This opinion is hard to swallow. This is not . at . all true. If the "information" you're trying to convey is colors and bokeh, sure...
In that context, this comment is absolutely spot on - we're not talking about a tutorial video showing how to replace the headers on your BMW. We're talking about a video with a talking head that reads a "story" to you. "Can you believe what the president did today?" (cue outrage).
"It commands so much more information in a much quicker period," is a nice way of saying "video distracts people much more effectively than text."
Video is better for learning? I've participated in many online courses and I have noticed consistently that for a lecturer to convey the amount of information that could be obtained in 1 hour of reading they would need at least 3 hours of lecturing.
The only reason I listen to lectures in addition to reading is for metadata. IE, what do they emphasize. And typically I need to do this at 2x speed or else I fall asleep.
Learning needs to be data transfer at the speed with which your brain learns, which isn't going to be as fast as it can process data through an existing conception of the world.
For 1 if I want information I don't need logos/animations, I don't need "hello fellow YouTubers", etc.
Event the "repair car" example. Suppose need to make some action to repair a vacuum pump. Unless I just don't know where it is in the engine bay (or some other location/orientation information) what value is looking at anything?
If an informational video doesn’t have a transcript or a way of speeding it up I’m not interested. At work we have a subscription to Lynda.com and while the content is okay, the only way the videos are bearable is to watch them at 2x speed.
Videos are good for ads. And videos are interesting I guess if you actually CARE about the guy who talks in it. For information and learning: text.
I guess it’s the same as most pop businesses books: there’s about a blog post’s worth of material, padded out with case studies, anecdotes and other fluff to reach the page count.
I have the opposite for news for example. Essentially, whenever people read text out loud which I could have read myself, I typically prefer reading. Moreso because I can skim through text, and move back and forth to make connections, re-read a part after a new insight or to check if I'd remember it clearly, with video this is quite difficult and tiresome.
Although I do enjoy audio/video played at high speeds, it's much more effortless to listen to or watch double speed video than it is to speed-read. Particularly because most written text is quite information dense and not meant to be sped through, whereas most video is more conversational, less dense, and can be sped up to a point where you can take in a lot of information in an easygoing manner in a short time.
Then there's a unique section of high-quality production material. Here I would say, video can beat most formats, it's really efficient and makes a long-time impression. For example, a $5m documentary with video material for every anecdote, beautiful animated graphs to illustrate every metaphor, every causal-mechanism explored etc, can beat 100 pages of dry text. But it requires tons of effort and resources. On the other end of the spectrum is simple video material you see on television (point camera at talking heads), which is really inefficient (safe for being able to speed it up, but even then... whenever people are reading out loud news or an opinion, I'd rather just read it myself then watch someone do it for me.) But this format is really cheap to produce, it's just a camera and talking heads, but inefficient, I dislike it myself.
- Martin Mull (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music...)
Secondly, maybe dance has something to say about architecture. Have some imagination. Judging how others appreciate just makes you look ignorant. This is not a new theme to art criticism.
- find content within a video is difficult (I'd rather search text) - you're at the mercy of the presenter's pace (you can adjust speed, but that's only part of the story) - sometimes listening isn't an option - sometimes presenters rely too much on visuals, so you have to watch as well - video can't be as easily edited as text, so most people just put subtitles to point out errors (this doesn't help if you're not watching) - less easy to link to additional information than text
In general, unless someone is demonstrating a step-by-step, graphical process, I prefer text.
For letting me know what Trump tweeted yesterday, I don't need a five minute video with commentary. Even for protests and marches, a few pictures and a paragraph will pretty much do. Most news I'm happy to just read about.
I used to think so too. Then I saw how my child learns stuff with far greater command of underlying concepts and connections through video and realized it's probably just a function of how I learned to learn or am used to growing up without essentially videos on any topic available on demand.
I have observed that the learning my child acquires through video is actually not "book learning" (the term exists for a reason) but much more nuanced, vicarious and realistic in a way text simply isn't. If fact, my child's goto for understanding something "let us search for a video on YouTube that will teach us how to do X". From an information theory standpoint this also makes sense.
So let's allow for the possibility that our opinions are simply shaped by our experiences of growing up without readily accessible video and reality for our children may be different.
I think text is better when you already know what you're looking for and video is better when you are still trying to develop an intuition for the subject.
Like everything in life, YMMV, and everyone learns differently.
Its simply the same stuff you would put in an article communicated at a fraction of the speed with less editing for brevity and prose because it's much harder to reorder video or reshoot instead of swapping a few words.
It is probably worthwhile primarily because it makes a stronger emotional connection which is to say its a more effective vehicle to deceive and manipulate you.
If you think videos are better for learning value obtained per minute I would be interested in reading the proof and can certainly keep an open mind but I'm not inclined to value an anecdote.
I mean the guy is Facebook VP for Europe and probably knows very well that business reports (for example) are not digested "in a quicker way" if you make a 3 hour video out of them.
I guess it shows that my perception on the industry is still very much influenced by stereotypes; no matter how much I would like to think that I'm immune to that.
It depends on the context, the people creating the content and the people consuming the content. Sometimes video is better, sometimes text is better. It just depends.
For learning something related to coding, I far prefer text to video, although that may be partly because it is easier to copy and paste into an editor so I can mess with it myself.