How I spend less time on YouTube: I spend ~0 time on YouTube. I’m definitely not the average user, but I find video content overwhelming and usually low signal:noise. So I just don’t consume it for the most part. I’m sure I’m missing out on stuff that I’d find valuable, but the vast majority of the time I find the same content summarized in a tweet or thread with links to readable reference material where appropriate. And usually that’s how I get introduced to the video I’m not gonna watch in the first place.
How I spend less time on YouTube
181–190 of 220 posts
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#182> 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…
I 100% agree that for repairing stuff and sports related topics that videos help a lot. When I used to work on my car it was helpful to see how things were typically done and then when I read the repair manual it filled in the gaps of knowledge because I knew the way it is usually done. When I was doing a lot of power lifting it was really helpful to learn from video how to do lifts safely and correctly. Then as I went from lifting to cycling and eventually to endurance running it provided me a way of learning good form by watching a real human explain and demonstrate instead of just imitating what I see in real life.
Sometimes though technological tutorials/videos end up being this 80% junk to 20% treasure ratio for me. However, that 20% is stuff I have watched very intently and actually learned something.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#183The best way I’ve found to spend less time on YouTube is realizing that the vast majority of content is pure garbage and just stay the hell away from it. These days I only visit it when I need something specific (a tutorial on how to do a particular thing, a video the kid wants to watch, etc). And of course uBlock origin is enabled to spare me from the “unskippable ads that are longer than the video itself” experienc…
YouTube has some of the best, highest quality free content available on the internet today. Stay away from the crap, remove it from your recommendations, subscribe to some good channels. It’s that simple. Don’t if that’s not your thing but you’re missing out. If you change your mind here are a few exceptional channels to get you started, they should cater well to a HN style audience: Technology Connections (misc tech…
> YouTube has some of the best, highest quality free content available on the internet today.
OP's argument hinges on "vast majority of content" and then you rebute it with the narrowest possible list of examples. You just made a strawman of OP's claim.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
YouTube has some of the best, highest quality free content available on the internet today. Stay away from the crap, remove it from your recommendations, subscribe to some good channels. It’s that simple. Don’t if that’s not your thing but you’re missing out. If you change your mind here are a few exceptional channels to get you started, they should cater well to a HN style audience: Technology Connections (misc tech…
I personally disagree with the Wendover rec. Sure, they talk about logistics, but I find that they offer little to no new information that you couldn't glean from a cursory Google search. Sure it might not be something I knew about, and I might be interested in it every so often, but they clearly prioritize quantity of quality. Since they often cover random topics, I find myself questioning why I should even care.
It's narrative porn - shallow but engaging. How do you test that? Just replace the narrator and the entire value of Wendover productions disappears. Other channels are pretty good though.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#185Earlier 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…
But its a learning medium that's fundamentally terrible. Seriously, pull a transcript of any 15 minute youtube video. It will take you a few minutes to read. Why waste your limited time to extract the same exact information waiting for someone to gesticulate on a video, young or old? It's like sitting through a college lecture where the professor dryly reads directly out of the textbook and you wonder why you are eve…
I do exactly this. Pull the transcript, search for the key terms, jump to that spot in the video if it requires the visual aid.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#186Earlier 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…
I have just added video tutorials to all my R workshops and have had a _huge_ boost in satisfaction among students (mostly < 30). I can't understand it — the videos are slow, inexpertly produced and have nothing that is not in the text. The students love it though and there is no way I'll be able to run the sister course next semester without also adding videos.
Perhaps your students read slow or very inefficiently. Since their reading skills are poor and they value their time very highly they can easily budget their time against a video with a defined length vs reading a text that could take more time due to said reading skills. Also, with features like adjusting playback and skipping over parts they understand faster without having to worry (ie: they can't just skip a paragraph or page of text because something might be mixed in with the stuff they understand).
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#187I should post things like this too. Ublock is great for this kind of thing, and same blocking the landing page, and comments but not playlists.
Making Youtube more inconvenient makes me happier.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#188How I spend less time on YouTube: I spend ~0 time on YouTube. I’m definitely not the average user, but I find video content overwhelming and usually low signal:noise. So I just don’t consume it for the most part. I’m sure I’m missing out on stuff that I’d find valuable, but the vast majority of the time I find the same content summarized in a tweet or thread with links to readable reference material where appropriate…
Love to be downvoted for… finding videos overwhelming.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally disagree with the Wendover rec. Sure, they talk about logistics, but I find that they offer little to no new information that you couldn't glean from a cursory Google search. Sure it might not be something I knew about, and I might be interested in it every so often, but they clearly prioritize quantity of quality. Since they often cover random topics, I find myself questioning why I should even care.
It's narrative porn - shallow but engaging. How do you test that? Just replace the narrator and the entire value of Wendover productions disappears. Other channels are pretty good though.
I watch Wendover on mute with subtitles sometimes so clearly you're wrong.
That the narration is good quality is a bonus. Calling it shallow and "one google search away" (parent) is absurd, his videos take weeks of research.
It's okay not to like the channel but know your criticisms.
Re: How I spend less time on YouTube
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
YouTube has some of the best, highest quality free content available on the internet today. Stay away from the crap, remove it from your recommendations, subscribe to some good channels. It’s that simple. Don’t if that’s not your thing but you’re missing out. If you change your mind here are a few exceptional channels to get you started, they should cater well to a HN style audience: Technology Connections (misc tech…
Sad to see 'Not Just Bikes' lumped in with these great informative videos. Not Just Bikes is extremely opinionated and is frequently swept up in emotional arguments and comparing apples to oranges. Shame really. But it definitely gives people the ammunition to pretend to fight for change (where in reality they are fighting for unrealistic expectations and to get their oranges into apples) and this leads to a feel-goo…
NJB quality is extremely high, that is a fairly objective fact.
That you don't like the fact it gives cyclists "ammunition" sounds like a You problem :-)
Yes it is opinionated though. I don't think it's possible to talk about what he talks about without being opinionated, because there is such a large section of the population that blindly loves cars to the point that it's become a religion, so everyone talking about improving things for bikes and public transportation looks like... Ammunition for attacks, right?
But he doesn't compare apples to oranges. He compares how different cities function. He showcases how things can work. The potential every city and country has with some better planning.
It's a shame (and a little telling) you don't like him. If you want less opinionated channels about urban planning there is City Beautiful for example. I don't think the production quality is as high, even if the guy is an actual city planner.