Video anxiety

[Physics Guy]

A few of us have expressed our dislike of videos. Other people seem to like them.

I admit grudgingly that videos can be good. I watched a really clear and short video once about how to fix a certain kind of faucet that was exactly like ours, and by following it, I easily fixed our faucet. The video format was important for that. Text would have had to use a lot of words to explain what exactly to do, and probably still would never have been really clear. So videos can have their place, I admit.

I also admit that some videos are bad just because they are badly made videos. Anything can be bad, even cake, if you do it wrong. The videos in which some narrator rambles for five minutes before even starting to get to the point aren't really strokes against videos in general.

And I don't mind videos as mindless entertainment, sometimes. I can betray my childish taste in videos by plugging the series of animations that turns up if you google "What if animals were round?"

Otherwise I just do not like videos, and I think I know why, though it's not really a rational reason.

My mother always did most of the driving in our family when my brothers and I were kids. Once we all had licenses, Mom suddenly found herself being a passenger occasionally, and she discovered that she was a terrible passenger. We were surprised to hear that from her, because she didn't actually nag us or back-seat-drive on us, but she had to clamp her mouth shut, she said, not to do that. She was just so used to the car being a place where she was in control, that it drove her nuts not to be in control.

I'm a terrible passenger in anyone else's train of thought. It makes me uncomfortable to be unable to control the pace and direction. I want to stop and get out.

[Some Schmo]

I'm a terrible passenger in anyone else's train of thought. It makes me uncomfortable to be unable to control the pace and direction. I want to stop and get out.

This sounds like a fancy way of saying you don't like listening to most people.

And frankly, I understand. I don't either.

[Physics Guy]

I don't like just listening, no. Listening in a small group, or one-on-one, is usually okay, though, because people usually don't go on for too long without pausing for some sort of response from their listeners. Even if all I say is, "Uh-huh", and they go on, even that can give me enough sense of control over what I have to be thinking that I relax.

And even when you're just listening to someone talk, if they are physically in the same room with you, you have a fair amount of control over exactly what you pay attention to, about them. You can glance at their hands, look at their eyes and see if they make eye contact, read the slogan on their t-shirt, and so on. You can also let your thoughts wander a bit, because if you miss something it will be less tedious to ask the person to repeat it than it would be to have to rewind back to it in a video.

Listening to talks or sermons is okay, even though the speaker won't usually respond to any one person in the audience, because I have more freedom to let my mind wander without anyone complaining. Nobody expects you to remember anything in particular from a colloquium talk or a sermon; they're buffets from which you can pick what you like. Plus I generally attend those for social reasons besides any information I might hope to gain from the presentation itself.

Videos just seem to demand that I surrender control over more of my mental bandwidth. I have to see what the author wants me to see, as well as hear what they want me to hear. The typical YouTube resolution and frame size don't allow me to focus in on something in the frame, or glance around outside the frame, if I want.

[Some Schmo]

That's interesting, PG.

When you start a video, do you feel compelled to finish it? Can't you just let your mind wander in the same way you would in church, or just stop the video?

When I said I didn't really like listening to most people, I could have expanded that to say it was because most people don't have interesting (to me) things to say. I was thinking about speeches and presentations, etc.

Like you, I think conversations are a totally different ballgame, because you're part of it and can help the direction it takes.

But it's not just speeches; it extends to TV and movies. I'm very picky about what I'll watch. It's been many years where the real cost of a film for me was the time, not the money. So yeah, if I finally land on investing time to click the "play" button, all I'm investing is five or ten minutes. If I'm not grabbed right away, I've got no problem shutting it off.

So to your earlier metaphor, for me to finish a movie, I've got to feel comfortable with the driver right away, or I'll get out of the car.

[doubtingthomas]

This sounds like a fancy way of saying you don't like listening to most people.
And frankly, I understand. I don't either.

Of course, it's obvious.

You only like to attack without carefully reading what others are saying. You have no interest in understanding other points of view.

[Marcus]

That's interesting, PG.

When you start a video, do you feel compelled to finish it? Can't you just let your mind wander in the same way you would in church, or just stop the video?

When I said I didn't really like listening to most people, I could have expanded that to say it was because most people don't have interesting (to me) things to say. I was thinking about speeches and presentations, etc.

Like you, I think conversations are a totally different ballgame, because you're part of it and can help the direction it takes.

But it's not just speeches; it extends to TV and movies. I'm very picky about what I'll watch. It's been many years where the real cost of a film for me was the time, not the money. So yeah, if I finally land on investing time to click the "play" button, all I'm investing is five or ten minutes. If I'm not grabbed right away, I've got no problem shutting it off.

So to your earlier metaphor, for me to finish a movie, I've got to feel comfortable with the driver right away, or I'll get out of the car.

(just bypassing the derailment to get back to the topic.)

[Gadianton]

That's weird, PG. I absolutely cannot stand sermons and talks and lectures, generally, but I do watch a lot of YouTube lately. Part of that is probably I'm picking the content with YouTube, and I can exit the video if it's not working out.

There aren't many videos I watch all the way through. YouTubers in general have bad editing skills. Idea recycling is also a problem.

[Res Ipsa]

I don’t like to use or view videos as part of an argument, although I’ve never thought about it terms of anxiety. If I’m trying to understand and evaluate an argument, everything other than the words themselves is a distraction. It’s time consuming to refer back to earlier parts of the argument to see if the asserted conclusions are well supported. Andrew it’s easy to blow past weasel words or rhetorical sleight of hand when the speaker has oratorical skill. When it’s just the words, the argument has to stand on its own.

[Physics Guy]

I guess my issue isn't just internet videos, actually. I rarely watch movies either at home or in theaters. I can be dragged along to them but watching a movie never occurs to me as something to do. And I, um, haven't watched TV in about 25 years. Very rarely I might see a few minutes of something that someone else is watching.

It's not that I'm convinced that TV shows are all bad. On the contrary I have the impression that quite a few are classic works of art which I should be sure to watch through sometime, like when I'm retired. I think it's just this anxiety I have about surrendering my attention, in advance, for a period longer than a few minutes.

Maybe it started in college. I lived for a couple of years in a house that had a TV, in the middle 80s, when music videos were the new thing. We all found that we could easily spend hours watching disappointing videos in the never-failing but always-dashed hope that the next one would be good. There was just something about the medium that set our brains into passive mode, rendering us powerless to get off the couch.

I think maybe that experience gave me a lifelong aversion to video, in kind of the way college alcohol abuse turns some people into lifelong non-drinkers.

[Some Schmo]

I will say that I'm of the generation that thought music videos were going to destroy music. Funny how predictions of destruction rarely pan out.

But I can certainly see how music videos in the 80's could sour someone to audiovisual devices generally. If I want to "watch" music, I'll see it live.