Average speed of spoken presentations: 120wpm Average reading speed: 200-300wpm

So true. The headmaster at my daughter's school stopped sending an email of weekly events (that I can skim read in 1 min max) and instead started sending a 10 min podcast. Zero chance of me watching.

I read at 1200wpm so audio/video at double speed is like a quarter of my max. I think systematically so reading voraciously and stacking new knowledge concepts is just peak joy to me. Watching corporate compliance videos is like the worst.

I have adhd (first girl diagnosed in my school district,1985, not a flex just that it’s a real diagnosis) and love to read. Watching screens quiets my brain,temporarily but I feel empty after. I turn on white noise, read for hours and feel fed.

As a fast reader, I am personally oppressed by video-only news and instructions. That said, my very smart, highly literate children freaking love videos for *everything*. After all traditional modes of instruction failed, my son taught himself to tread water by watching a YouTube video.

Ugh. Makes me crazy. I need a piece of information that could be written in a single paragraph, but I need to search through your YouTube video to find it? Spare me. You've just recorded the best podcast ever, on a topic I follow, with a guest I venerate? Cool. WHERE'S THE FUCKING TRANSCRIPT?!!

yeah whatever productivity gains might eventually be attributable to LLMs are more than cancelled out by this

Great news, AI can watch the video for you and give you a sentence that may or may not summarize it!

Ugh, I agree. I can read SO much faster than I can listen (without speeding up the playback to chipmunk pitch)--I'd infinitely prefer to read a well-constructed essay or article than listen to someone ramble on about the topic. But as others said, now too many people only want a 30 second video.

doing a complicated repair process? you definitely want something on youtube interrupted by ads and not a step by step guide you can print out

Want to learn your karate club’s kata? Too bad, there’s a million other videos of other karate clubs with similar kata. Also there’s video of your club doing it badly. And nobody is bloody explaining it.

This is definitely annoying in general, but I'm coming to prefer the videos because at least they're less likely to be AI generated and have instructions from a real human

Wanna figure out something simple, like how to adjust the interior lights of your car? This video that’s the only thing the internet coughs up is 75 minutes long and for the wrong model year.

i only wanna watch a car repair video if it looks like a weird uncle propped his phone up on a workbench to make it

"Hi guys, today I'm installing a new hard drive in this HP laptop. There are 35 screws..." *removes screws for five minutes*

And for reassembly, simply follow the steps in reverse. Facepalm..

The actual usability of any how-to video on YouTube is inversely proportional to its production quality. Slick video with tons of keywords and a guy doing the YouTube Face? Instant skip. There’s nothing there I want.

but a 57 year old with the camera facing the wrong way half the time gets the info out in 12 seconds flat and teaches me a life lesson in the process

Every single time.

My favorite part of this is that the thing I need to know is always covered in a fraction of a second. Out of a 45-minute video.

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Heres the youtube video of a guy reading decades old posts of people complaining about dnd party members

Exactly. Such a waste of time. And resources.

Don’t watch them. If enough stop watching, the content creators will get the hint.

my favorite variation of this is a thread discussion/argument where one party just drops a link to a 30+ minute video, with no further explanation. QED, bitches!

Arrrgh! I just want to skim!

I still remember being addicted to a site called The Agony Booth that did lengthy recaps of bad movies, with the expected funny captions on screenshots. (I even contributed to one review's captions) Then they suddenly started posting only videos and I stopped visiting within maybe 2 month's time.

And this was back around maybe 2011. At least then I still had some options to fill the same niche, now there's nothing like that.

There’s so much knowledge I’ll never have because it can only be attained by watching a YouTube guy take forever to share it

Esp DIY stuff…give me a list of steps to follow in lieu of going through a 20 minute vid.

The worst!!!

the thing that REALLY gets me is having to watch some stupid Open to every video.

💯💯💯YES!!!

it still hasn't worked on Facebook. As much as people say Facebook audience are the simpletons, dumbasses, it's actually a text-based platform and still the biggest in the world. META has spent trillions trying to push the audience to video to no avail. little thing most people unaware of

Amen.

Also podcasts, because I assume people cannot read.

And now instead of having a transcript all the videos have slow moving captions because no one wants to turn their volume up

the fact that video sites even offer the 2x speed option proves that video sucks for actually communicating information

And now the pivit to AI -- let the AI watch the video and hallucinate a summary for you.

Seriously true!

I hatessss it for most things. Like it has a place. That place is not *everywhere*

I just want to read stuff! I really appreciate creators who give written as well as A/V content.

This post is too long. It could have been a Tiktok.

