I’m somewhat disturbed by the proliferation of audio and video content on the Internet nowadays, including the strangely-named “podcasting”. While it’s pretty neat that computers and bandwidth are to the point where distributing such forms of media is a realistic thing to do, it’s a little jarring. Web pages are much easier to read and skim through, whereas if somebody’s offering an audio-only version of something, I’m not very likely to take the time to download it and listen to the whole thing. There’s likely some interesting stuff in there, but it’s much harder to find since you’d need to listen to the whole thing. Maybe it’s just me missing the iPod revolution, or maybe it’s just that we’re now in such a rapid-paced culture that even listening to an entire audio file seems like too much. I’m not really sure. But it seems like there’s getting to be more and more content out there that I’m not bothering with since it’s only available in audio or video.
So, am I the only one yearning for the days of yore, when text was all you had to work with? Or do others sometimes feel the same way?
I also prefer text to audio/video for asynchronous communication where no emotional content is required.
When talking synchronously with someone, I do prefer audio (phone) to text (AIM).
Sometimes listening to a voice conveys more than reading text. It can be more personal. Spoken dialogue conveys more too. It’s not so dynamic reading dialogue on a web page. And if there’s something in particular I’m interested in listening to, I can just sit back and relax while I let it play. It serves a different function than text on a webpage, and when I start listening to online audio, I usually have a pretty good idea it’s something I’ll be interested in beforehand.
Text is where it is at.
Makes compression easier. For my brain, I mean.