I got a strong feeling this morning… that I’m done with learning stuff on YouTube.
Heavy user of YouTube
I’ve been a heavy user of this video platform for the past few years and I love it. What I realized now is that it keeps suggesting very basic stuff to me. Whether it’s about photography, using flash, videography or whatever my interest at the time was it’s keep treating me as a beginner.
And I know why it is that way. Creators on the platform are after popularity and reach. Entry level stuff is things that plenty of people can relate do and be interested. The advanced stuff not so much.
Slowness
The result of this overconsumption of basic stuff on YouTube is that it hinders my learning and my progress. Moreover it creates the illusion of making a progress, getting new information and learning. Each video on top 10 things to improve X is just a candy for the brain after very initial level. Why cheat myself this way?
This is another example of problems created by social media in general. They are all driven by engagement, likes and are engineered to keep our attention for as long as possible. Even at a cost of our best interest. It's one of the reasons I gave up on Facebook and very rarely visit LinkedIn.
Chaos
Also, there’s plenty of chaos involved in learning on YT. It is inherent in the way the platform is built. It equalizes popular with high-quality. So instead of the most relevant stuff for any given query it’ll suggest the most popular one or the best rated one. When the rating on YT also doesn’t have to mean that it’s about quality of the education or relevance to my needs.
What’s next?
So I’ll look around among other platforms: CreativeLive, SkillShare, Udemy, etc. I already tried the first one and it was very much structured. It’s not as entertaining as YouTube is, it resembles school a little bit, but hey — that’s the most efficient way of learning! Having a structured body of knowledge and clarity where you want to pick it up given your skill level.