cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/3560540
You probably have already noticed that nowadays it's becoming fashionable online to share technical material via videos (eg YouTube.)
I somehow can understand the appeal of creating videos for sharing thoughts/news, esp b/c it takes way less time and focus compared to writing things (just hit the record button and go.)
But videos are. ๐ not index-able (at least locally)
๐ not searchable. ๐ not copy-paste friendly if at all. ๐ impossible to skim through.
๐ a major distraction from the train of thoughts.IMO, in most cases, the more effective and impactful medium of technical comms is the written form: a Mastodon toot, a blog post, a gist, a Pastebin entry or even a Facebook post!
What are your thoughts?
I agree to pretty much all the previous answer (text >>>> video), just adding what's missing from my point of view:
Video can be fun. As irrelevant as this might seem at first, motivation is an important part of every learning process. If you can make the information easier to digest for some people, it can make their learning progress more efficient and effective.
"Being fun" can relate to literal jokes (which I like much less in text documentation), presentation style, atmosphere. It can also help to address more sensory modalities to support learning (like audio, colors, or sometimes people just like having a face explain things to them).
I also feel I need to focus much less to follow a video than I need to digest a technical documentation in text form. Yes, I might spend more time on the video to achieve the same understanding, but I can consume it in more situations. For example, when tired before going to bed, or while eating, I might still watch a video about something I'd like to learn, but rather not scroll through the corresponding docs.
Ideally, videos would be additional to clearly structured and comprehensive text docs. But as much as consumers are people, producers are, too. If they happen to prefer video for whatever reason, and don't have the resources to do both, video is what you get.