Friday, October 13, 2017

"How College Loans Got So Evil"

Warning to video viewers, thanks to the pivot to video, things are about to get really ugly really quickly. The trouble is that while the volume is going to increase sharply, the supply of people with the ability to make good videos is not going to increase significantly. that means the ratio of quality to crap is going to drop even further (and it's not like we're in double digits to start with).

To make matters worse, video viewing is more linear and less, for lack of a better word, interactive than reading. With text, you can skim, reread, jump around on the screen. All of this makes it easier to determine whether something is worth your time.

My advice (which I follow myself) is to stick with trusted referrals and proven content producers. Recommendation algorithms aren't very good now and they will only get worse as average quality drops.

Fortunately, even the most selective viewers can find enough to fill their time. I have a special fondness for what might be called the Daily Show kids, millennials who came of age wanting to be Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Smart, funny, irreverent but socially conscious (sometimes lapsing into preachy). They also embrace Stewart's and Oliver's emphasis on solid research and often take it a step further (check out the corner of the screen in the video below).

This segment from Adam Conover is a good example of what happens when everything works: the topic is important; the information is clearly but entertainingly presented ; and the central conceit is skillfully executed and perfectly apt.





And if you do run out of video, trying reading something. That's what the young people are doing.

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