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How I spend less time on YouTube

pawelurbanek.com

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Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#131

Post by gowld »

mkaic wrote: post #115
aulin wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's a generational thing. We, in our late thirties, didn't have so much video content, we studied from books, learned from written content. Younger generations adapted to use videos as a learning aid, sometimes as the main learning platform. We won't ever be able to understand how they work. Their brain just adapted to this kind of learning medium. For me video talking about code is slow, unsearchable, uns…

Gen Z programmer here. Can confirm that video content is by far the best way I learn new information and skills. I think having grown up with the modern internet has shaped my brain in a way that makes it so video feels more natural than it might for folks even 10 years older than me. It's definitely fascinating to look at the effects the internet is having on society over longer time periods.

Are you sure it's not just that video content "feels" like you are leaerning even when you aren't? This is a documented phenomenon that underlies "infotainment".

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#132

Post by handrous »

scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

Every now and then I find a video tutorial for some computer thing very helpful—specifically, the kind where someone does something beginning to end with a screencast—simply because every single damn text tutorial was skipping one or more steps or pieces of context that I guess they thought were too obvious to mention. This is usually for set-up or config stuff, though. For programming I agree that videos are almost universally painful to watch and low-value. I can't begin to understand people who head straight for YouTube when picking up e.g. a new programming language or library(!).

However, for cooking technique and building/home-repair/car-repair, videos are a game changer. Simply amazing. Actually, that goes for sports stuff, too. I find reading about all those things nearly worthless, and watching someone do it while explaining, a much better use of my time.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#133

Post by aeternum »

dncornholio wrote: post #124
scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

Always text over video. When people say they prefer video, they don't know better, haven't actually been learning anything or are extremely lazy. For example, to do a gradient in Gimp, you should know a few shortcode keys. Now how do I look up which key to use again? Load the video and keep fiddling with the player until I hit the right moment where he explains this little detail? It's extremely annoying to look up a…

For things like fixing a car part or home repair video is much better than text. There's nothing like watching someone do it, quickly seeing the exact location of things and how they should be moved.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#134

Post by anthony_romeo »

scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

Video tutorials for great for introductions to new subjects of study (at least for me) — they can help provide a good intuition for complicated subjects. At the very least, there are plenty of lectures one can watch and follow along with a textbook. It’s never a replacement for reading a great manual for getting into the details or real one-on-one training or real documentation, but [good quality] video is still a great supplemental tool for learning.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#135

Post by handrous »

bigfudge wrote: post #83
mavhc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easiest form of media to create is unedited video. The hardest is edited video

This. Although I have discovered why the jump cut is so popular! Actually, even inexpert jump-cutting does improve things though, so worth doing.

Extensive use of jump-cuts lets you edit single-camera monologues as if they were text. Much easier & cheaper than doing re-shoots, using multiple cameras, et c.

I can personally attest that this style was extremely off-putting to us oldsters (millennial here—yeah, we're getting old) until we'd had a few years to get used to it. It's not something you see in traditional video media unless a mistake happens, or you're watching some kind of weird art thing.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#137

Post by treacle »

In the article there is mention of using ublock to block elements. I didn't even know this was a thing. I zapped the recommendations block on home as suggested in the article.

How do you review what you have blocked/removed and re-add it?

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#138

Post by treacle »

aulin wrote: post #75
scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

I believe it's a generational thing. We, in our late thirties, didn't have so much video content, we studied from books, learned from written content. Younger generations adapted to use videos as a learning aid, sometimes as the main learning platform. We won't ever be able to understand how they work. Their brain just adapted to this kind of learning medium. For me video talking about code is slow, unsearchable, uns…

Remembering lectures, I used to sit in them, watch and take notes. It was only after when reading back through the notes and looking into the problem area I could hear and make out what I didn't really catch first time.

So videos with slides, and notes, and tutorials/practice all can help. It does for me anyway.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#139

Post by ask_b123 »

treacle wrote: post #137

In the article there is mention of using ublock to block elements. I didn't even know this was a thing. I zapped the recommendations block on home as suggested in the article. How do you review what you have blocked/removed and re-add it?

Go to the settings and the My Filters tab. Your latest added filter should be at the bottom.

Re: How I spend less time on YouTube

#140

Post by outside1234 »

dncornholio wrote: post #124
scoutt wrote: post #31

> Am I the only one who launches YouTube just to watch a single tutorial and ends up devouring dozens of fine-tuned recommendations? I'm hitting 40 next week, and seeing others asking for recommendations of videos on "programming a microcontroller" (or programming related) is something I can't understand. One day I sat and watched some of the videos they were recommending, and in most of them there were a person talk…

Always text over video. When people say they prefer video, they don't know better, haven't actually been learning anything or are extremely lazy. For example, to do a gradient in Gimp, you should know a few shortcode keys. Now how do I look up which key to use again? Load the video and keep fiddling with the player until I hit the right moment where he explains this little detail? It's extremely annoying to look up a…

I think it is an "AND" vs. "OR" thing. Your examples are great for those use cases, but there are others where having the long form is really good.

For example, Jon Gjengset's Rust series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O0Nt9qY_vo

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