Do you narrate the audio version of your new book? I mean I would "read the room" but it's nice to listen to it while driving... (I'm also a horribly, horribly slow reader)

I do not. I have a wonderful narrator, Chante McCormick. You wouldn’t want me to do it anyway, I have an accent from everywhere.

Remember when FB was pushing videos and they falsified research that said users preferred video?

Yup yup yup, but at least they gave the news a handy excuse to fire thousands of journalists.

🤮

Omg, yes! People send me links to videos or podcasts and I’m like where is the written article that I can speed read?

Sadly, many can't read a sentence.

I went to look for a review of a movie last night and got served up a 90 minute video podcast about it in the middle of the page, nearly as long as the movie itself 😭

Given what’s happening to the business, that almost feels like a dark version of the future. No movies, just podcasts about movies.

This is what Instagram feels like in the film/TV corners. People sharing and consuming snippets of films they won't see, but for the meme-able moment online.

Where’s the link? jk

"Christ, Analysis a Podcast" (cf. Onion's "Christ, Article a Video")

A gaming company I followed pivoted to video. They do not due actual subtitles, just autosubs. Do you know how well auto subs do for archaic words & made up game terms in a heavily accented euro-english? Not good let me tell you.

I can read much faster than anyone can talk. Instructional videos drive me nuts.

Sometimes wonder if this is mostly because you can't multitask while reading, and we're all full-tilt boogie all the time.

That's why I don't support even 3 minutes long videos like here on BlueSky.

About 2 min is my limit for most videos. There are exceptions but in general I don't have the patience.

Totally agree. So slow. Mandatory transcripts needed.

Pivot to video drove me back to books and I am happy about that

auto-play video is one of the four horsemen imho (which one is up for debate)

THIS SO MUCH. Especially because they bury the useful information deep into the vid so that they get better engagement stats

Game guides all start with "Welcome to Timmy the Turnip's Youbloob channel, I'm gonna breathe heavily into the microphone or munch corn chips when you could have figured out this puzzle if someone just typed "put purple glob in bin" so don't forget to like and subscribe!"

The real issue is that it's much easier to monetize videos than text and you need to create much less of it to make a living.

TL;DR. Got a video essay link instead?

💯

A pet peeve of mine as well. If AI ever feels like making itself useful, a good project would be chew through YT vids and generate transcripts like those of the idlewords blog: left column plaintext, right column useful stills from the vid.

Icing on the cake would then be a browser plug-in that checks if a transcript has been extracted for the current vid, and a button to take me there instead.

Miss the days of YT How-To vids that were simply people who knew how to do the thing, doing the thing - and nothing else. No backstory, just hands-on w/videoed actions. Fixed many-a-thing with ‘em. Usually took a just few moments to watch & emulate, didn’t need feature-length.

I get that particularly with tech issues/trouble shooting. 9/10 of the hits on a search are bloated YouTube junk with lengthy branded intros, bad sound and dodgy content.

It’s crazy. I’m like, no, don’t talk at me, just let me read, please.

Hate when I click a news story and it’s just a video. Let me read!

I just want a still screenshot or detailed description of the thing I'm looking for in the game I'm playing so that I can visually reference it while actively playing; I don't want to have to pause a video on the correct frame and try to look around the pause screens' HUD elements.

Oof yeah. GameFAQs is thankfully still around and there are starting to be more text guides for new games but it was a desert for a bit. YouTube guides for video games are useless to me, it's just not a good medium for that.

The only limitation of a text-only guide like what Gamefaqs offer is when you need to locate a lot of the same kind of item in different places, like Koroks in BotW/TotK. Even then, interactive maps aren't videos.

I had someone come at me a while ago because I said I didn't want to watch videos. "But they put the text on the screen!" 🤦‍♀️

Spot on. Or folks just read a shocking headline but don’t bother with the details.

thank you!!

If I'm being honest, if somebody's doing their job, there's a transcript of the video cut into article form for you to read, just like there's an audio-only version on streaming platforms with descriptive narration to fill in non-verbal sections.

Right, but transcripts aren't always accurate, and they usually don't convey the nonverbal communication that makes sense out of apparent digressions, "ums," certain kinds of phatic speech, what have you. A well-written piece won't have those issues.

Local TV and newspaper sites, I just want to find out which local convenience store got robbed last night I don’t want to sit through a 10 minute video of someone reading that to me.

YouTube instructional videos have proven to me to be an annoying scourge. EWhen I try to find a troubleshooting or other procedural instructions, my searches are clogged w/YouTube videos of people who mumble, talk too much, have impenetrable accents... it's mostly useless bullshit.

