Not all speakers talk at the same rate and with the same information density. Some forms of content aren't worth listening to at the default playback rate.
Against 3x Speed
131–140 of 353 posts
Re: Against 3x Speed
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When I get to some really dense portion though, I will turn the speed down to 1x to learn it. An alternative that often works is to open the transcript and simply read it. If you find something unclear you can click to jump to that point. Coursera classes have this feature too. Obviously doesn't work for everything, but it's especially useful when you want to know more about a subject you already know about (say a…
I've noticed that I'm fairly unusual in my generation (late millennial) in that I strongly prefer to consume information through reading compared to listening or watching. My brothers and friends and girlfriend all love stuff like podcasts or casual YouTube watching, but I find that the increased effort needed to arbitrarily change speed or skip around always makes me end up not retaining or enjoying the content I co…
Are you ? After all, YouTube is a recent phenomenon for us, and we've even known a time without widespread Internet when knowledge was still overwhelmingly in books...
Re: Against 3x Speed
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
In addition to what you're saying, it can also be _harder_ to watch something at 1x speed. I've found that at 1.25x-1.5x my mind is more engaged. If it's too slow, I start thinking about other things and end up getting less from the video.
I think the slowness of the videos is for non-english speakers. Meaning people who can understand english to a point, but aren't using english every day. Some years ago when I used to play games there was these awesome guides to some hard challenges a guy made where he was speaking pretty fast because there was a lot to cover and it was narrated over live footage. It was perfectly understandable to me, but the commen…
Wait, you can also slow down YouTube videos, can't you ?
Re: Against 3x Speed
#134There are three kinds of learning
- new contextual framework (There is no god, armies used to be retinues of retinues)
- new skills (make fire from sticks, algebra and calculus)
- new information (Henry V won at agincourt)
The big important ones are the contextual frameworks. Without them humanity and individual humans are just floundering. And if there is any big political divide it's because people are not in same contextual framework (eg Brexit)
Skills are how an individual can contribute inside that framework - and it needs practise. And information is the last. The strawman the author is moaning about is absorbing information without practise. This seems to be the failure to leap from podcast to khan academy.
solving that one for millions of people will be an incredible leap. So far we only have "my tutor moans at me if i don't"
Re: Against 3x Speed
#135I'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 agree, but I can't exactly build a reactor, a SARS variant, or the holocene.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the slowness of the videos is for non-english speakers. Meaning people who can understand english to a point, but aren't using english every day. Some years ago when I used to play games there was these awesome guides to some hard challenges a guy made where he was speaking pretty fast because there was a lot to cover and it was narrated over live footage. It was perfectly understandable to me, but the commen…
Wait, you can also slow down YouTube videos, can't you ?
yes, but that's an option you need to select. Normal people aren't going to even try searching for an option like that. Also it was 8 years ago, so I don't know if that was an option back then and in any case that would slowdown the footage as well.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#137One big problem with Youtube and podcasts is that they are often interspersed with useless fillers, neither entertaining nor helpful for "retaining information". The excessive signposting in videos is especially ridiculous: spending more time on listing "what I'm going to talk about today" than actually talking about those things.
3X speed is usually just neutralizing the carelessly long scripts. A better way is not to give in to the habitual prattling, but a table of contents with clickable timestamps. Many thoughtful Youtubers are already doing it.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#138I 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.
Using rate of speed up is probably a bad metric due to varying densities, but even if one were to account for that and use some kind of smart speed up app that maintains constant information throughput, the issue is with not taking pauses to ruminate. It's more of an information retention problem rather than an information loss one. IE not committing to long term memory as the author states. Not very unlike consuming…
Yeah, I've noticed that with text I'm going to make more pauses thinking about what I just read (especially printed text for some reason). Video is the worst, while audio only in the middle. Maybe because of clunky controls ?
Re: Against 3x Speed
#139I'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 agree, but I can't exactly build a reactor, a SARS variant, or the holocene.
The first two are probably possible if legally dubious.
Re: Against 3x Speed
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
you are not wrong or outdated different people prefer different methods of learning they may or may not be more effective -- just that they are more preferred -- even if for no other reason than ease sitting down with a page of text and focusing on it to learn new information is becoming harder and harder for me personally ...with the bad habits of constant smartphone and social media use I fall back to have someone…
But video controls are tremendously worse than just being able to focus your eyes at any specific portion of the page in an instant ?