Why You Should Stop Watching YouTube and Pick Up a Book

When I tell people I read roughly 100 nonfiction books a year, I get three kinds of responses:

1. “Holy shit! Wow, gee, that’s a lot of books. I read, like, five books a year.” (Most common)
2. “I love reading too. Have you read [insert book title here]? I’m reading that now.” (Least common)
3. “I don’t read, but I do watch YouTube videos and listen to podcasts and stuff!”

I’ve noticed a trend with the people who listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos but don’t read books, and it’s that they’re always pretty superficially educated on whatever they’re educated about. They’re able to start a conversation with me about something I’ve about, but we quickly reach a point where I’m citing more studies or bringing up more points and it becomes evident whatever I’ve read was more in-depth than whatever they watched/listened to.

They don’t realize it, of course. YouTubers and podcasters don’t talk about the stuff they leave out. But most YouTube videos and podcasts are short (less than an hour), and that is not a lot of time to really pour over the results of a study or examine every edge case or rebuttal someone may bring up in response, so by dint of their length, these formats are not conducive to in-depth learning.

It isn’t the video or audio format’s fault. People who educate themselves primarily by reading blog articles tend to have the same problem. It isn’t that the listeners/viewers/readers are stupid, either. Many of these people are more intelligent than me. As far as I can tell, it’s just a function of the length; 30 minutes isn’t enough time to really get into details.

As a content creator, I empathize with the challenge of creating content. When I’m writing an article, I don’t cite most of my claims even if they’re true and even if I know where the citation is because it’s just a dang internet article. I also don’t raise and address every edge-case scenario that may be relevant, nor do I stop to address every rebuttal someone may have. I just make my point and move on.

And you know what? Judging by my stats page, that’s what readers want. Readers don’t want behemoth 15-minute reads stuffed full of case studies and citations. They want something easy to digest with a quick reward and then they want to move on. Long-form content is available (audiobooks, books, some feature-length YouTube videos), but people don’t want it.

The only problem is, short-form content isn’t going to give you the education you’re looking for. It gives you the empty calories version; you feel educated while watching/listening to this content, but when you come toe-to-toe with someone who can truly challenge what you know, you’ll come up short.

We all know what I mean. You know when you meet someone who just seems to know a lot of stuff? Someone who can seemingly talk with erudition about anything, from particle physics to WWI history to Athenian philosophy? That’s what I mean. These people aren’t superhumans with godlike intelligence; they just read a lot of books (or listen to a lot of audiobooks, or serialized YouTube videos or podcasts, or online courses, or any other long-form content. You get the picture.)

Some people (including me) call this kind of short-form educational content “infotainment” — it’s not really educational, per se, it’s just entertainment with true information. You come away knowing some fun facts about the subject at hand, but you still completely lack an understanding of the subject matter’s fundamentals.

I think most people who consume a lot of infotainment aspire to be one of these educated people — but you’re never going to get there on infotainment, the educational equivalent of baby food. (If you could, they’d teach college courses using six-minute YouTube videos instead of textbooks.) The only way to get an education is to consume truly educational content.

There’s a lot of truly educational content out there, but my favorite is still, by far and away, the book.

Books have tons of advantages. There are millions of books in the world. Hundreds of thousands of them have been recorded into audiobooks, many of them by the author themselves. They cover every conceivable topic of human knowledge, meaning you are completely unlimited in what you can choose to learn about. You can take them at your own pace, as slow or as fast as you like. When you’re done, you can say “I read X” and people will know exactly what you’re talking about. I could go on.

If you’re used to getting your information from ten-minute YouTube videos, I challenge you to close YouTube for a week and spend your time reading a book. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

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