Sometimes, I spend a bit too much time on instagram than I think is healthy. It's not a big deal though because, you know, I'm learning? I follow accounts that teach you lots of good shit; parenting, history, space exploration, I mean.... I feel like I'm learning which is what gives me the kick to stay on the platform. But being honest, lots of the times I get useless reels reccomendations and a lot of the stuff I'm Iearning isn't really relevant at the moment. And when I actually do need the info, my 'unique' organizing system of saved post makes it nearly impossible to find what I need when I need it. Is this a me problem?
On the other hand, another way I like learning things are books; obviously more expensive, also time consuming, requires effort to get in the right mindspace. But I always feel better after reading a book, feeling like I really learned something new, like my horizon expanded, like my brain just did a workout and now has stronger muscles and is releasing dopamines. Maybe like how gym-people feel after a workout, I sense there is a bit of holier than thou-ness, the "I am willingly putting my self through physical pain because I know its good for my health long term and that makes me better than you civilians that only prioritize short term happiness." I know only some are like that, but come on, there must be some ego boost of being the small percentage of humans that can consistently get off your ass and work the hell out. After all it's tough work, I would know, because I am one of the civilians who think I can workout regularly to only be destroyed after the first workout and not workout again till the next week (okay, month).
Now, back to books. There is some similarity. It's a lot more work than a 60 second video, and sometimes it feels repetitive and boring, but damn does the knowledge stick (unlike a workout where you have to keep maintaining the muscle with future workouts, what a scam). After finishing a book, I feel like a new person or like I just updated my operating system and did a major rehaul on the Perspective file, which is now Perspective 4.0. This update changes how I interact with people or see life, oh so profound. Like when ChatGPT gets a new update and like dayyyumm who dis?.
Anyway - so reading a book is obviously better right? But I still learn things from those short videos so it's also good?
Let's look at the goal / purpose of consuming information:
To understand something
To apply said understanding to our lives (to make it better)
Books promote deeper cognitive engagement, according to The Reading Brain in the Digital Age. (Of course, my source is a book).
And we retain information better through reading. But why?
Reading requires us to actively engage; be present, find a good place to read, limit unwanted distractions, etc. And it requires focus, so naturally we are going to absorb the information better than watching a quick video while folding the laundry.
How many times have I tried reading a book while doing other things, which lead to me having to reread the same sentence at least 8 times? Yes.
With books, we kinda also have to interact with it. We need to pause, reflect, and use our critical thinking on the insights, evidence, and arguments, so that we can make our own conclusions. Books also tend to hammer the topic in your brain by repeating the same message but through different perspectives. These are the main reasons the knowledge sticks and we will be able to recall it faster when we need it IRL.
BUT big drum roll of relief! Bite-sized videos are not a waste of time!
They are very handy in explaining digestible chunks of information. Short videos on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram simplify complex topics, which makes learning more accessible and exciting. Of course the caveat is, it's a freakin 60 sec video, somethings gotta give. In this case it's depth, oversimplification, and harder to remember due to the passive consumption style.
Overall, these videos are good for sparking curiosity or gaining surface-level knowledge.
I do have tendency to doubt the credibility of the claims in short videos. It's too easy for anyone to claim anything as long as they say it with enough confidence to pass it off as truth. While with books, they give you a bunch of evidence that you get to analyze and they also require a deal more work to make, so making wrong claims is more risky financially & reputation wise for all the parties involved (author, editor, publisher, book store?, etc etc). If I make a video saying 'did you know that face tissues are actually made from reused toilet paper?!" how likely is the social media platforms going to promote it? It might even go viral because of the controversial nature and fear it instills, and how much did it cost me to spread this misinformation? $0.
Then what about long form videos, like those 1+ hours long that deep dive into specific topics. They are good for specific purposes, like "how does salmon farms work", "why does my tv not have connectivity" "vision pro vs quest3" etc. Stuff I don't necessarily want to read a whole book on but want a bit more depth to the answer. But they also pre-digest the info and have similar drawbacks as the short form videos.
Last but not least, yes, books cost money, but spending hours on videos where only 30% of my feed is teaching me a bit of something? Costs time. Time = money. You get it.
There are a lot of free books you can find online but if you can, paying for the book actually has advantages (and it's obviously the fucking right thing to do, don't be stingy on this!) which is putting in a financial investment does make us become more committed to learn, aka sunken cost fallacy - but more about that topic another time.
At the risk of sounding (more) weird, try listening to the audio book while reading the paper/e-book. For me, it helps with speed and focus.
In the end, the choice depends on the goal:
Bite-sized videos: great for quick inspiration or overview.
Books: great for deep understanding and personal growth (critical thinking, etc).
Maybe the key is to strike a balance between them both so we can have both breath & depth of knowledge.
Thats it!
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For a fun exercise, I was curious about the trend of book reading so I collected this data.
This data is U.S. only.
Seems like, more books are getting sold each year, with a peak during the pandemic.
Is it just because the population is growing or something else?it was due to population increase?
Seems like there is a some kind correlation between books sold & population increase, except for pandemic years again.
I was wondering if it's just a small set of users reading a bunch of books, but couldn't get the data on that. There is some survey data though about average % of readers. Basically a survey asking a bunch of people "do you read books?" and % of them said yes. So, not as accurrate as the hard crunchy data of total books sold & population above. But let's give it a shot..
So, its declining, surprise surprise.
Looking at that chart, it seems like a few people just started to read a fuck ton more books.
And that in general, despite percentage of readers declining, total book sales still are increasing (and predictions are also very bullish about future sales). The slant doesn't seem to be correlated fully to population increase, so that hypothesis could be true. I mean at least it is with me, I'm reading much more books than I used too.
How about.... we do our own little survey in the comments? Are you reading more books than you used to the past few years?
Maybe better not to weigh the survey data (% of readers) against the hard crunchy data (sales & population).
How about % of readers compared to % of video viewers then?
*Bite-sized video means videos that are up to 2 mins long. On Tik tok, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, and Youtube.
We can see with the releases of new features on IG and the launch of TikTok in the US, bite-size videos are winning over the market. Despite the hike in book sales in 2021, on average less people are reading books (this includes all audiobook, e-book, and hardcopy books). Which explains the book store closures.
If the goal was to make future generations more educated than the previous ones, should we find a solution to get more people to read or don't fight the current and find a way to improve the format of videos to enable people to engage more in a way activates our deep & critical thinking skills?
Sources:
Annual trend data: Statista, Pew Research, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite.
Learning retention videos vs text: (Mayer, 2019)
Passive consumption of video may dilute comprehension: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
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