this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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me_irl
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I don’t like these generational generalizations.
Not an xer but I feel the same. I’d rather read twenty minutes than watch a 5 minute YouTube video.
“Elder millennial”/Oregon Trail generation here, and I’d generally rather read it, too. I’ve found it often only takes 5 minutes to read an article where the video would be 20 minutes. Sometimes a video works better for a how-to, but often an article will be a faster choice.
Holy shit, you're 185 years old? What's the secret?
Surviving dysentery is probably the big one.
It’s better to not diss Terry at all if you can help it
It's so hard. He's got a girl's name.
Bees.
*Jerry Seinfeld enters the chat*
So… underage girls?
I think I’d rather die young.
…huh; I guess that's one way for me to learn about this.
It's also much easier to retain information skimming through text compared to a video of just a person talking.
I'm getting really tired of the news "articles" that have a video as well... I can't stand clicking a post here on Lemmy and all the sudden a video is autoplaying... Like stfu I just want to read it, not hear some jackass newscaster and I especially hate the autoplay...
The best ones are when you scroll down the page and the video comes too. I wish suffering on no one but were I to meet that particular 'innovator'.
The autoplay kills me too. I used to complain about it but we seem to be in the minority.
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a video, YouTube or otherwise, that conveys information faster than an article. It’s usually 10 minutes of video to convey what would take 3 minutes to read while providing greater detail.
that is because videos have minimums to reach peak monetization
it isnt about efficient information exchange
I ran into a small series of videos on repairing camcorders that actually delivered the video content appropriately. Basically no talking (I think at one point they poke the broken thing and make an "eh?" Noise to indicate you should pay attention to that). Shows the thing, shows the problem, showed removing the part, showed fixing it, and then putting it back.
In my experience visual modes of communication work better for conveying visual information. Describing how you should position yourself for doing a task is harder than just showing a picture from a few angles. Likewise, describing how something moves is easier with an video because you can see it moving.
Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't looking to make the thing they're making efficient, but to keep you there longer for engagement. Text is easy to skip around in, so verbose text describing what could be a 30 second video isn't as effective. Inflating something that would be a four minute read on history or something into a video gives something harder to skim and still get information out of, and it's way longer.
Part of the reason why I have no patience for video as nonfiction is because I read a lot faster than videos (or audio) can communicate information. So for me, I'd rather read a 5 minute document than a 20 minute video, even if one is literally a transcription of the other.
At least with audio I can take that in while doing something else.
Over all I'd say that humankind generalizes too much...
::: spoiler
:p
Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes