"Dying world of print," or changing world of print? And whether Google is actually making us dumber needs to be taken in context and adjusted (like the value of money over time) so we can allow for distortion. Consider that now, with the easy access to an ocean of information, we have the potential to both know more and the expectation to know more (there is just more to know). That we barely stay afloat (forget things and misremember) in this ocean, is simply a reflection of this.
I have heard, though, that when you present information in a narrative form, that that information is easier to remember. Perhaps that is what John meant. (Like Jesus and the parables, the story is the example of the concept)
I knew I was gay by the time I was 11, and I never told a living soul until I went away to college. Guarding my secret and hiding my feelings for so long left me with an enormous sense of isolation and loneliness. So I have my copy of "Will Grayson, Will Grayson," and I'm looking forward to diving right in. I'm sure I'll enjoy the story, but I'll also enjoy imagining what it would have been like to have read it way back when.
I greatly appreciate "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" because it has a prominent gay character. There simply was nothing like it available to me when I was a teenager. I may have come across a gay character in a TV show or movie three or four times a year, and the few gay characters I did see were generally presented as tragic.
I certainly do hope that storytelling survives the internet. I can't imagine a world without storytelling in one form or another. I'm a novelist myself, but, alas, unpublished. However, I've not made a great effort to get published, so I guess that's my own fault. I've not, as yet, developed a thick enough skin to subject myself to the rejection that will undoubtedly come after sending out query letters.
Would it be that your best videos are video responses as you stated in your Q Report? Oh well my thoughts are that must people actually don't realize the incredible information we can find in books. Internet does provide a powerful way to access to information but I still believe it hasn't match the quality of the information we can find in books...... yet.... In addition, I hate to read too much in my comp. screen... it hurts my eyes in the long term...
unless I'm wrong & remembering Plato's own story, I'm pretty sure that the myth of the invention of writing is itself oral, involving a "pharaoh" who has the invention brought before him and states that it would make men not forgetful since they'd be using paper as a stand-in for memory; which I 'm not sure has been the effect of writing.
Also, you mention "information" & the novel. I think there's a Walter Benjamin essay that says that the birth of the notion of Information is the death of art.
@skrewuloser You're talking about the Phaedrus, but the one problem with the oral story given about writing's possible detriment is that Socrates is speaking it as a character in Plato's writing. The debate about the value of writing is entirely confined to literary characters. It's an entertaining little paradox to chuckle about.
so, i got the thumbs now *sad* I kind of want the stars back..
I think the movement from novels to google or writing to the internet is kind of like the shift from oral and memorization to writing. We're not getting dumber, just thinking differently.
part two: I read and was fascinated by the article about whether google is making us stupid, and I agree with you that google is not making us stupider as a group (just as writing didn't). In fact, my thinking around the video was that I need to figure out whether I want to start abandoning print (or at least complicating my relationship with print) with that one unseen pants leg to which you refer. It will be an adventure. Anyway, great video as always!!! -John
Belated response because touring makes me youtubeless: Always a pleasure to hear from you. What I said sloppily and meant to say more clearly: I think one of the functions novels serve is to train our brains to line information up narratively (i.e., moby dick teaches us nothing about whaling but may teach us something about how to organize the information in our own lives in a more memorable way). This is one of the main reasons researchers have come up with for why we would read long fiction...
I say this with a bold heart: "Novels will not die untill movies come up with six star acting!" Becuase novels allow people to imagine characters and the interaction between them, it trumps any movie or T.V. show in history itself.
That must be an common opinion among some English teachers. In my high school, we did read the abridged version of Moby Dick and had a brief lecture about the extensive whaling detail that was omitted.
@AudioVideoClips Funny you should ask. When I was in high school, one of my English teachers said he recommends strongly against reading abridged versions of books, but in the case of Moby Dick, he was fine with it.
Ever since I have subscribed to you I've enjoyed all of your videos. This one happened to peak my interest the most! I really liked the Socrates quote you used, definitely using that in future debates when it comes to the easy access of the internet making us dumber. It is simply a tool to allow us to expand more on abstract thought and the understanding of the concepts themselves. Keep them coming!
There is nothing that I dislike about your videos. Even if you were full of hot air, your tone and presence is so convincing, I would immediately side with you.
I've been noticing that you've been making responses to a few people I'm subscribed to (Dan Brown, VlogBrothers). These replies seem to even out the thoughts, like their videos say their opinion, and then these show the other side and help you reach an opinion. Keep doing what you're doing Mickeleh, and I'm glad to see a vlogger from Washington :D
I don't know what I would do without Google. In fact, it amazes me that ANYONE made it through university without this brilliant invention. Sitting in the stacks reading books? Eww. Sitting on my couch in my PJ's googling the answer to life's questions with a nice cup of tea? Awesome. Google doesn't make people less intelligent, it just makes access to information easier. It's what we do with the information learned that is important.
i must say, i'm not sad that you spend so much time on the internet, because you are so dedicated to your viewers, with your @replies and such. so my solution is, reply to this comment, then go outside, sit under a tree and read(:
Interestingly enough, the National MS Society promotes reading as a way to maintain cognitive ability, and short term memory. They keep sending me holiday and birthday cards with bookmarks in them, and talking about the benefits of reading.
Strange, yesterday i posted on FB that i thought Films ethical, moral and general moments which require empathy PASS to QUICKLY. I have been reading a lot of the classics over the last 2yrs and noticed that in reading i find a great deal more time to reflect on the ideas of right and wrong. I also read a lot of ethics, so... but i think ethics should be taught........
@Hythloday71 What a great insight. Thanks. With movies and TV, it's the director and editor who control the pace. With books, it's the reader. (one of the reasons I love TiVo is that it has a pause button, even for live TV. Some times when I go to the movies, I find my hand reaching for the TiVo remote so I can pause the picture. I never find it, though.)
We all learn in different ways. John Green may learn best when data is presented in a narrative form.
I like to learn when data is presented in small, 'bullet point' style. But I learn best when the data is presented in that manner many times in slightly different ways. Allowing me to view different facets of the same data until it 'clicks'. And the final piece of the puzzle may be from a source very different from he original bit of data.
Mickeleh, you are like the grandfather of youtube, like the kind you wait for to see, i dont know if you understand, but the kind that always have something for you, and they always give you a better outlook on things, but they also are really intellegent and experinced...
I haven't seen John's video for a while, and found his points a little disconnected, but I took him to be talking about concentration - we're so used to immediate information, and short bursts of entertainment, that sitting down and concentrating enough to work through a longer narrative is becoming more difficult. Or perhaps I presumed that was what he was saying, because that's my own experience.
@ghostwritten87 I agree w/ you (as usual). Concentrated attention is what we're losing. My friend Linda Stone coined a term to describe the modern mindset: continual partial attention. We don't fully focus on anything because we're always keeping our peripheral vision tuned for the new email, skype message, Tweet or alert.
This video is so articulate... I greatly admire that someone who grew up without the Internet is so engaged and involved in the discussion of its role in the future.
@mickeleh Well spoken. Likewise, I also used to respect EMT's till I found out they get paychecks.
Waaaait a second...
Suddenly I have the sneaking suspicion that in spite of your vested financial interest, you might actually _care_ about this interweb thing and its potential effects on humanity. In fact... your personal judgement may have even influenced your choices in your career path!
On the Socrates quote. It was Plato who said it. He honored his teacher, Socrates, by scripting his writings as conversations centering around Socrates. Both Socrates and Plato were loath to write their ideas down because they believed that, without the author around to discuss the ideas, no amount of explanation would stop them from being misinterpreted. Instead, they both favored spreading knowledge through word of mouth so as to begin a dialogue that might better both men.
@krikitarmy OK, so Plato wrote these dialogues—and he quoted a bunch of actual people living at the time—most famously Socrates. How do we know whether Plato was being a faithful reporter who is telling us something Socrates actually said, or a cheat putting words into his montor's mouth?
@mickeleh Well I think the consensus is that Plato's dialogues are not accurate interpretations, but I think what krikitarmy means is that Plato conveyed his ideas through dialectic since it most resembled a discussion with the writer. As for Socrates, there is no real certainty about anything associated with him other then the fact that he was Plato's mentor. I think when discussing Socrates it's best to refer to Socrates alongside Plato and vice versa.
I think you both hold your positions well, but you also look at them differently. I think reading to the younger generation is almost a chore but to the folks who have grown with it, it may take us a bit longer to finish a novel but we still enjoy it.
I do think novels are an easy way to keep facts though.. As In quotes.. Although you can remember quotes from anything from conversations with your friends to video games to television shows.. It all really depends On what you see as useful.
@riot184 much wisdom here. But it seems to me that the novel once held a central position in the cultural landscape of of the U.S. and U.K. But the center has shifted.
I disagree with the whole "dying world of print" thing. Sure, things like newspapers could be said to be dying. To say something is dying means that it will die. As far as I would expect, the book will never die. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that print is "shrinking" or differentiate further. Either that, or I'm decontextualizing your quote.
Mickeleh what kind of camera do you use? The quality is amazing. I mean, I've never seen a video with such great quality like this. 720p looks amazing.
I am a writer not writing. Technically a poet-- go ahead and laugh-- I'll wait.
Ok hope you can breathe again and keep it down to a little giggle. I have no doubt what so ever that the internet is going to change what is done in publishing and in television and movies. And big names in all of those areas are going to scream "Why didn't we see this coming?"
Yet another video with less than 1 percent negative ratings. I will stay tuned, to do more research. When i can be arsed i'll maybe make a total video review and get the data about all of your videos and get an average. When that day comes, i bet you'll have a 97-99% average. Which is good. Very good indeed.
Mickeleh is such a pro. He's a badass, and even more so with the turtle glasses.
Anyway I think John wasn't talking about facts and straight information, just that novels are usually vehicles, bringing messages or whatever the writer believes. The characters and plots are tools in bringing. I'm not saying that this is always the case or that the narrative is less important than the information.
Just because the distribution method changes, doesn't mean people will stop wanting to read what's written. You can still read a novel whether it's in print or digital format. It even comes with the exact same set of words. Go figure.
It does make me a bit sad, though. I love the smell of new books.
IMHO, Google does not make anyone stupid (usualy people are born stupid), google is an innovative search engine, at its core, and nothing more than that.
Facts, we can search facts (and not only) on the wikipedia, already the biggest (really) user deployed information bank, google does not has information, it just indexes it, the facts and information reside on the original sites.
The way we apply and use facts, directly depends on how expert you are to deal with those facts.
I think you're right in that he was referring to information as things that stick in our brains for a whille rather than just facts. Like I could talk to you about the family tree of Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things" because I read about it and processed it. But if someone were to have just explained it to me, it probably wouldn't have stuck. Your vlogs are delightful, concise, and informative. I really enjoy them. (:
@nddulac If you could see the punctuuation, we could resolve this easily: There are elipses after "until next time...." "I'm Mickeleh" is not part of the same sentence. The full version is. "Until next time, good-bye. I'm Mickeleh"
@mickeleh Oh there you go again - employing logic and making sense. Curse you for that! Well, not really. Truth be told, it's why I enjoy your videos.
That said, being Mickeleh until next time doesn't preclude continuing to be Micheleh through next time and even beyond. So I figure, it's all good ;)
I think thunderf00t's position was that access to the Internet does not make an individual as competent in a subject as someone who has studied it at university, not that access to the Internet makes people any dumber.
@Aerosteon that's the way I remember it. But... if people are fooled into thinking that Google is a substitute for subject-matter mastery, while that doesn't actually make them dumber, it does tend to trap them into the dumbness they already have attained.
All true, but this was going on before Google. Since the beginning of time people have been traping themselves into ignorance by believing that some limited sources of information are a substitute for an education. Kent Hovind comes to mind.
I'm less worried about the extinction of long form novels and stories as I am about good long form novels getting pushed out of the public view by the mass of low quality drivel. I cringe sometimes when I walk into Borders and peruse through the mass of books that seem to be screaming quantity over quality.
Another thing about recalling information -- no matter what the medium -- is the importance of pushing aside irrelevant information. It interferes with recalling what we want!
Going back to Moby Dick, some of what we read competes in memory with what we *want* to remember about that novel: The relatively irrelevant whaling facts might make it harder to remember, say, the changing disposition of Ahab. So they are, as you finely illustrate, forgotten.
@mickeleh I didn't mean to spout the psychology to make it sound so cut-and-dry.
The better we can make cohesive, meaningful associations between details in a novel, the more it prevents the interference I talked about before. So, with such associations present, remembering things about Ahab would make it easier to remember the whaling details.
All that said, I've considered Moby Dick to be at least in part, Melville's attempt at whaling fanfiction. : P
I hope print doesn't go out T_T I like buying books, and reading books. I also would love to be published one day, and I'd like to be able to have a book of it, not just an internet copy. It'll make me sad T_T
We have some expectations, I think, about what we will learn from books based on what we know about them. That might limit what we take from the any given novel. Which might explain why Moby Dick readers aren't seasoned whalers. : )
@dragonmemories why is the gun so amazing? it's the result of countless deaths in the world as a method of self defence and greed. If we didn't have guns we'd use sticks, if we didn't have sticks we'd use our fists, if we didn't have fists, we'd be nothing. Why can't man kind just stop being so damn violent? Guns are bad mkay.
@dragonmemories there's a much more civil way of controlling the population and it's called birth control. If it weren't for religion, birth control would've already been used as frequently as it is today. We don't need wars to establish anything. It was beliefs in the first place that started off WWI and WWII.
@miketbf civil? we've had wars since our dawn of creation I was just saying a quote I heard.
All I said was those are the 3 best inventions, you have to know about them and what a impact it has had on the world, that is what I was stating, thats why they are all the best inventions because they have impacted the whole world in so many ways.
P.S. why do you add all these extra facts about religion and other stuff if I am just stating something.
Oh! Oh!!! I wanted to reference that article! I was actually thinking about tweeting it to John. And then when you started talking about Socrates, I was about to comment about it, but you're a step ahead of me;).
I've only seen that shirt on Tom, and you mentioning it led to me googling it. I didn't realize that Johnny sold shirts.
Excellent response. I love that even when the frequency of your videos increase, the quality doesn't decrease.
@ChateauOfADoubt Ok, not all of it. It's 1:30 in the morning. I'm tired and you beat me to the punch and said it more articulately than I can right now. I just can't win, can I?
I subbed by 1:00, DFTBA
Xsuvival 1 month ago
This makes me happy..
NoLife2point0 2 months ago
1:47 OMG WHERE DID YOUR FINGERS GO?! :O
lol
Theblargen 1 year ago 2
@Theblargen I"m not sure. But it was painless. And they came back.
mickeleh 1 year ago 5
@mickeleh
I didn't know green screens were master surgeons. :P
Theblargen 1 year ago
"Dying world of print," or changing world of print? And whether Google is actually making us dumber needs to be taken in context and adjusted (like the value of money over time) so we can allow for distortion. Consider that now, with the easy access to an ocean of information, we have the potential to both know more and the expectation to know more (there is just more to know). That we barely stay afloat (forget things and misremember) in this ocean, is simply a reflection of this.
Ahabite 1 year ago
I have heard, though, that when you present information in a narrative form, that that information is easier to remember. Perhaps that is what John meant. (Like Jesus and the parables, the story is the example of the concept)
caseyjz1 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Another Green novel: Green Spin new Green Thriller book, Green Spin: GreenSpinBook[dot]com
Available on Amazon and soon in iTunes
GreenSpinNews 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
You're very witty and intelligent. I really enjoy your videos. :D
Nikki1862 1 year ago
You're very witty and intelligent. I really enjoy your videos. :D
Nikki1862 1 year ago
It’s funny you mention the Nicholas Carr article; it was on my English exam I took two weeks ago. Yay coincidences!
littlebrownhare 1 year ago
I thoroughly enjoy your vlogs. :)
thebonstergirl 1 year ago
Green halo.
Click3tyClick 1 year ago
I knew I was gay by the time I was 11, and I never told a living soul until I went away to college. Guarding my secret and hiding my feelings for so long left me with an enormous sense of isolation and loneliness. So I have my copy of "Will Grayson, Will Grayson," and I'm looking forward to diving right in. I'm sure I'll enjoy the story, but I'll also enjoy imagining what it would have been like to have read it way back when.
garyfromwv40 1 year ago
I greatly appreciate "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" because it has a prominent gay character. There simply was nothing like it available to me when I was a teenager. I may have come across a gay character in a TV show or movie three or four times a year, and the few gay characters I did see were generally presented as tragic.
garyfromwv40 1 year ago
I certainly do hope that storytelling survives the internet. I can't imagine a world without storytelling in one form or another. I'm a novelist myself, but, alas, unpublished. However, I've not made a great effort to get published, so I guess that's my own fault. I've not, as yet, developed a thick enough skin to subject myself to the rejection that will undoubtedly come after sending out query letters.
garyfromwv40 1 year ago
i see green reflected off of your head :O
ryangolf1212 1 year ago 2
@ryangolf1212 The green is accounted for in "Quarterly Report Q1, 2010"
mickeleh 1 year ago
Would it be that your best videos are video responses as you stated in your Q Report? Oh well my thoughts are that must people actually don't realize the incredible information we can find in books. Internet does provide a powerful way to access to information but I still believe it hasn't match the quality of the information we can find in books...... yet.... In addition, I hate to read too much in my comp. screen... it hurts my eyes in the long term...
Saiko507 1 year ago
unless I'm wrong & remembering Plato's own story, I'm pretty sure that the myth of the invention of writing is itself oral, involving a "pharaoh" who has the invention brought before him and states that it would make men not forgetful since they'd be using paper as a stand-in for memory; which I 'm not sure has been the effect of writing.
Also, you mention "information" & the novel. I think there's a Walter Benjamin essay that says that the birth of the notion of Information is the death of art.
skrewuloser 1 year ago
@skrewuloser thanks for mentioning the Walter Benjamin essay. I'll be on the lookout for it
mickeleh 1 year ago
@skrewuloser You're talking about the Phaedrus, but the one problem with the oral story given about writing's possible detriment is that Socrates is speaking it as a character in Plato's writing. The debate about the value of writing is entirely confined to literary characters. It's an entertaining little paradox to chuckle about.
underwarewrench 1 year ago
Ha! I just quoted the Phaedrus to JG also! I hate hand-wringing about changes in communication technologies!
Elfarran32 1 year ago
You speak so well; that's why I enjoy you. Everything you say is backed up by fact and logic.
RisenTwice 1 year ago
so, i got the thumbs now *sad* I kind of want the stars back..
I think the movement from novels to google or writing to the internet is kind of like the shift from oral and memorization to writing. We're not getting dumber, just thinking differently.
you get a thumbs up and an imaginary five stars!
ravenclawconfused14 1 year ago
part two: I read and was fascinated by the article about whether google is making us stupid, and I agree with you that google is not making us stupider as a group (just as writing didn't). In fact, my thinking around the video was that I need to figure out whether I want to start abandoning print (or at least complicating my relationship with print) with that one unseen pants leg to which you refer. It will be an adventure. Anyway, great video as always!!! -John
vlogbrothers 1 year ago 3
Belated response because touring makes me youtubeless: Always a pleasure to hear from you. What I said sloppily and meant to say more clearly: I think one of the functions novels serve is to train our brains to line information up narratively (i.e., moby dick teaches us nothing about whaling but may teach us something about how to organize the information in our own lives in a more memorable way). This is one of the main reasons researchers have come up with for why we would read long fiction...
vlogbrothers 1 year ago 23
I say this with a bold heart: "Novels will not die untill movies come up with six star acting!" Becuase novels allow people to imagine characters and the interaction between them, it trumps any movie or T.V. show in history itself.
funkduder 1 year ago
I have a question: How did Moby Dick originally get so popular with all that...extra stuff included?
graymangrey 1 year ago
That must be an common opinion among some English teachers. In my high school, we did read the abridged version of Moby Dick and had a brief lecture about the extensive whaling detail that was omitted.
AudioVideoClips 1 year ago
Are you sure that you didn't read the "abridged" version of Moby Dick?
(Just kidding.)
AudioVideoClips 1 year ago
@AudioVideoClips Funny you should ask. When I was in high school, one of my English teachers said he recommends strongly against reading abridged versions of books, but in the case of Moby Dick, he was fine with it.
mickeleh 1 year ago
I'm pretty sure being this entertaining and this educational at the same time is against the law somehwere.
Interesting video. Viva la libre revolution!
KelniusTV 1 year ago
Ever since I have subscribed to you I've enjoyed all of your videos. This one happened to peak my interest the most! I really liked the Socrates quote you used, definitely using that in future debates when it comes to the easy access of the internet making us dumber. It is simply a tool to allow us to expand more on abstract thought and the understanding of the concepts themselves. Keep them coming!
mauroz100 1 year ago
This is the YouTuber I aspire to be like.
