Sun Cloud
Darren Meyer 
I know I'm increasingly in the minority, but I can't stand learning most things from videos. If you must share information by making a video, please *please* also make it available to read.
The Gibson@darrenpmeyer agreed.
Taggart @thegibson @darrenpmeyer Completely agreed. Importantly: make it searchable text. This is why over at @thetaggartinstitute , we do a full ebook of every course. Example:
Andreas, DJ3EI, he/himExcellent!
And make that e-book readable on a small smartphone screen (like you apparently do, @mttaggart 🌹).
No PDF that just "knows" the world comes in pages 21 x 29.7 cm each.
Joe Nash@darrenpmeyer @mttaggart super agree
mechanistisches Entmensch
Dianora (Diane Bruce)@walkinglampshade @joenash @darrenpmeyer @mttaggart Sometimes it seems it's a competition to agree more than the other person, or to reword an agreement. I just think that's a furious agreement and I don't care who wins about agreeing since we all agree eh? Cheers! 😀
Robert KingettSame! Even some SEO tutorial stuffing is somewhat better than a video, since it points me in the right direction! Also, you probably already know this, but https://sightlessscribbles.com/posts/20250414/ @darrenpmeyer
Ertain@darrenpmeyer I agree. It's better for a video to also have a text version, e.g. a blog post or a transcript.
Tim Richards@darrenpmeyer @majorlinux YES THIS. Video-only is so annoying, such a time-waster.
Jake in the desert
Robert Pickering@darrenpmeyer
Can't understand why video tutorials are so popular, very annoying.
Can't understand why video tutorials are so popular, very annoying.
Cassandrich@robertpi @darrenpmeyer Because we've let shitheads get away with making it so the majority of indexed text articles are SEO content farm, or now "AI", slop, and nobody producing new information wants their work buried under that shit. Video format by real presenter is serving as proof of authentic human work and caring about the subject matter.
Alexandre Olivait's easier to bundle mandatory ads with videos than with text; they're too easy to skip on plain text
so ad businesses offer crumbs to those who venture into the video-making business, select some winners to promote like lottery winners, to encourage others to also try their luck, and here we are
and then, since there's so much video stuff out there, because of the twisted business model, people who don't realize the market distortion conclude that people actually prefer ridiculously low-density videos over readable text, and so they set out to produce videos even without an expectation of monetary rewards
CC: @darrenpmeyer@infosec.exchange
so ad businesses offer crumbs to those who venture into the video-making business, select some winners to promote like lottery winners, to encourage others to also try their luck, and here we are
and then, since there's so much video stuff out there, because of the twisted business model, people who don't realize the market distortion conclude that people actually prefer ridiculously low-density videos over readable text, and so they set out to produce videos even without an expectation of monetary rewards
CC: @darrenpmeyer@infosec.exchange
George BI've come to the conclusion that the rise of videos is partially because it's so easy to make a shit quality instructional video, just film what you're doing.
For even bad quality instructions, you still need to translate what you're doing into words.
Ideal would be searchable text article with animated and pausable GIFs for things that are better shown than described
schrotthaufen@gbargoud @darrenpmeyer I think a large factor in video over text is, that Americans can’t read. https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2022-2023
Literacy Statistics 2022-2023
Literacy Data and its impact on the Nation • Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 130 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children • 21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022 • 54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level • 45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level • 44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year • The Top 3 states for highest child literacy rates were Massachusetts, Maryland
Andreas Tengicki
Mark Whybird@darrenpmeyer Not such a minority. Apart from anything else it's a Web accessibility recommendation: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/media-alternative-prerecorded.html
Jean-Baptiste "JBQ" Quéru@darrenpmeyer I'm a Highly Sensitive Person, which in this case means that I tend to learn deeply but slowly, and I've discussed that with a fellow HSP who mentioned the same difficulty. I find it very difficult to learn from video, because I can't control the pace. Some bits I want to be able to skim because I know they bring me nothing, some bits I want to be able to slow down because they're dense in information that I need to integrate.
bjb 
@jbqueru @darrenpmeyer
The part I suffer from with video instruction is inability to search the content for that one little item that was mentioned as a throwaway in a chapter about something else, that made things click for me.
