Text or video: which link are you more likely to click on?

schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 7 hours

I was just realizing that I pretty much never click a link to a video post on Lemmy. I think my reasoning is that it’s too hard to skim a video to see if it’s worth my time, whereas an article can be evaluated initially in a few seconds.

Which kind of links do you engage with more often?

Edit: If you are a small YouTube content creator and it looks like nobody wants to click on videos, consider creating a text version of your video which, granted, is a separate skill, but if you have a message to get out and want to reach people…

Scott 🇨🇦🏴‍☠️ @lemmy.ca · 1 hour

I’m more likely to click on a text link.

My laptop isn’t paired with my headphones so I seldom watch videos on this device. The speakers are pretty terrible.

My android tablet is what I use for videos. If the video has a clear title I can search, maybe I’ll do so but I need to know it will be worth my time.

leadore@lemmy.world · 4 hours

Text, and preferably with some info on why I’d want to read it. But I would consider clicking on a video link if again, you actually tell me what it’s about and why I should want to watch it.

IOW, if I am given the same info about the video as I would get by quickly skimming part of an article to see if I want to spend time reading the whole thing. Seems like most links I see here have no context at all, meaning no chance I’d click it.

Even if I’m on YT and see a title and thumbnail that looks interesting, I’ll right-click to open it in a new tab so the page loads in the background without starting to play. Then I can switch to that tab and see if the description and/or comments make me want to actually hit play, otherwise I close the tab.

Yew@lemmy.world · 4 hours

I’m specifically on Lemmy because it’s text based. If I wanted videos I could use Reddit or TikTok on YouTube.

BeelzebubEiNukuKoskaan@piefed.social · 4 hours

Text. 90% of the time I watch youtube etc is when I’m eating or trying to pass out etc

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 hours

Text because I have a limited amount of time in my life and I can scan text quickly for the interesting bits, not so with videos. Watching videos is mostly a waste of my time.

Lemmy, specifically, is meant to be a mainly text based platform that people can scroll through during short downtimes, including in public. Videos are inconvenient for that.

schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 4 hours

I kinda of have to be doing something while I’m listening (almost never watching) a video. So I’d have to find something to do before I started listening.

Manjushri@piefed.social · 6 hours

Text 100%. I’m a pretty quick reader. I have no desire to sit and watch (listen to) a 10 minute video of material that could have been an article I could read in under a minute.

schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 4 hours

Alas, publishing a web page with easy-to-read, quickly-accessible information will:

a) make your page rated lower in search because people are not spending enough time on your page (that’s why all those pages have long pre-ambles even though EVERYONE is there for an answer that is no longer than a few sentences) and

b) get scraped by AI (thousands of times–which you pay for) which will provide your answer to the world without attribution.

Whereas on YouTube, you even get advertising revenue.

I know, I’m like you, preferring text, but even I’ve started going to those 5 minute YouTube videos and checked the traffic graph to see where the actual fucking answer is.

edgemaster72@lemmy.world · 7 hours

more likely to click text

Naich@piefed.world · 7 hours

+1 text. Very rarely on video links and almost never on Youtube links.

CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 hours

I feel this. I want to support PeerTube/similar — can you recommend one where I can re-upload the YouTube videos I want to preserve? Is that okay to do? Or are those tube sites more for original content?

Again (echoing my top-level comment), I run a music comm on my instance. Not linking because I don’t want to shill for it, but it can’t be too hard to find. I’m wondering if I could (or should‽) use PeerTube/similar to copy/reupload the YouTube videos (because we’re on Lemmy and we’re not supposed to like YouTube, and I really don’t) and then update the links. I actually have a handful of videos YouTube has taken down and I would love to be able to link them. Is that appropriate to ask?

🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social · 4 hours

If I wanted to watch a video, I’d be on a video site. I treat this site like a forum.

jtrek@startrek.website · 4 hours

I will almost never click a video unless it’s a natively visual thing. Like, a music video, a clip of a movie, whatever.

If it’s like “you should learn more about the My Lai massacre - here’s a great video” I’m just going to roll my eyes. Use your words. Embedded media is probably fine. Like an article with illustrations or video supplements. I’d much rather just read like a wikipedia article like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre

memfree@piefed.social · 7 hours

Only text. I completely skip commentary videos because it usually means the speaker can’t form complete sentences.

I will, however, watch things like news where it is important to hear and see the public official giving an announcement or the like, and certain informational videos that show a process where seeing it adds information – but I still need a text description to convincing enough to get me past hesitation.

Sailor Anarres@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 hours

Text by far but I’m also someone who prefers reading then watching from TV/Reading all the way to porn so unsure how that effects this.

deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz · 3 hours

Text.

I might open the post to see if there is a transcript in the description or comments.

kindnesskills@literature.cafe · 5 hours

Neither unless the post or comment includes a summary of the links content.

Buage_@piefed.social · 3 hours

I’m most likely to click on text for the same reason !

Creat@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 hours

If there’s a description what the video is about, then the video.

Otherwise an article, but that I open any link and not just read the comments is pretty rare. Articles also very frequently have a summary directly in the post, as is more technical to copy it from an article compared to a video.