Stay groovy Mickeleh :]
MrMontagne 1 year ago
I want the book in audio version.
yrkesmordare 1 year ago
Excellent video Mickeleh. I've enjoyed everyone since I first subscribed.
UncoProductions 1 year ago
There is something strange with your greenscreen.... hmmm.
Dutchpioneer 1 year ago
Your videos are getting better and better Michael. Love it.
BarryAldridge 1 year ago
Thank you for posting the article, it really opened my eyes and made me think.
Katelyn3666 1 year ago
another great video, Mick.
doctornoise 1 year ago
Great tone and sexy face. All around good video
ClintSevilla 1 year ago
Ha, you fascinatingly smart person.
Graszood 1 year ago
316 likes, 1 dis like, enough said!
leokimvideo 1 year ago
you're glowing green mikeleh!
DeviousInco 1 year ago
i always like your way of thinking and you remind me of a past English teacher of mine ... keep it up! :D
KurK626 1 year ago
Hahha, GMTA
riekathegifty 1 year ago
GMTA? What does that mean?
I really hope the novel doesn't die.
MadiWieg 1 year ago
@MadiWieg Great Minds Think Alike.
mickeleh 1 year ago
There is nothing that I dislike about your videos. Even if you were full of hot air, your tone and presence is so convincing, I would immediately side with you.
Politics in your future? LOL
wilsontech1 1 year ago 2
@wilsontech1 Thanks, friend. I think you nailed it: LOL is exactly the response to "politics in my future?"
mickeleh 1 year ago 6
@mickeleh I'd vote for you!
cursedbeast 1 year ago
@mickeleh I'd vote for you!
cursedbeast 1 year ago
@mickeleh I'd vote for you
cursedbeast 1 year ago
@cursedbeast Woops! Didn't mean to say that three times. Does that count as a rigged election? Sorry!
cursedbeast 1 year ago
I agree with the "Moby Dick" comment. I completely and totally skipped those chapters when I realized what they were.
HatofDoom 1 year ago
John Green is our "Colossus of Rhodes"!
socratesjr 1 year ago
@socratesjr He certainly has my nomination for one of the seven wonders of the YouTube world.
Have you been able to identify candidates for our
Great Pyramid of Giza?
Hanging Gardens of Babylon?
Statue of Zeus at Olympia?
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus?
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus?
Lighthouse of Alexandria?
mickeleh 1 year ago
I've been noticing that you've been making responses to a few people I'm subscribed to (Dan Brown, VlogBrothers). These replies seem to even out the thoughts, like their videos say their opinion, and then these show the other side and help you reach an opinion. Keep doing what you're doing Mickeleh, and I'm glad to see a vlogger from Washington :D
duelmaster30 1 year ago
I don't know what I would do without Google. In fact, it amazes me that ANYONE made it through university without this brilliant invention. Sitting in the stacks reading books? Eww. Sitting on my couch in my PJ's googling the answer to life's questions with a nice cup of tea? Awesome. Google doesn't make people less intelligent, it just makes access to information easier. It's what we do with the information learned that is important.
nursepeachy 1 year ago
"...my best friend's number was 3" xD absoluetly brilliant!
neon7isklar 1 year ago
Every YouTuber does indeed have to make a video in the cloud muffin shirt. I made one the other day xD
CosmicScaleFactor 1 year ago
1:47 Half his right hand becomes invisible for a second. :D
QuietMindedMeToo 1 year ago
@QuietMindedMeToo Learning to dissaperate. Splinched.
mickeleh 1 year ago 4
i must say, i'm not sad that you spend so much time on the internet, because you are so dedicated to your viewers, with your @replies and such. so my solution is, reply to this comment, then go outside, sit under a tree and read(:
itssupercelia 1 year ago
@itssupercelia Too chilly where I live, right now. But thanks for the suggestion.
mickeleh 1 year ago
I like how your scalp is green
DonutEatingLlama 1 year ago
@DonutEatingLlama Algae. (I live near a lake.)
mickeleh 1 year ago
What would I do without Google? If I have an absurd question, all I need is internet access and the ability to type.
But nothing can replace books, at least not for a very long time yet.
withalittlegrace 1 year ago
MIckeleh, you are awesome. Thank you for some of the best discussion I can find on YouTube.
Thestralsxxx 1 year ago 2
Interestingly enough, the National MS Society promotes reading as a way to maintain cognitive ability, and short term memory. They keep sending me holiday and birthday cards with bookmarks in them, and talking about the benefits of reading.
trippywalnut 1 year ago
@trippywalnut I'll have to pass this on to my mom, who also has MS. Being well-read and well-informed though, she probably already knows. :)
broadwaybaybe9490 1 year ago
This was awesome. You are quickly becoming my favourite youtuber, Mickeleh. :D
holliebadollie 1 year ago
i want your brain inside my brain
Donyvi 1 year ago
Your best friends number was 3...lol
MrStuckyJ 1 year ago
John's already experimented with the new shiny - ever played thisisnottom?
eddplant 1 year ago
Strange, yesterday i posted on FB that i thought Films ethical, moral and general moments which require empathy PASS to QUICKLY. I have been reading a lot of the classics over the last 2yrs and noticed that in reading i find a great deal more time to reflect on the ideas of right and wrong. I also read a lot of ethics, so... but i think ethics should be taught........
