The entire way the old media reports on the new media is unironical scaremongering about how the internet is hacking the fear response of your amygdala. They should instead be positive and publish articles like "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into more depth that the master program of any university".
Sure. And then, at the end of every youtube video a whole slew of totally unrelated trashy videos that are perfectly produced to produce maximum engagement and eye candy will hijack your attention and steal another 3 hours before you even notice that they're gone because of the in-your-face nature of the recommendations.
Wouldn't it be great if all youtube did was just store and replay videos? But it doesn't, it's an engagement and advertising dollars slot machine.
If you use the toggle next to the closed caption to turn off autoplay, instead of playing another video the player will show thumbnails for other videos after the current one finishes. These filters prevent those suggestions from showing up, and you just get a black rectangle when the video is finished.
Could you point me in the direction of a single YouTube channel that goes into more depth than a Masters program?
Other than occasional captured lectures, everything 'educational' on YouTube seems to me to be optimising for that TED-style sense of wonder / happy familiarisation with the content, which is poorly associated with learning outcomes.
It's difficult to find material that's a series, rigorously demonstrated and advanced at the same time (there's lots excellent material that ticks either one or the other of those boxes). Here are some examples I subscribe to that come close:
Covers Quantum Field Theory and General relativity in as approachable a manner as I imagine is possible while still going deep into detail: https://www.youtube.com/c/viascience/videos
You may tell me I'm cheating by posting videos that are obviously not "native" to YouTube, but YouTube was the way I found them, how I watch them, and how I share them with other people.
OK, so YouTube-native videos are hard mode. Try https://youtu.be/WHASYE2e5Xo I suppose? I like it. It has life lessons I'd argue are at least as valuable as the videos you're thinking about.
Kling is building an operating system and a web browser, and frequently relases videos about the work. Most go through development of a single feature. The videos are unedited to show all of the development steps: design, implementation and debugging. A Masters program usually has more theory and larger scope, but this is more hands-on and in-depth.
But the internet is hacking your amygdala, and has been for years. Most of the information and stimulus you come across on the internet is designed to manipulate you, deceive you and control you in some way, and it works. This has real ramifications at scale, as the spread of disinformation and violence enabled by social media has shown us.
This isn't unironical scaremongering, it's a real thing and it is newsworthy. "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into more depth that the master program of any university" is exactly the kind of clickbait garbage people wish the media would do less of.
Also, the "old media" no longer really exists, it lost its identity and was assimilated long ago. Every media outlet that exists is deeply invested in the web, everyone is "new media" now.
Why would old media publish articles that people don't want to read? No one would read "here are 10 youtube channels that are more in depth than a master program". They would go out of business in a quarter. It's not like old media doesn't publish a variety of content and then evaluate which gets the most views already. They know we don't want to sit through fifty hours of academic lectures instead of reality tv.
I also think it's funny to describe "old media reporting on new media as scaremongering" when scaremongering in the form of conspiracy theory and false expertise in new media (social media) is arguably its greatest flaw. What facebook et al have empowered in terms of fear and control is truly breathtaking. I don't think the insulated tech community of hacker news can truly appreciate how many people in the West have been led to fully distrust science and academia. How many reject medical science and climate science. How many have been manipulated into thinking collapse and violence are imminent and have engineered their entire lives around that belief, from moving to far away rural areas and stockpiling weapons and supplies. The breadth of the scaremongering and thoughtcontrol that social media enables is unparalleled in our history.
One of our political parties has found out that by pressing the 'anti-government' button and piling on a bunch of conspiracy theories they can mobilize scarily large sections of society for protests, which invariably turn violent because there is a radical element at play.
