Friday, August 5, 2011

Video/Audio vs. Print

In the news business, newspapers are turning to online video as the Next Big Thing, using it to enhance or sometimes replace print versions of stories they report on.

A number of ministers -- UU and non-UU -- opt to post their sermons only as podcasts.

On his blog, Will has a recording of something by Adolph Reed that I really want to get to...sometime. ("I haven't had a chance to play this," he notes...)

Am I really that unusual in my preference for print over audio/video? I don't boycott web video or anything like that. (There are some web videos I make a point of watching, in fact.)

But my bias is toward the written word, big time. Maybe its my general impatience and the difficulty I have sitting still. I can flip through really quickly and zero in on the portions of a text that are most pertinent to me right now.

If I have to listen to an hour-long audio clip or video clip, it's gonna be when I'm otherwise able to multi-task, like cleaning up my office space.

Am I that unusual this way?


3 comments:

  1. Nope. If there was a transcript of the Reed talk, I would've read it in five or ten minutes. If I wasn't a writer, I could listen to it while doing something else, but I'm a writer. I don't have much opportunity to do one thing and listen to another.

    But you and I are the exceptions. At least, that's the theory.

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  2. I can only stand to watch video on-line if it's about a minute or so. I simply lose interest. I can listen to podcasts at some length, but I have to be doing other things (almost always washing the dishes). I'd rather read what someone wants to say over video in almost every case.

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  3. I do not listen to nor watch podcasts. I'll watch the occasional Youtube video if it is short, but that's it.

    ReplyDelete

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