Hythloday71 1 year ago
@Hythloday71 What a great insight. Thanks. With movies and TV, it's the director and editor who control the pace. With books, it's the reader. (one of the reasons I love TiVo is that it has a pause button, even for live TV. Some times when I go to the movies, I find my hand reaching for the TiVo remote so I can pause the picture. I never find it, though.)
mickeleh 1 year ago
I haven't watched a lot of your videos, but I think I have to start now. I love to listen to your voice. (that sounds weird xD)
HildElin 1 year ago
Your green halo is diminishing. An improvement.
BaileysBeads 1 year ago
We all learn in different ways. John Green may learn best when data is presented in a narrative form.
I like to learn when data is presented in small, 'bullet point' style. But I learn best when the data is presented in that manner many times in slightly different ways. Allowing me to view different facets of the same data until it 'clicks'. And the final piece of the puzzle may be from a source very different from he original bit of data.
tetsubo57 1 year ago
@tetsubo57 That's a critically important insight Thanks for posting.
mickeleh 1 year ago
Mickeleh, you are like the grandfather of youtube, like the kind you wait for to see, i dont know if you understand, but the kind that always have something for you, and they always give you a better outlook on things, but they also are really intellegent and experinced...
TeenDistortion14 1 year ago
so glad I subscribed
sm0kingJay 1 year ago
I haven't seen John's video for a while, and found his points a little disconnected, but I took him to be talking about concentration - we're so used to immediate information, and short bursts of entertainment, that sitting down and concentrating enough to work through a longer narrative is becoming more difficult. Or perhaps I presumed that was what he was saying, because that's my own experience.
Some great points here, though. :)
ghostwritten87 1 year ago
@ghostwritten87 I agree w/ you (as usual). Concentrated attention is what we're losing. My friend Linda Stone coined a term to describe the modern mindset: continual partial attention. We don't fully focus on anything because we're always keeping our peripheral vision tuned for the new email, skype message, Tweet or alert.
mickeleh 1 year ago
This video is so articulate... I greatly admire that someone who grew up without the Internet is so engaged and involved in the discussion of its role in the future.
rkdrummer216 1 year ago 10
@rkdrummer216 Not so admirable. I work in tech marketing. Selling people on the new shiny is my job.
mickeleh 1 year ago
@mickeleh Well spoken. Likewise, I also used to respect EMT's till I found out they get paychecks.
Waaaait a second...
Suddenly I have the sneaking suspicion that in spite of your vested financial interest, you might actually _care_ about this interweb thing and its potential effects on humanity. In fact... your personal judgement may have even influenced your choices in your career path!
That's against the rules, you know! For shame!
apieceofstring 1 year ago
"My best friend's number was three"!
Hilarious! Keep up the good videos!
9l8i7n6k 1 year ago
"my best friend's number was three" hahahaha, caught me off guard.
knowahsark 1 year ago
The shirt is so cute!!
PopGoesExistence 1 year ago
Yeah, I agree. Novels aren't the best way to memorize facts.
hangingwithNadine 1 year ago
Will you be my dad?
eccentricfather 1 year ago
Too busy making videos or editing? It's the shooting that's the easiest part for sure, but it's the editing that's a pain.
gothickun 1 year ago
@gothickun WORD
elffia 1 year ago
@gothickun The post-production can take up a lot of time. Butit's all work. (Oh, and uyou left out the writing part.)
mickeleh 1 year ago
On the Socrates quote. It was Plato who said it. He honored his teacher, Socrates, by scripting his writings as conversations centering around Socrates. Both Socrates and Plato were loath to write their ideas down because they believed that, without the author around to discuss the ideas, no amount of explanation would stop them from being misinterpreted. Instead, they both favored spreading knowledge through word of mouth so as to begin a dialogue that might better both men.
krikitarmy 1 year ago
@krikitarmy OK, so Plato wrote these dialogues—and he quoted a bunch of actual people living at the time—most famously Socrates. How do we know whether Plato was being a faithful reporter who is telling us something Socrates actually said, or a cheat putting words into his montor's mouth?
mickeleh 1 year ago
@mickeleh Well I think the consensus is that Plato's dialogues are not accurate interpretations, but I think what krikitarmy means is that Plato conveyed his ideas through dialectic since it most resembled a discussion with the writer. As for Socrates, there is no real certainty about anything associated with him other then the fact that he was Plato's mentor. I think when discussing Socrates it's best to refer to Socrates alongside Plato and vice versa.
Racinette189 1 year ago
@Racinette189 OK, but only one of them had to drink the hemlock.
mickeleh 1 year ago
@mickeleh lol that's a good point.
Racinette189 1 year ago
I think you both hold your positions well, but you also look at them differently. I think reading to the younger generation is almost a chore but to the folks who have grown with it, it may take us a bit longer to finish a novel but we still enjoy it.
I do think novels are an easy way to keep facts though.. As In quotes.. Although you can remember quotes from anything from conversations with your friends to video games to television shows.. It all really depends On what you see as useful.
riot184 1 year ago
@riot184 much wisdom here. But it seems to me that the novel once held a central position in the cultural landscape of of the U.S. and U.K. But the center has shifted.
mickeleh 1 year ago
I disagree with the whole "dying world of print" thing. Sure, things like newspapers could be said to be dying. To say something is dying means that it will die. As far as I would expect, the book will never die. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that print is "shrinking" or differentiate further. Either that, or I'm decontextualizing your quote.
