It's epistemically toxic to promote video as a learning tool. Videos are great for entertainment, entertainment can boraden your horizons, but it isn't a good tool for learning anything except when learning a skill that requires mimicking body movements.
Well, there are people who would refuse to learn if not for the videos. What then? Are we going to sit in an increasingly sparsely-populated ivory tower and complain how nobody wants to learn, or are we going to try capturing the attention of such people in any way that works?
To be honest, I agree with you. I like to read. I learn better when I read. Text is much more convenient in so many ways that I honestly don't understand why would anyone opt for a video instead. But the reality is that the average attention span and the kinds of concentration people are capable of changes with time, and recently started changing a lot in relatively short amounts of time (1 generation). That's reality, and we have to learn to cope with it - even if it's painful - or we won't be able to teach anyone anything!
I agree, it can be a great hook, but we can have nouance, not everything has to be so dumb, right? We can teach people that look sure you can have this feeling of learning, but it can be very misleading people are watching edutainment and think they are learning which is probably even worse than if they were against learning in the first place. Edutainment is great fun for me at least, but I see so many people think they know something because they have been exposed by content on youtube and live in this self-deception that it's just sad.
Unfortunately that only works for a time - namely, until the "uneducated masses" decide to topple the tower down. Historically, they succeeded almost every single time. I might be getting carried away with the metaphor, but honestly, I'm afraid. Who's to guarantee to me that in 20 years I won't be the one that the majority of his colleagues "can't get along with"?
I won't retire fast enough to ignore the issue completely. As such, I think I'll try (in self-defense, basically) doing what people in my position have been doing since the dawn of time to stay relevant - that is, to try and become a mentor for the younger folks. But "the kids these days", they don't want to read my blog posts, they want to hear me (and I absolutely hate hearing myself recorded!) and they want to look at my face (what for, for f... sake?! am I a model?) while I explain (and sing, and dance, for better effect?) things to them with a nice screencast.
On top of that I don't even have a luxury of saying it's simply technically not possible, like people 30 (or even 20) could. Unfortunately for my poor heart, the authoring of videos is becoming easier (than it ever should, dammit!) and easier way faster than my retirement approaching.
I'm sure situations like this played out many, many times in history. Last time I tried looking into this I learned the term "defenestration". That's how optimistic it feels at the moment :)
Is your comment satire, sarcasm or something like that?
Wouldn't "epistemically toxic" be characterized by false, unsubstantiated or misleading content?
A documentary is video, as are recorded lectures, or random experts explaining anything.
A video allows us to learn and share knowledge without needing to be in the same room - the overhead of which detracts from the volume of material possible to teach or learn. The 1.5x is helpful when the speaker talks slowly, and makes sense that it's more effective, since your attention is more focused to keep up.
Can you in good faith tell me what sounded sarcastics there?
I am completely serious, just ask a lecturer how do zoom lectures compare to live sessions. It isn't just about content, form and medium are very important, not just for greater memorization but also for deeper understanding. If all you do is watch videos you are watching someone else understand something instead of you and then think you have understood it yourself.
It's removing critical thought from the world, bit by bit. People are (self)decieved that they are learning while they are merely having a very weak/superficial exposure to a domain of knowledge and they stick with that because it gets them the great feeling of knowledge without knowledge itself.