"Instructional videos" are just not good reference material because you can't find things.
The part I suffer from with video instruction is inability to search the content for that one little item that was mentioned as a throwaway in a chapter about something else, that made things click for me.
"Instructional videos" are just not good reference material because you can't find things.
nantucketlit
ριɳɠυιɳσ@darrenpmeyer i also hate learning via video
ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘@darrenpmeyer Ditto. Can't explain why. Just prefer reading.
𝓐𝓷𝓭𝔂𝓣𝓲𝓮𝓭𝔂𝓮 𓀤Agree. Most of the time the video is just a talking head anyway. Eff that.
Donald HobernAre we really in the minority? Isn't it just what we're all being force-fed? Lots of needless compute costs and carbon emissions for every piece of information.
Janeishly@dhobern @darrenpmeyer Exactly what I was thinking. Just because video is everywhere doesn't mean it's wanted.
Killick@Janeishly @dhobern @darrenpmeyer
I don't think we're in the minority and I don't think you need to be an HSP to prefer reading to watching. I suspect most people would prefer clearly written instructions. I think video is everywhere because so many people lack writing skills-- they have issues with grammar, spelling, syntax, or semantics. But hey, they can talk, so that's what we get.
A person that creates well-written instructions does an enormous service to anyone who needs them.
I'm a little off topic here, but I believe companies that think they can get AI to abstract information and create text from videos are probably fooling themselves. A transcript is not a summary, and summaries don't include made-up facts and might-be-true hallucinations.
@Janeishly @dhobern @darrenpmeyer
Gretchen McCullough's fun linguistics book, "Because Internet" looked at the history of writing, and in part she highlights the difference between writing letters and notes to each other and writing for publication. When people picked up a pen to write to a friend, they were much freer with their spelling and punctuation and felt free to draw little pictures, arrows, or in larger or smaller letters to liven up the letters. She says emoji and emoticons do much of the same in today's messaging apps. Writing for a publisher demands you follow conventional printer's methods, and probably use proper grammar, spelling etc. and that's just a different kind of writing than penning or texting to a friend.
I think there are people who can write texts and speak in a video but don't feel confident writing for publication, and they far outnumber the people who are confident writers.
@killick There's also a cultural component here, though. There is a lot of historic internet culture around sharing information far less formally than "for publication" (see the success of things like StackExchange for recent examples, but this goes back at least as far as Usenet, if not longer).
There isn't any real expectation that showing people how to do things or explaining ideas, concepts, etc. need to be formal.
@darrenpmeyer @Janeishly @dhobern
Yes, that's true. Forums can be very informal, but sometimes people will post something so complete and well written, it will be "stuck" at the top of a forum as a post that answers so many frequent questions. Some people set out to intentionally create a post that will be that complete.
Phil@killick @Janeishly @dhobern @darrenpmeyer I completely agree and would also add that the large internet companies (particularly Google/YouTube) can make money from video (on their platform) but not from your or my individual tutorial page so get work hard to push video to the top of the pile.
Curious Loth-cat@darrenpmeyer Co-signed.
Carolyn@darrenpmeyer A lot of videos have transcripts included in the blurb underneath the video.
@CStamp but a LOT don’t, unfortunately. And many that do are just providing a machine-generated transcript. Sometimes that’s fine! But often it gets things very wrong
Adventurer She/Her@darrenpmeyer
I can't even stand video.
I can't even stand video.