WashboardSam 1 year ago
@WashboardSam Yeah, I went a little hyperbolic there. The half-life of books will be very long. But the industry will undergo disruptive contraction.
mickeleh 1 year ago
Mickeleh what kind of camera do you use? The quality is amazing. I mean, I've never seen a video with such great quality like this. 720p looks amazing.
PerhapsPossibly 1 year ago
Please tell me you're coming to vidcon. Your videos are continuously wonderful and engaging, and I'd love to meet you in person.
elffia 1 year ago
@elffia Coming to vidcon. I signed up the first day Hank opened the rolls.
mickeleh 1 year ago
@mickeleh YAY!
elffia 1 year ago
your videos are really good, you know that? they make me think. and equally important, they make me smile! =]
MissNaivetey 1 year ago 8
@MissNaivetey Thanks so much.
mickeleh 1 year ago
"literature illustrates human motivation" that's what my English teacher reminds us constantly.
ixhuang1996 1 year ago
I am a writer not writing. Technically a poet-- go ahead and laugh-- I'll wait.
Ok hope you can breathe again and keep it down to a little giggle. I have no doubt what so ever that the internet is going to change what is done in publishing and in television and movies. And big names in all of those areas are going to scream "Why didn't we see this coming?"
kelliko70 1 year ago
Yet another video with less than 1 percent negative ratings. I will stay tuned, to do more research. When i can be arsed i'll maybe make a total video review and get the data about all of your videos and get an average. When that day comes, i bet you'll have a 97-99% average. Which is good. Very good indeed.
MattZeefy 1 year ago
man, i love listening to this guy. i want to be as knowledgeable!
twilightfan531 1 year ago
Great video, Micheleh. I also read & loved that article, so thanks for the link.
shessomickey 1 year ago
*my best friends number was 3* XD that cracked me up! XD
seanzageek 1 year ago
Mickeleh is such a pro. He's a badass, and even more so with the turtle glasses.
Anyway I think John wasn't talking about facts and straight information, just that novels are usually vehicles, bringing messages or whatever the writer believes. The characters and plots are tools in bringing. I'm not saying that this is always the case or that the narrative is less important than the information.
VocabWord 1 year ago
Just because the distribution method changes, doesn't mean people will stop wanting to read what's written. You can still read a novel whether it's in print or digital format. It even comes with the exact same set of words. Go figure.
It does make me a bit sad, though. I love the smell of new books.
TheLunarFire 1 year ago
IMHO, Google does not make anyone stupid (usualy people are born stupid), google is an innovative search engine, at its core, and nothing more than that.
Facts, we can search facts (and not only) on the wikipedia, already the biggest (really) user deployed information bank, google does not has information, it just indexes it, the facts and information reside on the original sites.
The way we apply and use facts, directly depends on how expert you are to deal with those facts.
tunespt 1 year ago
I think you're right in that he was referring to information as things that stick in our brains for a whille rather than just facts. Like I could talk to you about the family tree of Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things" because I read about it and processed it. But if someone were to have just explained it to me, it probably wouldn't have stuck. Your vlogs are delightful, concise, and informative. I really enjoy them. (:
AwkwardIndigo 1 year ago
Mickeleh, you are my favorite old man on YouTube, and I mean that with a complete sense of admiration!
bobdafrogg 1 year ago 11
That was some of the most beautiful language about John Green's pants.
whitesoxfanatic 1 year ago 9
i know that after reading fight club, i knew a helluva lot more ways to make explosives
no1cares214 1 year ago
You are so cool!
BongoWW 1 year ago
what about dan brown?
15stargaze 1 year ago
I actually lol'd at the phone number joke. Keep up the good work, Mickeleh!
jezooitboy09 1 year ago
I love it when you say "until next time, I'm mickeleh."
swushi999 1 year ago
@swushi999 I wonder if when the "next time" finally comes, he will cease to be Mickeleh :-/
nddulac 1 year ago
@nddulac If you could see the punctuuation, we could resolve this easily: There are elipses after "until next time...." "I'm Mickeleh" is not part of the same sentence. The full version is. "Until next time, good-bye. I'm Mickeleh"
mickeleh 1 year ago
@mickeleh finally someone with a brain... geesh and people say we're now dumber thanks to the internet
adyrulesthe666 1 year ago
@mickeleh Oh there you go again - employing logic and making sense. Curse you for that! Well, not really. Truth be told, it's why I enjoy your videos.
That said, being Mickeleh until next time doesn't preclude continuing to be Micheleh through next time and even beyond. So I figure, it's all good ;)
nddulac 1 year ago
"3"! (chortle... :)
about the "google making us dumber" thing, didn't thunderfoot suggest something similar when he replied to dan brown's dropping out vid?
psionicdreams 1 year ago
@psionicdreams
I think thunderf00t's position was that access to the Internet does not make an individual as competent in a subject as someone who has studied it at university, not that access to the Internet makes people any dumber.
Aerosteon 1 year ago
@Aerosteon that's the way I remember it. But... if people are fooled into thinking that Google is a substitute for subject-matter mastery, while that doesn't actually make them dumber, it does tend to trap them into the dumbness they already have attained.
mickeleh 1 year ago
@mickeleh
All true, but this was going on before Google. Since the beginning of time people have been traping themselves into ignorance by believing that some limited sources of information are a substitute for an education. Kent Hovind comes to mind.
