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Comment by aulin | Hacker News Reader

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, unskimmable. I cannot easily go back to more difficult parts and reread (watch) them at my own pace. I cannot use them as a quick reference. Even my photographic memory doesn't work with videos, there's just something more powerful with black on white words and formulas.

Also completely agree about youtuber credibility. Being easy going, with good lighting, nice looks and neat surroundings makes them sound authoritative on the subject they talk about, especially to the newcomer ears, without any real backing.

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I'm in my early 20's, grew up watching YouTube, and still find textual documents superior for learning in almost all cases (with the exceptions being concise and intrinsically-animated things, like a lot of 3b1b's videos).

I don't think that there's nearly as much adaptation as there is just people getting used to watching video content and liking it more. That is, greater enjoyment, but not greater comprehension.

I suspect that nearly everyone who thinks that they "learn better from videos" just enjoys the videos more (which affects how well they perceive their own learning efficiency - humans are notoriously bad at self-assessment especially in the cognitive realm) and/or has attention issues that are mitigated by the more engaging nature of a video.

Early 30s here. Possibly to your point and completely anecdotally, I generally have a much harder time learning via text than I do from a more kinetic learning environment or watching a video... but I wish it was the other way around. All of the benefits described above for why text is better I totally agree and I get generally frustrated trying to find the relevant part of the video but for whatever reason seeing the thing I am trying to learn visually demonstrated is immensely more powerful that reading it.

I actually have a pet hypothesis that it has something to do with imagination. I'd be curious if anyone has studied the effects of visual media on imagination and how it impacts kids ability to take written content and understanding it versus the same with visual content. I have a suspicion that before the prevalence of visual media it was even more critical to have an active imagination to be able to synthesis written content and that we've lost a bit of that in younger generations as we've moved toward a reliance on visual learning. I have nothing to back any of this up of course just something i've thought about when reflecting on myself.

I've recently tried to get back into making art. I had a very active imagination as a child and would draw for hours on end. Now the inspiration isn't there and I have a hard time just visualizing scenes or landscapes.

Thank you for sharing that!

Imagination is a "mental muscle" that must atrophy with disuse.

Off-topic, yet relevant (for you):

When I upvoted your comment, your karma crossed 500, so you should now see up/downvote buttons in hn :)

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.

I'm around 20 and I prefer text over videos. I find videos too long, sometimes exaggerated. Even if I have to watch a video, that has some "content" I'd increase the playback speed to have it done faster. In my opinion, visual instructions give in a lot of unnecessary information than textual instructions. This makes it harder to imagine when watching a video than reading a, say blog.

Easier to multi-task maybe? Its really easy to do other things while listening to a video and then jumping into the parts that sound interesting as compared to reading where its necessarily a very active experience.

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).

24 years old here, I think videos are great for an overview of a topic, but that's it. Most of the time when I'm relatively comfortable with a subject I want either an "how to" or a "reference", and for these I think written content is way better.

> For me video talking about code is slow, unsearchable, unskimmable. I cannot easily go back to more difficult parts and reread (watch) them at my own pace. I cannot use them as a quick reference. Even my photographic memory doesn't work with videos, there's just something more powerful with black on white words and formulas.

You also can't copy/paste code, and if your vision isn't perfect/the code isn't zoomed enough, you have to use a whole screen for the video.

Gen Z programmer here. Can confirm that video content is by far the best way I learn new information and skills. I think having grown up with the modern internet has shaped my brain in a way that makes it so video feels more natural than it might for folks even 10 years older than me. It's definitely fascinating to look at the effects the internet is having on society over longer time periods.

Are you sure it's not just that video content "feels" like you are leaerning even when you aren't? This is a documented phenomenon that underlies "infotainment".

I'm sure. The work I do on a daily basis is comprised of at least half skills i learned from videos, and that percentage is even higher for my hobbies.

It just seems so slow to me. Here's another 15 minute video of what could be a three minute blog post. Be sure like comment subscribe!

As always, ‘it depends’. I know he’s not YT strictly speaking but I love learning from Wes Bos. But the first time I watched him I was like holy shit boy, slow down! I thought it was terrible.

Then I learned some more, which got me to the stage where I knew what the hell he was on about, and now I love him. Information at its maximum density.

It's always better if they speak a bit too fast, since you can pause at any time to digest what was said.

I watch most videos at triple speed or above. Takes some getting used to, but my brain got accustomed to it over time and now I can watch 3-4 times more youtube than everyone else in the same amount of time!

Even when you do that you can't beat skimming and finding exactly what you need in a text. In a video it's clunky to scrub around and hope you hit the relevant info you need.

I'm also middle aged and I've started to kind of like video tutorials for totally new subjects. There's often little things that the web tutorials miss that I catch when watching. That said having both is optimal, in my opinion.

For things I'm already familiar with, usually calling the man page is enough.

I'm in my mid-30s. Certainly didn't grow up with video content. I have a shelf full of books which I've learnt a lot from. But I've also learnt an enormous amount from videos. They are good for different things.

Take food, for example. I have books that go into great detail about how to make bread. Each ingredient (of which there are only four) are discussed in detail. The history of bread and its influence on culture is covered. But when it comes to kneading dough, nothing beats watching someone do it. Even the best book in the world can't replace that.

I learn a lot from watching others work. When I watch videos I'm learning more from what they don't talk about than what they do talk about. I think it requires being selective. There are some videos of really talented and skilled people out there who might not be great communicators. These are treasure. On the other hand, there are shiny videos with attractive presenters filled with trivial fluff you could have gleaned from one page of a text book. Like with anything, you just have to learn what's worth your time and what isn't.

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 even paying tuition.

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.

It depends on the type of activity for me. For maths or computing, I prefer a text by far, video is too slow and doesn't allow me to go to the essential. For jazz guitar and bike repairs, video is where I learn the most.

Remembering lectures, I used to sit in them, watch and take notes. It was only after when reading back through the notes and looking into the problem area I could hear and make out what I didn't really catch first time.

So videos with slides, and notes, and tutorials/practice all can help. It does for me anyway.

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