News sites are really bad for this, CNN being the worst. I will automatically skip any story or commentary that’s video instead of text because, let’s be honest, video is usually incredibly shallow. Anything that can be said/shown in 5 minutes can be read in one minute, which means I’m wasting my time to get very little information.
This tendency to abandon text for video is of course a natural product of the internet; in the days of newspapers being physically read you HAD to use text. Now they don’t, and I guess they think video is slicker.
This isn’t to say some videos aren’t fun to watch; I’ve recently been having Neil Degrasse Tyson’s “Star Talks” on while I do something else. They’re not very deep and I could read in five minutes the equivalent of what it takes 30-40 minutes for that show to say, but that’s not really why I put it on; he and Chuck are just engaging and fun to listen to.
Of course the worst thing is when someone tries to convince you of something by sending you a YouTube link. 100% it’s bullshit. If you have a strong point to make, it’s written down somewhere.
Write stuff down so I can read it, goddammit. I have important things to do, like play Subnautica.
I almost never follow a video link, whether it’s on a website, posted here, or emailed to me by someone. And I never follow a link without at least a hint about what the sender/poster wants me to take away from it. Things that are obvious to one person aren’t necessarily obvious to someone else.
Most videos, even professionally done ones, are full of blather that I can skim past when I have the text in front of me. Maybe poor readers prefer video-- is that it?
The absolute worst are amateur how-to videos on YouTube. They spend five minutes thanking you for watching, asking you to subscribe, telling you what they’re going to show you, blahblahblah.
An exception to that is Fabulessly Frugal YouTube channel produced by Cathy the Air Fryer Maven. She’ll say, “Today we’re going to make fantastic chicken fingers in the air fryer – let’s get to it!” And then she gets to it!
[Exception: I will almost always watch a very cute cat or dog video. I only have two friends to whom I’m likely to email a link to a cute dog/cat video, I limit the length of the video to 30 seconds, and I specify the length, as in "Cat plays the piano - 7-second video.]
In fact, I think it should be a board rule that if someone posts a link that goes to a video, they should be required to say so, so we don’t waste our time, just like we used to have to say “warning: pdf” for links that went to pdfs.
The Post-media chain in Canada is really bad for this. Even when it’s a text article, they often have a video link in the text. And if you don’t click on the video link, then the video box opens up anyway, at the point where you’re reading the articel, and covers the text! I’ve pretty much given up on the National Post for this reason. (And if I do forget and click on an article and get this blocking-text-I-want to read, I go cdown to their survey box, answer every question with a 1 out of 10, and explain the problem in the final comments box. I have occasionally got a reply that says, “yes, we’re working on that issue”, but I’ve not seen any differnnce.)
I agree with all of the above for all the above reasons.
Additionally, I live in the middle of nowhere. My “high speed” DSL barely hits 1 Mbps on a good day, assuming it works at all. I have to really, REALLY want to see a video in order to put up with the buffering. Most times if there’s only video and no text just move on.
I hate seeing a headline on a news site, thinking “What DID Jill Biden say that got Prince William blushing?” I click, it’s a video with absolutely nothing else on the page.
(Then I leave their site)
C’mon, how long would it take to post a transcript below?
I think I’ll tell CNN I’m not clicking on ANYthing until they stop the video-only stories. That’ll show 'em!
The worst is instructions that are only on video. I’m not going to remember the temperature, or exactly how long I’m supposed to leave it in. For computer instructions, in not going to remember the magic word i need to type into that box.
Yes, it can be helpful to see the process. But can you please also give me the written summary? The one i can print and put on the counter, or leave open in a little window without needing to scroll back and forth through your damn video.
Joining the consensus here. Watching a video of somebody reading information, with various graphics and irrelevant chatter added, seems like somebody set out with the goal of inventing the least efficient way of conveying information.
On a vaguely related note, I once read an essay in which the author attacked the trope that mispronouncing words is a sign of general ignorance. The author’s argument was that somebody who knew the meaning of a word but didn’t know its pronunciation must have learned the word from reading it rather than hearing it. And he argued that people who acquired knowledge by reading tend to learn more information than people who acquired knowledge by watching videos.
Worse are the ones that play the video; and they have text on the video, music, and no speech. It always moves too slowly. As others do, I close the window when a video pops up. If I’m really interested in a story, I’ll google it to find a text article.
I’ll plus one this sentiment and add that the only thing that may be worse is those “articles” that consist of 95% twitter reactions. If I wanted to see what Twitter thought of something I’d be reading fucking Twitter!!
I can agree with this sentiment. Just finished my BS in civil engineering and for the last several terms, I often had only videos to work with in terms of course content. The videos were often typical lecture length, about 1 or 2 hours. Supposing I needed to remind myself of what type of pollutants a primary clarifier in a wastewater treatment plant removed, I had to find the exact spot in the correct video that discussed it.
Where possible, I tried to take notes while watching the videos but some instructors seem to speed through the content and watching a 2-hour video could easily take at least 4 hours if I tried to do this. I just didn’t have enough time on my hands to accomplish this.
I love using Ctrl-F with text to locate what I want in a text. And I’ll add that sometimes I’d like to read things on the QT (at boring, pointless meetings at work for instance), and video is out of the question.
There is A Secret That THEY Don’t Want You To KNOW: that to get the precioussss ad money, the videos have to be like 8 minutes minimum. When you look at youtube with that in mind, it keeps your blood pressure lower. At least, it does mine. They’re not being accidentally assholes, blathering on cluelessly; it’s deliberate.
My department at my employer is guilty of this. There will be some new process we’re supposed to follow, so they require that we watch a video explaining it. Now, I want to follow the approved processes but six months from now, when I can’t remember what to do in step five, I don’t want to have to watch the damned video again. Give me the process in text format as well.
Yes, there are some things that are better explained in photos or video (like, perhaps, how to replace the headlight in my car) but I prefer text.
And there are the posters here who link to a two-hour video (you know who you are) and ask us to go watch the damned thing in order to participate in the thread.
Joining the chorus in endorsing this pitting. If and when I post a link to a video I try and give a typed response as well because I know other people hate video links or are not somewhere they can watch a video. If I post without text it is usually to something short and to the point.
When I was still going into meetings I would often check out the SD because it is a MESSAGE board. People would think I was working as opposed to Facefuckingbook that will immediately start playing a video and making people look bad.
I use Unreal Editor for my job, and it is very undocumented. Furthermore, it’s a very complicated system, involving quite a lot of vector math (I’m an artist, dammit, and I was told there would be no math!). As a result, I have to look for tutorials almost daily. And yeah, 95% of the tutorials I find are Youtube videos.
It is simply the most inefficient way to learn anything. And if I have to watch another tutorial video which starts with “WHAT UP PARTY PEOPLE!” and ends with “AND SMASH THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!”, I might not be responsible for my actions.
They spend five minutes thanking you for watching, asking you to subscribe, telling you what they’re going to show you, blahblahblah.