Meercat ✅
@darrenpmeyer agreed. It’s not practical for me to learn stuff from videos either. Sometimes I try and download subtitles to read rather than watch the video (of course, unless there is something visual to see that’s difficult to describe by words, like how a machine works)
Andrea@darrenpmeyer oh yes! I'm the same. I have a few videos where I introduce instruments and I make sure to have a blog post, too, so that people could just read if they wanted to.
Give me written instructions anytime.
Give me written instructions anytime.
Isabel RuffellThis. Absolutely this.
Havoc BSc MSc@darrenpmeyer this this this! ☝️
Rebolek@darrenpmeyer videos are so idiotic, there's like one paragraph of useful information (and still meetings not even that) surrounded by 10-15 minutes of ballast just to have more advertisement. Fuck these entities (no, I'm refusing to call them people).
XCM@darrenpmeyer
There are few things more frustrating than skipping through a 1 hr video in 10 second increments only to find out that it does not cover that one thing I want to know.
There are few things more frustrating than skipping through a 1 hr video in 10 second increments only to find out that it does not cover that one thing I want to know.
commonst@darrenpmeyer yes, this.
TerryB@darrenpmeyer I don't think you are in the minority.
Rí Rua@darrenpmeyer agreed, especially as the info you require will be so late into the video that if it's incorrect, it's a huge time sink.
I quite like transcripts for that reason, even poorly made ones can be searched rapidly and skip to the appropriate section
Mielikki@darrenpmeyer I want to jump into the point so I don't like video either
wonder if there's way to get subtitle text from video (so can use Ctrl+F or such thing), could be better
@mielikki there are machine captioning and transcription tools. Sometimes it gives good results (like when the information I need is in the spoken audio and only one person is talking). But often they’re not really all that helpful.
sunflowerinrain@darrenpmeyer
Yes, yes!
I know it can be difficult to explain actions in words, but there are sometimes things in demonstrations that even a sighted person can't see clearly enough.
As some people don't read comfortably, it needs to be visuals and text.
I read the text for videos. Even TEDtalks. :)
Yes, yes!
I know it can be difficult to explain actions in words, but there are sometimes things in demonstrations that even a sighted person can't see clearly enough.
As some people don't read comfortably, it needs to be visuals and text.
I read the text for videos. Even TEDtalks. :)
Meghadeep Roy Chowdhury 
@darrenpmeyer I almost returned a piece of furniture because their installation instruction was a QR code to their YouTube video. But it was really easy to install, so I ended up installing it without watching their video. They did get a stern review though.
Timothy Wolodzko@darrenpmeyer Totally agree. And for text, you can skim through it or Ctrl+F it, it's not that easy for the video. But I guess, text does not make you as good of an "infuencer" as video. And you cannot make a break for the sponsors in the text (unless you call it "ad").
mirabilos@darrenpmeyer @tymwol and get it translated
Robert Kist 🇦🇹 🇸🇬@darrenpmeyer amen to that. I'm super fast in skimming text and reading what matters. But I'm totally not efficient in scrubbing videos and watching them at 2x speed
Yora@darrenpmeyer I feel I need to figure out a way to pause a youtube video without switching to the browser window.
Switching back to my Blender or Godot window always keeps tripping me up.
Switching back to my Blender or Godot window always keeps tripping me up.
AKK@darrenpmeyer agreed. A video is ok-ish for a first overview if you have time to waste; it's awful if you want a fast overview, are times constrained, or just need a quick info of a specific tidbit.
Marlike@darrenpmeyer oh yes please. Videos are so terribly slow. I like to take information in at my own pace. Not dictated by some video.
Alex@darrenpmeyer a million times this! Especially since half these videos end up wasting time going on tangents or self promoting. I just want the info so I can move on to the next thing.
nev@darrenpmeyer oh Christ yes.
@darrenpmeyer this!
(Also, I cannot understand the accent of the video speakers anyway.)
Owen G. RichardsAbsolutely 100% with you - personal preference.
And what will happen to those poor souls when video dies and only paper exists? How will they learn then?