How to approach learning part 2: videos are superior unless you're an expert (or just searching) | #14
4 different types of searches, Bloom's taxonomy, cognitive load: oh my!
In edition #12 of The Pole, I received the following thoughtful comment from
. He writes The Palindrome.One reason I like written technical content is precisely what you consider a con: you are forced to research the things you don't understand. Otherwise, you can't proceed. I am convinced that it is the best way to learn, as it makes you actively do things, not just ride along.
Don't get me wrong, I love video content, but it can often give you the false illusion of understanding something. In mathematics at least, real understanding comes from solving problems and using the available objects/tools so solve problems.
I meant for my last newsletter (#13) to be my response to his comment. But, as I was writing it out, I realized we were optimizing for different things.
So, I decided to dedicate part one (#13) to framing the problems and trade-offs of learning.
Now, with that context, I feel equipped to explain my perspective on when each is better. Let's get into it.
In this edition (#14):
written content forces learning: I agree if…
you’re trying to search for information, not learn
you won't suffer from cognitive overload
video content gives the illusion of understanding: yeah, but...
motivation is lower with written content
it's none of the content's business to tell me what I should know
understanding is still higher from video content
written content forces learning
Here's the first part of the comment again:
One reason I like written technical content is precisely what you consider a con: you are forced to research the things you don't understand. Otherwise, you can't proceed. I am convinced that it is the best way to learn, as it makes you actively do things, not just ride along.
I agree if you meet 1 of 2 conditions:
1. you're trying to search for information, not learn
Written content makes sense when your goal is to search for information.
I can name two groups of people who generally have that goal: experts and window shoppers.
Experts are folks who want to look up or locate information. Window shoppers are folks who want to browse or explore.
Here's a chart to illustrate the differences (source):
If you're an expert, you're not trying to learn something. You likely have a hyper-specific problem. Some examples:
You need to find a keyboard shortcut.
You need to recall step 7 of an 11 step process.
You need to know if a technique makes a certain assumption.
If you're a window shopper, you're not at a stage where you're serious about learning something. You might be surveying the scene to figure out what to learn. Or maybe you're curious. Or bored.
In either case, video can get in the way. A lot more tooling, like Find (CTRL + F) and Google, exists for searching written content.
It's a lot easier to scroll through pages than it is to fast forward and rewind through videos.
Each sentence on the page will pass through your vision, assuming you scroll at the right speed. But, for video, there's no guarantee you'll see the right frame when you fast-forward through it.
2. you won't suffer from cognitive overload
I elaborated on this in issue #12 but here's a summary:
Discussing complicated technical subjects requires a lot of context.
Some of that context is relevant at certain times and irrelevant at others.
Even if it’s relevant, your reader might already know it, rendering it redundant.
Written content is a static medium. Something is either on the page, or it isn’t.
Thus, you have to decide whether or not to include the relevant context.
For example, if you start talking about flarfdorfs on page 2, you have to decide if you should define the word flarfdorf or not. Can you assume your audience knows the word?
Let's say you talk about flarfdorfs again on page 5. Can you assume your audience read page 2? Can you assume they remembered what it means?
In most cases, to avoid bloat, the author will decide to define it once and then never again for the rest of the content.
However, if you're a beginner, there's no guarantee you will remember that definition. Especially if the content is new to you. You're learning a bunch of other ideas and definitions as well. Some of them are going to slip.
(For a salient example, check out the previous issue: #13.)
As a result, you'll have to flip back and forth between different pages and sources, wasting cognitive load.
If you're an expert, you have these ideas and definitions in long term memory already.
If you're a window shopper, you're not trying to learn it, so it's not a problem.
But if you're in the middle of those two groups, it can be a hassle. If you're towards the expert end of the spectrum, it's probably fine. But if you're more towards the beginner end, you will run into a lot of cognitive friction.
Unless you opt to watch a video instead. With video, it's no big deal to include a caption that re-defines a term. Instead of naming something and making your reader remember the name, you can physically point to it.
You have more flexibility to save your viewer from needless lookups or locates.
video content gives the illusion of understanding
Here's the second part of the comment again:
Don't get me wrong, I love video content, but it can often give you the false illusion of understanding something. In mathematics at least, real understanding comes from solving problems and using the available objects/tools so solve problems.
I agree. That makes sense to me under the lens of Bloom's taxonomy.
Watching videos demands less of your cognitive abilities than reading. Thus, it falls lower on the spectrum.
Which means it's easy to overestimate how much you understand from video content.
I think the inverse is true as well. It's easy to underestimate how much you understand from written content. What you don't know hits you in the face over and over.
That, I conjecture, is a much bigger problem. For a few reasons.
1. motivation is lower with written content
With written content, your perception of how much you’re learning lags behind reality.
The more your perception lags behind reality, the less progress is you can see.
The less progress you can see, the less motivated you become, the more likely you are to quit.
The less motivated you are, the less curious you become, the less you learn (and the worse your retention).
There are many angles I could take to explain why that's bad. For example, how many discoveries were made from sheer curiosity? How many discoveries are there that could have been made if there were less friction?
But ultimately, I'm a firm believer that learning should be fun. Both for practical reasons (you learn more when it's fun) and for selfish reasons.
2. it's none of the content's business to tell me what I should know
I've made the following mistake plenty of times:
I'll be working at my job or on a side project
I run into something I don't know
It seems complicated, so I decide I should go on a side-quest learning all about this thing
I buy a course on Udemy or Coursera about that thing and its ecosystem
I start the course and realize most of it is irrelevant to my problem
I abandon the course
In my experience, I rarely need more than 20% of the information from any given course. In fact, I don't need most of the information from most content.
It's worth noting that this varies a lot with the length of the content. The longer the content (e.g. a book), the smaller percentage of the content I care about. The shorter the content, the more likely I am to care about all of it (e.g. a 45 second food recipe on Tik Tok).
In any case, I appreciate flexible content that doesn't make assumptions about
1) what I already know, and
2) what I need to know
If I have to learn something, I want it to be because of my goal, not a goal dictated by the content.
This is more common on accident in written content because of the medium itself.
But it's also common on purpose. Some long form written content has a nasty habit of taking its readers' attention for granted.
Have you ever seen this insidious little phrase?
The solution is left as an exercise to the reader...
Umm...
Every time I see that phrase, I get so pissed off. How about… you stay out of my business?? Let me decide if I need to do this exercise or not.
If I'm curious, I'll try the exercise myself.
If I'm doing something that requires me having done that exercise, then I'll decide to do that exercise.
Otherwise, give me the damn solution. I have my own problems, I don't need you deciding what my problems should be.
Written content is bad about this. Particularly textbooks.
3. understanding is still higher from video content
I conjecture all the following statements are true:
we tend to overestimate how much we learn from video content
we tend to underestimate how much we learn from written content
we learn more from consuming video content than from written content
In other words, video is still better for understanding and retention. Even accounting for the under- and over-estimations.
This is a bold claim. So let me be clear about what I mean.
I'm talking about pure consumption. No shifting away from the content to do exercises or other activities to engage with the material.
With that in mind, my claim comes from cognitive load theory. Written content is more likely to incur extraneous load than video content. Especially the closer you are to being a beginner.
(See: “2. you won't suffer from cognitive overload” a few sections before this.)
So, all else being equal, if two pieces of content have the same information, but content A takes less brain power to understand, then content A is better. At least, that’s my current opinion!