Youtube.

I have plenty of new concepts about the world on my mind after my recent visit to California… I have already elaborated on some topics in this blog.

However, it might be an idea to wait for a while. Then, you develop an aftertaste in order to get to the deeper layers of this cake.

It usually goes like this. A large number of snapshots and small details noticed on the way get processed over a period of time.

They morph into a more general picture on your mind – and this process can take weeks, or maybe even months. According to Stickgold (2005), much of this consolidation happens during sleep.

What Does YouTube Really Represent About the World?

One thing is striking to me, however. YouTube seems to be a much better representation of the world than I expected. I use to just start watching YouTube from a random movie on one of the numerous topics interesting to me.

These range from the world economy, and trading, through reviews of good movies. Then to documentaries on the history of humankind, aircraft, religions… or just a random trivia. 

Then, I set it free so that the movies can load one after another. And then, YouTubing goes on and on and on for the whole day, with movies loading freely and unconstrained. The result is this: I am getting the popular material on the subjects interesting to be served by YouTube’s algorithms. 

How Does YouTube Influence Real-Life Trends and Culture?

So, when I found myself in Silicon Valley, I realized something. I had heard about almost all the new trends in business and industry, and almost all the influential figures in the Valley. This came from YouTube, not from the press or television. 

This means that whatever is more or less popular in real life, becomes also popular online. Or maybe even the opposite? This remark might seem trivial, but in fact, it is not as trivial as it seems.

It is still a popular opinion that YouTube represents only the interests of certain, usually young, groups in society. That is, mostly bored teenagers who have nothing better to do after classes than to create YouTube movies. According to the Pew Research Center (2018), 73% of American adults use YouTube, more than any other platform. 

How Does YouTube Enable Passive Learning?

In fact, everyone surfs these days, and YouTube can capture all the technological and academic progress. The wonderful feeling I had was that I didn’t really need to pay an active effort to absorb all this information. All this knowledge came through latent learning: by listening to YouTube materials served to me by YouTube algorithms.

According to Tolman (1948), reviewing his classic maze experiments with Honzik, learning can take place through mere exposure, without any reward or active effort. It only becomes visible later once there is a reason to use it. It felt a little bit like learning a foreign language by just finding yourself in a neighbourhood where this language is spoken.

According to Saffran, Aslin and Newport (1996) in Science, even 8-month-old infants can pick up the structure of a language after just a couple of minutes of passive listening. This comes purely from the statistical patterns in what they hear. 

Conclusion.

This effect also demonstrates how much the internet already surpassed all the other media, including television. Young, fresh and smart YouTube vloggers are already far more advanced in understanding and commenting on reality. They beat the army of professional journalists on a high budget, producing for the evening news.

YouTube community can just capture the spirit of society so much better… For instance, the Silicon Valley community is as fascinated with Elon Musk as the YouTube community.

And, YouTube is also full of enthusiasm towards cryptocurrencies. Therefore, it would be stupidity, or ignorance, not to embark on this train.