Aerosteon 1 year ago
@Aerosteon I guess that's what Socrates was afraid of with the introduction of writing. Although it didn't turn out so bad in the end.
MrKonve 1 year ago
I'm less worried about the extinction of long form novels and stories as I am about good long form novels getting pushed out of the public view by the mass of low quality drivel. I cringe sometimes when I walk into Borders and peruse through the mass of books that seem to be screaming quantity over quality.
vasniltere 1 year ago
best video yet!
ThePupwiththeMost 1 year ago
Another thing about recalling information -- no matter what the medium -- is the importance of pushing aside irrelevant information. It interferes with recalling what we want!
Going back to Moby Dick, some of what we read competes in memory with what we *want* to remember about that novel: The relatively irrelevant whaling facts might make it harder to remember, say, the changing disposition of Ahab. So they are, as you finely illustrate, forgotten.
~ Jethro.
IJethrobot 1 year ago
@IJethrobot You are so right. Moby Dick: White whale. Obsessed captain. Trapped crew. The end.
mickeleh 1 year ago
Comment removed
IJethrobot 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@mickeleh I didn't mean to spout the psychology to make it sound so cut-and-dry.
The better we can make cohesive, meaningful associations between details in a novel, the more it prevents the interference I talked about before. So, with such associations present, remembering things about Ahab would make it easier to remember the whaling details.
All that said, I've considered Moby Dick to be at least in part, Melville's attempt at whaling fanfiction. : P
~ Jethro.
IJethrobot 1 year ago
I hope print doesn't go out T_T I like buying books, and reading books. I also would love to be published one day, and I'd like to be able to have a book of it, not just an internet copy. It'll make me sad T_T
zeldanintendogirl 1 year ago
Comment removed
IJethrobot 1 year ago
read also the book "everything bad is good for you"
andyviana162 1 year ago
I want a cloud muffin shirt.
DoctorJay2012 1 year ago
A fair counterpoint about books, mickeleh.
We have some expectations, I think, about what we will learn from books based on what we know about them. That might limit what we take from the any given novel. Which might explain why Moby Dick readers aren't seasoned whalers. : )
~ Jethro.
IJethrobot 1 year ago
The internet is one of the best inventions ever made along with the airplane and the gun.
And just like the other inventions the best of perfecting it, is yet to come.
Though it will be much faster to come than the other one's.
dragonmemories 1 year ago
@dragonmemories why is the gun so amazing? it's the result of countless deaths in the world as a method of self defence and greed. If we didn't have guns we'd use sticks, if we didn't have sticks we'd use our fists, if we didn't have fists, we'd be nothing. Why can't man kind just stop being so damn violent? Guns are bad mkay.
miketbf 1 year ago
@miketbf I never said the gun was so amazing, I said its one of the great inventions(along with the airplane) The internet is the 3rd.
So what, I know it kills alot of people but hey, we are 3 billion times more populated than it was 200 years ago and the numbers are only increasing.
Ive heard a quote once stating, thats why we have wars to decrease the number of people in the world.
dragonmemories 1 year ago
@dragonmemories there's a much more civil way of controlling the population and it's called birth control. If it weren't for religion, birth control would've already been used as frequently as it is today. We don't need wars to establish anything. It was beliefs in the first place that started off WWI and WWII.
miketbf 1 year ago
@miketbf civil? we've had wars since our dawn of creation I was just saying a quote I heard.
All I said was those are the 3 best inventions, you have to know about them and what a impact it has had on the world, that is what I was stating, thats why they are all the best inventions because they have impacted the whole world in so many ways.
P.S. why do you add all these extra facts about religion and other stuff if I am just stating something.
dragonmemories 1 year ago
I really cannot express how grateful I am to YT for giving me the opportunity to meet and listen to you.
wellesz31 1 year ago
Oh! Oh!!! I wanted to reference that article! I was actually thinking about tweeting it to John. And then when you started talking about Socrates, I was about to comment about it, but you're a step ahead of me;).
I've only seen that shirt on Tom, and you mentioning it led to me googling it. I didn't realize that Johnny sold shirts.
Excellent response. I love that even when the frequency of your videos increase, the quality doesn't decrease.
ChateauOfADoubt 1 year ago
@ChateauOfADoubt Ah, but the quantity of my sleep does decrease leading to... well that's the topic of a future video)
mickeleh 1 year ago
@ChateauOfADoubt ditto
HeBreaksLate 1 year ago
@HeBreaksLate all of it? Even the bit about Tom and Johnny?
ChateauOfADoubt 1 year ago
@ChateauOfADoubt Ok, not all of it. It's 1:30 in the morning. I'm tired and you beat me to the punch and said it more articulately than I can right now. I just can't win, can I?
HeBreaksLate 1 year ago
@HeBreaksLate 1. just checking. 2. stop whining.
ChateauOfADoubt 1 year ago
You and I seem to be triggered by the same videos. I made a video response to this topic, too.
scratchingcat 1 year ago
just kidding, love the shirt :)
stefanpwinc 1 year ago
second?
stefanpwinc 1 year ago
I <3 u mckeleh :)
ninjaFOURhire 1 year ago
*mickeleh xP
ninjaFOURhire 1 year ago