Now there is excellent serious educational material on youtube, stuff like khan academy, etc, but thats not what people are watching for leisure.

If youre going to learn something useful, it is going to be difficult - e.g. it requires work on the part of the watcher. Gen z isnt just learning physics by idly watching veritasium videos.

It's not directly equipping the audience with professional skills for a scientific career, but it is generating interest in science, and indirectly encouraging people to expand their own STEM skills and knowledge. I'm sure that dozens (hundreds? thousnads?) of people have gone into mathematics at least in part due to an interest generated by the likes of numberphile, etc.

> They can literally leave school and already be professionally competent. I think we’ll see them leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had a youth where they could spend their entire time learning literally everything there is to know about their passion for free.

Now if a kid watching videos that are long form treatments on specific subjects and are following allong with a pen and paper doing practice problems, sure, thats a case where youtube might give you some serious skills, but that is a tiny fraction of kids and those same kids would have been doing the same shit with textbooks at their local library. Youtube is waaaaaaaay closer to being purely a distraction than to being something we could consider "educational" in any serious sense.

The thing is, when people are motivated to do something, they'll learn what they need. Otherwise, not even school can force feed students into learning those things.

Are you sure, that's what the original comment said?

I interpret the quote you posted as "they can already know everything about their passion when they leave school", which would mean that YT is not a replacement for school - but an addition to it.

And that's exactly what kids need. They can wait to hone rigor and scientific intuition. As long as the interest takes root, they'll find their way.

Veritasium is cut in the same cloth as Bill Nye (and Mr. Wizard before him), and we anecdotally know Bill inspired folks to pursue STEM.

> They can literally leave school and already be professionally competent. I think we’ll see them leapfrogging millennials on the career ladder because they had a youth where they could spend their entire time learning literally everything there is to know about their passion for free.

I think he’s right in theory, but in reality kids just watch what’s entertaining.

And is that because of infotainment?

Technology Connections will provide deep understanding of the refrigeration cycle, how different types of gas lamps work, how heat pumps work, and how developing film works.

And those are just the video series I can remember.

They're totally different things, obviously...

> you may learn some factoids about physics are learn about some cool experience but in no way will they impart to you a deep understanding of any subject. Those sorts of edutainment style videos are not ever going to compete against say, a college degree.

I disagree with this sentiment, even though what you say is technically true.

"Deep understanding" can't be imparted, not in school, not in a video. Here we all know plenty of engineers with degrees with no deep understanding of the programming languages they use daily. Deep understanding can't be imparted, you have to go and grab it by yourself.

"If you want people to build a ship, don't talk to them about sails and wood and tar, tell them about freedom."

Those edutainment videos have sparked my curiosity and help me appreciate things about the world around me I wouldn't have noticed. For really deep understanding, I may have to let this curiosity propel me into a book. Going into a book about urban design after a "Not just bike videos" with curiosity and an intuitive although shallow understanding, is much better than sitting through 50 minutes of a boring and bored professor drawling about something, which was a lot of my college experience.

You are right that Youtube can't replace college, or making experiments yourself, or reading a book. It's a different thing. But, specially for kids, this is how education should start, and it may be way more fundamental than the other pieces.

You are also right that if kids, or anyone, stays on the level of watching Youtube videos, not much is gained. But still, that edutainment can be a great part of education.

- An instrument/songwriting

- Music Production

- Video Production

- DevOps

- Network Administration

- Any kind of programming (Frontend, Backend, Game Development, Assembly, whatever you can think of)

- Vehicle Mechanics

- Electronics Repair

- Maths

- Hair and Makeup

- Costume/Fashion Design

- Fitness/sport coaching

- Graphic Design

- Bookkeeping

- CAD Design

- Carpentry

- Plumbing

And these are just the ones off the top of my head. They might need to get the piece of paper in order to legally practice, but the kids out there who like delving into how things work (and they do exist) could absolutely have all the knowledge they needed to work in a professional capacity and often do. Proficiency and reputation trump certificates.

are MIT lectures "factoids" now?

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mit+opencoursew...

> Gen z isnt just learning physics by idly watching veritasium videos.

This is a massive generalisation. Sure, I'd probably agree with you that a large cohort are watching a lot of trash. But there's a sizeable amount who are putting the work. And I imagine that the percentage of those putting in the work probably increases the closer they are to the poverty line growing up.

That's "piqued my interest". It's a homophone. Also used in "fit of pique" and, very rarely "piquant". It's a word on its way out, but I like it.

Reading stories to children for example. If the story is interesting, the child will want to know how the story goes on. As soon as they can read, they will be tempted to grab that book and find out.

I'll elaborate this evening, but as a lower poster said, it is all rolling dice and everyone is certainly their own beast in their own cage. I will gladly share how it seemingly transpired (and I feel, more important, the reasoning behind focusing on such things).

In very short, I'm a huge believer that we seriously underestimate what small children are capable of understanding at you get ages, and have always felt that exposure to 'all the things' helps provide needed prospective about all that is available in life.

They have both absorbed enough surface level interest and actual information that when watching a video about a semi related subject, they find themselves referencing OTHER information they learned from another video/source and click the pieces together like Lego -- you can see their eyes light up when this connection is made in their head, and I feel it starts really showing that information across the board is solely a piece to a way way bigger puzzle, and that although learning about seemingly disconnected things in a jumble can often find itself existing the jumble and finding its place in APPLICATION in life somewhere.

This seems to really nail home the point that anything, really, may be worth learning because no doubt a real world use case may arise sometime in the future.

Again, I can write more when time allows, but that's the reasoning behind it all. We also do a ton of projects where we can actually, partially at least, use a lot of the things learned from videos and transcribe them from thoughts alone into tangible end results - beyond important for everyone of every age, IMO

Close, V E R I S T A B L I U M

(For those not in the know, this is an in-joke originating at least from the Hello Internet podcast, with CGP Grey and Brady Haran. "Veritasium" is, indeed, the correct spelling.)

Ol' Dirk Miller! Heckuva guy!

But that there's that other guy Derek Mueller who has totally copied his channel.