I still prefer concise text. Yelling faces is just not interesting.

Facts.

Could. Not. Agree. More!!!

i avoid watching videos. these people are entirely too verbose. i want the silence of reading.

And all these videos hide the part you care about in the middle or cram it into the last few minutes. I'm having to use my old Tivo skills to fast forward to the important stuff.

Might be my own upbringing, but I've had the opposite response, I'd rather have a brief second to read some text instead of having to sift through a video.

Also for every podcast that becomes a youtube show. "We know a lot of people like to listen to our podcast while driving or doing dishes, but what if instead you couldn't do that but could see us mugging for the camera?"

No, I don’t want to watch the recipe in video form! Give me the list and a few steps. Please.

I feel this, painfully. There’s a pretty great book that was published in 1977: “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” Society didn’t listen, but they’re damn good arguments and apply just as much to video!

I hated it a decade ago, I still hate it today. If I click on an article and it's just a video, I close the article.

Every time I have to wade through 20 minutes of bullshit about "like and subscribe" in a video to find the one sentence I care about, I curse all young people.

A friend sent me a 6 hour long interview the other day! I have questions about anyone who would even sign up to do that.

And that 40 minute video is for something that takes 5 minutes to explain or demonstrate.

I cannot. I have told people in my life that if they send me a video I will not watch it. They know. I will possibly make exceptions if there are captions but even then it takes SO LONG just let me read 😭

bumpers, in-video promotion, channel culture cultivation, injected ads, click like and subscribe and bell, irrelevant puppets, pseudo-ironic costume and hair, sarcastic, slowed down delivery, superfluous reaction characters, crappy sets ... it makes me want to throw a chair through a monitor.

I haven't been able to quickly find information without watching a video, which not only is hard for me (inattentive ADHD) but I have to sit through fucking ads first! In the time the "skip" button appears, I could have read everything I needed to know.

Attention spans are gone. Nobody would watch a full 40-min video. Under 10 min; preferably under 5 min is the only tolerable length.

It’s awful, isn’t it? I feel like as I’ve gotten older my attention has gotten shorter, too.

But, how many 40 min videos, even 10 minute ones, are just full of filler and BS? It’s not 40 minutes of a tightly written and edited script like you have if a written text were 40 minutes to narrate.

True. I forget.

A symbol of the decline of our civilization, though there are frankly too many at this point to count lol

"In a minute, I'm about to ask you for a donation, but fir–"

I was truly thinking this this morning!! An article about Wilmer Chavarria immediately opened into video and I said aloud “CAN I JUST PLEASE READ.” It’s bad for all of us.

To me, "pivot to video" means I probably won't see whatever story one is trying to tell me. At least run a transcript ffs.

The reaction videos are really what pushed me over the edge. Someone reciting info and someone else REACTING to someone reciting info, like what are we even doing…

I just want FaceTime conversations in public places to stop 💀 Something to be said here about being tricked into embracing the surveillance state, as well

Pausing and rewinding a video 26 times so I can finish a recipe 😩

While cooking, I definitely prefer scrolling all over the place on a tiny screen with olive-oil covered fingers to reading from a book that lies flat on the counter.

But before I tell you how to clean your coffee maker, smash that like button and hit subscribe. This tutorial is brought to you today by Raid Shadow Legends.

i bought headphones a bit ago, and they were bluetooth, and instead of having a manual they had a link to a 36 minute youtube video written in the bottom of the box so i had to transcribe it into my fucking browser

I just never watch videos

That's what the internet keeps trying to tell me but I'll take a transcript over a video of someone talking at me every time.

or—and this is no shade to my audio inclined comrades—listen to a 90 minute podcast

This is the most annoying thing to me! I can't parse a podcast on its own! I need the transcript in front of me or else I won't follow anything!

I can listen to or watch long videos I gain info easier reading

I don't mind listening to a podcast, but I don't understand why anyone wants to watch a video of a podcast. Let those people record in their pjs, without makeup, in their bedrooms.

OK, but a “90 minute podcast” is 45 min in my 2X speed world. Auditory processing is my gift, but I can’t imagine wanting that much audio if it wasn’t.

I prefer reading. You can skip the b.s. or just not finish it. I dont have the patience to listen to podcasts and such unless you get to the point right away. I'm not gonna listen to 45 minutes of filler to get to the main point. But that's just me.

