YouTube has only been around since 2005, but has grown to become the most popular video content sharing platform used globally today. 500 hours of content are uploaded to the platform every minute. You can find anything and everything on YouTube; including an abundance of cat videos, soap cutting, makeup videos, motivational speeches, poached egg tutorials and the list goes on… You can teach yourself pretty much anything just by typing it into the search bar on YouTube.
However, with great power comes great responsibility. Every user of the site has the opportunity to create and upload content that has the potential to reach billions of people every day. A recent phenomenon called crowd accelerated innovation has been brought to light by head of TED, Chris Anderson. This is basically the idea that platforms like YouTube make learning faster and easier than ever before through the sharing of video content online.
YouTube is a self-fuelling learning cycle because people post their experiences and knowledge online and those innovations can be absorbed by billions of people on a global scale. The internet provides us with the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, but YouTube puts this knowledge into visual content rather than print. Market research company (Forrester Research), estimates one minute of online video equates to approximately 1.8 million written words. Therefore, you’re much better off watching a 1-minute video than reading a 30,000-page book. Even though some videos on YouTube can seem insignificant and pointless, it’s all part of the process of learning.
Let me know down below something you’ve learned from watching a YouTube video… even if it was ‘how to poach an egg’, because I’m not going to lie, I’ve definitely been there.
Comments