So, came across this link: http://qz.com/706461/facebook-is-predicting-the-end-of-the-written-word/ It sorta amazes me that anyone would predict the end of the written word - and in the article where it states a video is a much quicker way of getting info is just plain wrong. Clearly the guy who said that is not an avid reader, probably doesn't even like reading. Between watching a 5min video and reading the article, I always choose the article - it is much faster! You can skim irrelevant details, you can control your speed, you can go back and check what has been said before if you've lost track, and you can start and stop and start and stop and never miss a single thing! Anyway, thoughts?
While it is true while videos can express things better to some extent there are some things words can express that videos can not. Also you can't watch videos late at night when your parents are asleep one floor above you.
I think the increasing use of videos as a source of tutorials of how-to is simply because of it's ease to do. People that make those videos are not always decent with words or they simply cannot be bothered to go to the length of writing a decent article. Thought i agree that reading an article is usually much more informative then a video, especially if it is a How-To or a tutorial. So, yeah, personally I find much more informative and better, videos are shorter and they typically have a lot less information. It is typically broader and less in-depth. All of this you can do when reading anything by reading the intro and the conclusion/ending. And other then the 'eye-candy', I don't see much that videos can offer that text either does better (give information), or can do in just the same. That said, there seems to be especially with the younger people I come across, a general perceived negativity in regards to reading. As if it is this strange thing only crazy people do. Mind you, some of the stuff that goes on, especially some of the 'trends' that happens make me scratch my head either in wonder, or plain surprise (not necessarily good) that such a thing even exists (or that someone came up with it).
When you say 'Young People' what age range are you talking. When I tell people I read in the bath they think I am insane......maybe the fully clothed bit throws them off haha
By young people I mean teenagers, give or take, or those that are older but still behave that way (an increasingly common occurrence in my opinion)
*groan* As a linguist, my opinion is the following: We tend to overemphasize the impact of those things that are flashy, and en vogue. It's the reason most people are convinced that slang is a tremendous juggernaut for linguistic change, when in fact, it is one of the weakest sources for change in any language. The written word is not going anywhere simply because the written word is the visual equivalent of the spoken word, and while writing is an invention, an artifact of man, speaking is not an invention, it's a feature of our species as innate and integral to what we are as one's liver or hand. Humans are the animals that talk.
With a book I can imagine on my own what the elements are in a story for myself. With video I have that wonderful little thing broken, as I am forced to see the creators vision. Video killed the imagination of the observer in some ways, where as a book allows your mind to see it as you would prefer.
@Necronox I agree, many 'young' people don't read and this tends to be because 'they don't have time' (when Thursday they'll all come stumbling back at 2 am and go to bed for the rest of the day). However, I don't think its because of negative ideas about reading, in fact when a film based on a book comes out and it has a large fan following everyone has suddenly read the book, and often they actually have. I find that books are only read if they are popular, which is why I love sharing little known books (that often rival HP and other 'amazing' books in my opinion).
Eventually the written word might start phasing out of society with advances in immersive virtual reality or biotechnology, but not anytime soon. Old habits die hard. The written word would have to be phased out by the newer generations and that would take decades. Video being the culprit? No, it's too conditional. Not everyone has the best device to upload videos. Considering "how you look" can make it more of a hassle than anything else. If a person has to take thirty minutes to look their best and then have five retakes until they get it right... I would rather just type my paragraph. I see the demographic for this update as not being as large as they're hoping. I personally would rarely use video.
This reminds me of an article @Wreybies shared with me once on Chinese writing - how the Chinese are forgetting how to write their own language because too often they use pinyin or voice recognition or just in some way, they bypass the act of actually writing by hand. But Chinese script is a whole different animal and it's being forgotten for different reasons. I wonder if this would result in the transformation of Chinese characters? You know, the way the spelling of a word morphs??
YES THANK YOU. I hate this trend of news 'articles' being nothing but a video. I don't have the patience to sit through a video. I immediately click off and find a written article to get the info I need. For a while, when YouTube was quite new, there was a trend in forums for the opening posts of threads to consist of nothing but a video. It always fecked me right off; I wanted words to go with it. The exception is cats. I will always watch a cat video. Maybe the answer is cat newsreaders, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and looking solemn.
I certainly hope he's wrong. I much prefer articles to videos. Different people are better at taking in information in different ways. I can absorb information far better if it's written down than if it's spoken to me. And I don't think people like me are in danger of extinction quite yet. I'd guess this guy can take in information better from video, and has made the mistake of assuming that everyone else works the same way as he does.
I work in marketing and we've had a lot of discussion about this recently when creating content for our new website. According to my colleagues, two minutes is the limit for a video--the average person will get bored of it then and move on. Under a minute is better. I don't have stats for the written word to compare, but I'd imagine you can read a lot more words in two minutes than you can listen to in a video. IMO a mixture of words, pictures, infographics, etc is ideal.