+ me

i hate iiiit, just let my eyes roam free around a page, do not impose your linear time upon my consumption of the wisdom

i'm a professional driver and podcasts are my fuel. 90 minutes is the sweet spot

Needlessly long videos are my biggest pet peeve. I was trying desperately to find a short chess video to explain the 5th move of defending the scholars mate in chess and all the chess youtubers have 20 minute videos about it

Have you found a niche, Carl...? If there's a 20 minute video and you need twenty seconds of it, maybe that's showing you a market for 60 different videos right there. Like Reader's Digest, only screen-based...

Love long form.

Audio/video signals bypass the prefrontal cortex and head straight for the amygdala. You comprehend and retain more information by reading text.

so the hilarious thing is i misread this and thought you were saying audio/video signals are easier to retain 😹

Sadly enjoying YouTube shorts because a 30 second video has to answer the question quickly

I have a new therapist and the phrases "private equity," "billionaire owners," and "pivot to video" definitely came up in our first session lol

I expose my therapist to so many horrifying corporate demons she is not fully aware of and then I feel bad about it 😎

X1000!

And somehow videos are the thing that's free while text is what's behind some premium paywall.

I yearn for the days when I could search for Something Tutorial and find a text article with pictures that I could read at my own fucking pace.

I hate it. Especially with the news. I can read 10x faster than watching a video about it. 😑

Video that I have to sit in front of or PAY to listen to if I have the temerity to click away from.

yes! youtube is borderline unusable! you're not werner herzog tell me the news!!

OMG, yes!! I MUCH prefer reading to listening to a wannabe video star's bloviation. Oh, and, talking a mile a minute to make the video length under 10 minutes (!) - as you said, to say what could have been summarized in one, much shorter sentence. Tick tock folks - no time to waste on this baloney.

Puvot To Video then lead directly to Pivot To Two Assholes Pretending It's A Podcast

Just tell me where the damn collectibles are with a map and photos. I don't want a 40-minute walkthrough!

10 minutes of like & subscribe preamble, 15 mins of a seemingly AI-scripted "so what is this topic" non-explainer, a start from scratch description of the process, the 30 sec chunk you were looking for, 10 more mins of engagement farming.

Even 2x speed with captions some of this stuff is agonizing

Thanks for raising this. I hate watching someone speak for half an hour on a topic they’d have covered in five paragraphs of good writing.

Ohmygoodness! Yes!

But first we're going to waste an entire minute telling you what the video is about and to like and subscribe before we get to any real content.

well when these 3 minute attention span folks can learn to write a sentence, then maybe they'll learn to read a sentence?

For. Real.

If I get lost is a video game now I just give up. It’s not worth watching someone else play to figure it out.

Yesssss! I almost never want to watch a video about something I can read about or see visuals of! I can’t even get into TikTok lol (But also we all learn differently, so I’m sure there are some ppl who are like “oh thank goodness, there’s a video about this!”)

💯

💯

💯

clearly in this utopian future we all have copious free time in which to do so

I complain about how this changed Facebook & killed social media for me. I wanna read; I don’t wanna have most of my senses held hostage by videos. I just wanna read in silence, get distracted by thoughts, and continue where I left off 15 mins later

Not enough likes for this sentiment. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Good call. Added one.

I went off FB a few years ago. I found myself overwhelmed and overstimulated. I miss MySpace!

Media in general has gotten so much more overstimulating over time. I can't stand TV or terrestrial radio.

It really has. I haven’t watched TV in over ten years now.

THIS

"Where's the Adjust Margins button?" "We've made a helpful video that explains everything!"

hate it

Me also

Thank you.

You cannot skim a video! There’s a reason I’m here and not on Tik Tok.

Now I just watch the videos on silent and read the captions so it's really come full circle

YES! Don't waste my time. If you want my attention, put it in writing. I will not watch your video-only news stories or company newsletters, especially fake interviews. I want content I can leave and come back to, search in, skim, copy, and paste. And no, TTS transcripts do not qualify.

theonion.com/christ-artic...

it was also based on a lie!!! Facebook pushed false engagement data and lost in court because of it.

A 40-minute video with annoying text splashed all over the screen.

I don’t want to watch a ten minute video to get a two sentence answer, that’s as true for looking up things for the video games I’m playing as it is for needing to know how to do shit in excel. AI is making all of it worse because the text based answers are a crap shoot now.

100%!!

I will be publishing my video response to this soon. Please hold.

Life in the attention economy…

I’m with you on this. I sometimes make bags and I much prefer written words with pictures. Unfortunately for me, it seems that pattern makers no longer feel obligated to write clearly and I’m stuck watching videos to understand the words they couldn’t write in the pattern instructions.