Random people on the Internet have played a huge role in my education. I’m not just referring to my coursework at university, but also to “Bildung” more generally. I’ve learned a ton by browsing StackOverflow threads and reading Medium articles. However, I’ve probably learned the most from watching YouTube.

Learning by watching #

Above all, there’s some really high-quality content out there. Nowadays there are full-time YouTubers, working on creating professional, meticulously edited videos. And some channels, such as Kurzgesagt, are even ran by entire teams of illustrators and script-writers. Moreover, because anyone can record themselves and upload it to YouTube, we have world-class experts sharing their knowledge in YouTube lectures¹. This means there are some truly remarkable YouTube videos. For example, here are comments from some 3Blue1Brown videos:

“I dropped out in 10th grade 25 years ago and your videos have inspired me to go back to school.”

“You sir truly deserve an honorary doctorate - just for this video. Your impact to generations of confused engineering and math students will forever ripple through our society.”

“I have a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and I’m starting to think I should redo my whole education from ground up searching for this kind of intuitive knowledge. It’s absurd that I find out explanations which are as intuitive as this one so late in my life. I’m blown away completely! I mean how many bits of information have we stumbled upon during our formal education failing to see how they elegantly relate to each other and form a bigger picture…oh my!”

Moreover, videos tend to be more attention-grabbing than articles. Although most people are unable to read while cooking or brushing their teeth, they can watch videos. So getting started learning has never required less willpower: just search “Introduction to…” on YouTube.

Learning to watch #

Of course, YouTube isn’t designed to be a learning platform. But there ways of optimising for a better learning experience.

The first step is to recognise that YouTube tries maximising user retention. This is a feature, not a bug. It means we can design our YouTube interface such that we end up binge watching informative videos about topics we care about. Here are some ways of achieving this:

• Train your algorithm: in your YouTube feed, take 2 seconds to press “Not interested” whenever something irrelevant pops up. It pays off - I find the YouTube algorithm to be surprisingly sensitive to my feedback.²
• Keep separate accounts: on a similar note, I have two Google accounts: my main account, and my secondary account. I’ll use my main account for watching “useful” content, while I’ll log onto my secondary account for, well, everything else.
• Block channels: use ColdTurkey to block certain YouTube channels.

The second step is to recognise the limits of just watching videos. There’s a reason we don’t abandon more traditional media altogether. When reading a book, I find it much easier recognising when I’m confused. However, after finishing a video, I sometimes find myself completely lost and unable to tell where I stopped following. Moreover, whenever I have a physical textbook, I’ll often refer back to chapters I’ve finished, just to refresh my memory. Here are two partial fixes:

• Media notes plugin: the Media Notes plugin for Obsidian is a real game-changer. It allows you to watch YouTube videos from inside Obsidian and take notes with timestamps. When doing this, I seem to engage more with the material. Taking physical notes while watching YouTube is a bit overkill, so this seems like a good compromise.
• Rewatch your favourite videos: it’s easy ending up only consuming new content, just because the YouTube landing page is filled with new videos. But it’s worth saving your favourite videos to playlists and rewatching them later.

As I discussed above, there are some hacks for a better learning experience. However, YouTube could also design their platform differently. They could e.g. develop distraction-free mode, enabling the user to remove shorts, ads or sponsored content. From a technical perspective, it’s doable. But we could also go beyond ordinary videos. For example, Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen have explored ways of incorporating an element of spaced repetition in videos, making for a more interactive learning experience; see here. In general, I’m excited about integrating modern technology with education.

All this said, I’d like to thank the strangers who have played - and continue to play - an important role in my education.