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Textbooks are the old way to learn, but sometimes old is gold.

Use videos for faster learning though. It’s pretty much learning on cruise mode.



I find the opposite, I can pace myself with books, take notes in the margins, interact with the harder concepts, cruise through the easier ones. Answer the questions at the end of the book in-line, it feels much more interactive. Since I can physically visualize all the sections/chapters it's easier to skip around. Video is so linear and passive; I have to go at the pace of the video and it's harder move alinearly. Also I have much more stamina for reading than listening to audio, the words start to blur together after a while.


My chief problem with learning from videos is... videos progress at a linear rate, but I don't absorb concepts at a linear rate. And even when delivery_rate/absorption_rate is a constant, it's rarely 1. I often have to stop, reverse, flip pages back and forth to compare precedents with consequents -- none of which is feasible with video.

With books I can also stop and take notes or reflect on what I've learned. That's harder with video.

And of course fewer words are spoken on video than are written in a book with fewer concepts and fewer illustrations, and with more verbal miscues -- errors or omissions.

I also rely heavily on the index of a book to look up related topics and terms, as used by the author.

In subjects that are precise (like math or algorithms) I've found learning from books to be far superior to video.

That said, some videos are great, especially those that animate or visualize, like 3Blue1Brown and Khan Academy.


Asking as an avid textbook fan -- what might be some videos that you especially like?


> Use videos for faster learning though.

I'm pretty sure I can read at twice the speed that an average video is spoken.

And more importantly I can pause to think, re-read a sentence I didn't grasp and pace myself. All of these are far more cumbersome to do with video.

There my be entirely valid reasons to prefer videos. But I strongly contest the claim that videos are faster.


I like videos for small topics as well, but I find reading much easier for hard to digest knowledge, personally




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