Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I kind of hate to say it because I'm not a big fan of it, but video content seems to have the widest appeal.
I don't know that you'll ever be able to get to a single absolutely clear method though. People have different learning styles. For example, I prefer reading a book by text, but I just can't absorb an audiobook. Meanwhile I have several friends who can't focus well enough to sit through a dense book and can retain the whole thing through audio.
Anyway, videos check a lot of boxes that other formats miss. For example, so much of our communication relies on non-verbal cues which are missing entirely from books. While an audiobook might capture the tone, you still miss the body language.
Another advantage to videos is that depending on the tutorial, it can be both visual and experiential. A step-by-step video recipe is more accessible for new cooks who might not know what "mix until smooth" actually looks like.
So why don't I like videos? Well, to use the cooking example again, I already know how to cook. I don't actually need step-by-step guides, and usually I just need to refer back to the ingredients or a single step. It can be difficult or time consuming to scroll back through a video and find the exact right spot. My personal peeve is all these tiktok videos that get shared to me showing a recipe, where each ingredient flashes once for a half second, and if I miss it I have to let the whole video loop to find it again.
So anyway for broad appeal and for introduction to a subject, I think videos are probably the most enjoyed format. For a deeper dive or a reference it's got to be text for me.