beyond a extended snapchat.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#94

Post by maus42 »

manigandham wrote: post #26
the_af wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! I do the same with video lectures from Coursera. For example, Odersky's lectures may be interesting, but boy is he a slow speaker. I simply cannot stand his -- and to be fair, most -- lectures unless I play them at 2X speed. And still, I'd rather read the PDF slides. Video isn't a particularly good way of conveying formal information. Text with graphics is way better.

Video is a great way to convey formal information - when that info needs the moving visuals aspect to be clearly presented. Videos of people just speaking text is terrible and the wrong tool for the job.

Well, the best way to accomplish this would be include an animation in the material that's mostly in the written form.

Like this: http://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-fractal/

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#95

Post by dexterdog »

toomanythings2 wrote: post #4

Well ... uh ... I think ... I think ... uh ... everyone can hear me? ... I'll wait till the guys in the back ... oh and the girls, too, right hahahahahah ... OK ... let's get started... Sure. I know Facebook wouldn't put out videos like that but it seems 80% of all videos linked to do start out like that and that's the quality you're going to get from anyone worth listening to. Even the polished ones, though, blatter…

That's why podcasts are so much better on 2-2.4x speed with a silence skipper. I get an effective 3x speed and as long as I'm paying attention I still get every word. It sounds like gibberish to most newcomers but if you slowly speed up you don't even notice the increments.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#97

Post by mrweasel »

Spooky23 wrote: post #42
terryf wrote: post #18

I guess maybe I'm too old to understand (38) but to me, reading some text is simply way faster than watching someone read that text in a video... but they are saying the exact opposite. This is completely baffling to me.

Well produced video is magic. Think of a movie that was impactful to you -- done well, video can tell a story in an almost magical way. The reality is that the average video is drivel and not nearly as good as a similar written piece. The FB is either living in a reality distortion field or thinking about high quality ad/infotainment content that produces $ for Facebook.

>Well produced video is magic.

Most of us don't realise how difficult editing is. There's a camera in our phones, and uploading to Facebook, Youtube or Snapchat has never been easier, so now we're all film makers. It just that almost no one realise how hard their favourite podcast or youtube channel has worked on editing. Or how many times they redone the exact same bit, to get it absolutely perfect, and watchable.

It's easier and faster, to re-read a few sentences, edit the worst bit, re-read and post. There's not really a fast way of editing the worst parts of a video.

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#98

Post by astazangasta »

jsloss wrote: post #71
gumby wrote: post #9

> Human brains process it absurdly well considering there's nothing really built-in for it. That's unclear. The sheer bitrate of reading suggests that it might tap into some deep structures -- hacking some parts of the visual and speech systems, if you prefer. I don't click on HN video links because I find video slow and frustrating way to learn almost anything. Text is so random access -- you can skip over boring bi…

Surprisingly, one app that is changing this paradigm for video is snapchat. Publishing content in a short series of clips that are skip-able with one tap is an enjoyable user experience.

Please, god, no. What are we maximizing across, clickability or contribution to civil political discourse?

Re: Facebook is wrong, text is deathless

#99

Post by jstimpfle »

dexterdog wrote: post #95
toomanythings2 wrote: post #4

Well ... uh ... I think ... I think ... uh ... everyone can hear me? ... I'll wait till the guys in the back ... oh and the girls, too, right hahahahahah ... OK ... let's get started... Sure. I know Facebook wouldn't put out videos like that but it seems 80% of all videos linked to do start out like that and that's the quality you're going to get from anyone worth listening to. Even the polished ones, though, blatter…

That's why podcasts are so much better on 2-2.4x speed with a silence skipper. I get an effective 3x speed and as long as I'm paying attention I still get every word. It sounds like gibberish to most newcomers but if you slowly speed up you don't even notice the increments.

2.4x sounds incredible to me. I can't hear most lecturers at a speed faster than 1.6x.
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