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Against 3x Speed

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Re: Against 3x Speed

#31

Post by luguenth »

saivan wrote: post #4

I get the point you're making - but honestly I have to raise the counter argument, which I think is equally valid. Take for example, the average lecture video. The information density is so low, that I'd imagine that a 60 minute video could be compressed into 10-12 minutes without any loss of information. It really depends on what you're listening to/watching.

I think it's not really about the speed of the information, as long as you are able to process it, but the sheer amount of information. If you use time savings of 50 minutes to just consume more information, not much will settle in your long term memory. But if you process and repeat the information in those "saved" minutes, you'll get away with much more in the end. I think this is more the point of the author's view.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#32

Post by Jarwain »

I feel like participating in a community, whether IRL or something like HN or reddit, exposes individuals to a set of memes on a repeated basis. Certain ideas get repeated at different times or in different contexts, and as a result tend to engrain themselves. A form of naturally occurring spaced repetition.

One of the things that I like about HN is that these memes feel higher quality or more useful in some way. This can be in the form of coding philosophy (which could arguably just be the distillation of ideas from books large parts of the community have read like Clean Code or the GoF or the design of everyday things), or more general life philosophy (spaced repetition and this article's idea about, essentially, Slowing Down).

Of course, this is probably how group think and social bubbles form, and exposure to new ideas can ideally shift the memescape. But it's interesting how my HN addiction results in this learning by osmosis.

Although then This makes me think about advertising, in the branding sense, and how that repetition is used and abused to build familiarity with a brand and thus a product. Or how pop culture ends up being a sort of self-replicating meme.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#33

Post by zoul »

thepasswordis wrote: post #7
daenz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the same youtube plugin mentioned in the article, and watch many videos at 2.5x-3.0x speed, for the exact reason that you state. There is a lot of "filler" content that I either a) already know or b) is not relevant to what I'm trying to learn. I'm really just trying to get through that content quickly. When I get to some really dense portion though, I will turn the speed down to 1x to learn it.

Which addon are you using for youtube?

For Safari there’s Dynamo, too, that lets you skip ads apart from changing the speed:

https://dynamoformac.com/

(I am the author.)

Re: Against 3x Speed

#34

Post by pha392 »

Probably any 60 minute video can be converted without loss of information in a 10 minute one.

I understand that learning and retention are achieved through repetition, but repetition can be achieved in other ways.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#35

Post by nazgulnarsil »

It isn't just that the absorption is poor. It's that the things you're absorbing are also generally poor. That's why you can listen to them at 3x in the first place, low information density.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#36

Post by quickthrower2 »

gonehome wrote: post #20
saivan wrote: post #4

I get the point you're making - but honestly I have to raise the counter argument, which I think is equally valid. Take for example, the average lecture video. The information density is so low, that I'd imagine that a 60 minute video could be compressed into 10-12 minutes without any loss of information. It really depends on what you're listening to/watching.

For an example at the extremes, you can run congressional testimony at 4x, but Andrej Karpathy or John Carmack at only 1x. It really depends on the quality of the speaker and the content.

Yes anything about category theory is 0.1x speed. Or I need to watch 10 times at 1x speed to understand anything :-)

Re: Against 3x Speed

#37

Post by resonious »

JimTheMan wrote: post #14

I'd argue that 95% of all learning, is learnt by doing. Merely listening to something without properly interrogating your understanding of it.. you will end up with a bunch of shallow and untested knowledge. At best, a boffin. It's imperative to build, discuss, interrogate, trial and fail.

I'm inclined to agree. There's a profound difference between how I remember something I've heard and how I remember something I've done - even if it's something I've heard through spaced repetition.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#38

Post by pha392 »

JimTheMan wrote: post #14

I'd argue that 95% of all learning, is learnt by doing. Merely listening to something without properly interrogating your understanding of it.. you will end up with a bunch of shallow and untested knowledge. At best, a boffin. It's imperative to build, discuss, interrogate, trial and fail.

Totally trial and fail

Re: Against 3x Speed

#39

Post by mmaunder »

Unfortunate title, because the most practical insight is that you don’t learn much by letting information wash over you. You need to repeat, engage with the data, do things with it.

Re: Against 3x Speed

#40

Post by chronogram »

Nursie wrote: post #23
saivan wrote: post #4

I get the point you're making - but honestly I have to raise the counter argument, which I think is equally valid. Take for example, the average lecture video. The information density is so low, that I'd imagine that a 60 minute video could be compressed into 10-12 minutes without any loss of information. It really depends on what you're listening to/watching.

Honestly, maybe I'm just some old, out-of-touch luddite, but I think that using videos to pass information is sub-optimal all around. Unless we're actually showing audio-visual phenomena, a page of text is almost always more useful to me. I can absorb it at my speed. I can go back and forth within it easily. I can search it. I can copy bits out if I need to. It's just better.

Nothing to do with your age, it's always been either a difference between users of the media, convenience for the producer, that it's easier to monetize video, or the ability for instant feedback when it's in-person or live.

Socrates to Plato perhaps: maybe I'm just old but using text to pass information is just making your memory weak.

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