21st April 2019
It’s a few weeks now since World Autism Awareness Week 2019 and I still have not managed to watch/read all of the content that was produced during that time. This has got me to thinking about the nature of content, both what other people produce and what I produce myself. Also, I began to think about how much time I can realistically spend watching videos or reading blogs.
I will start with that. I often struggle to find time to watch videos and find that most often the only time I get is about five or ten minutes before work. Although sometimes I can watch videos when I am doing certain housework such as washing the dishes. Therefore the length of the video can be a key factor in determining what I watch and when.
I like all sorts of videos of different lengths from half an hour to a couple of minutes. However, I will find it easier to fit a five to ten minute video into the day. Longer ones will have to wait until the weekend when I am not at work and hopefully have more available time. It can be the same when there are lots of videos coming out from different people. Six or seven ten minute videos soon adds up to more than an hour! I can’t watch them all!
It is the same for me when I create videos myself. Up to now most of my videos are approximately twenty minutes long. But is this too long? If I am struggling to watch other people’s videos due to time, then surely other people are feeling the same about mine. I have made some videos which have had very few people watch them, and I wonder if it is due to the length? Who knows?
I have watched some amazing videos which are much longer and I think some subjects really do need that time. Unfortunately I think I need to find a better balance for what I produce. I enjoy making videos, but like anyone creating content I also want them to be watched. Therefore the way I do things will need to be reviewed in the future and I have already begun to think about that.
Notice I am mentioning videos more then blogs? To be honest I find blogs less time consuming as naturally I am a fast reader but I guess the length of blogs can have the same issues for some people. I also want to mention that although a lot of videos I watch are Autistic related, I also watch other videos on a variety of topics such as maths, Ted Talks etc.
The next thought I have, is about the amount of content that people can produce. I find it amazing how many videos and blogs that people can put out in a typical week. And that content is all of very high standards, so the old phrase “quality not quantity” really does not count.
Sometimes though I compare myself with others, in terms of how much stuff I am putting out there. I think this is a human thing to do and I can’t help doing it. Although I think we all shouldn’t really do this. It doesn’t matter if you bring out three bits of content a day or one video every two months. As long as you are proud of what you do and have fun doing it then, I think that is the main thing. If you get an audience and/or feedback then that for me that is a bonus.
The online world moves so fast and I wonder if online content gets lost along the way. Do videos that were produced several months or even years ago ever get re-watched? They must do. I hope they do. It seems sad to me that some of the fantastic stuff I have watched and read now only exists as moment in time on a virtual world.
Like a favourite film or song, they should get a chance to be viewed and enjoyed again. Think about archaeology and all those wonderful artefacts that archaeologists have uncovered that tell us so much about human history and indeed about how we became who we are. Will there be such a thing as online archaeology? Will all these wonderful stories and imagery that we all produce be part of how the future remembers where it came from? It’s not a physical thing so it seems difficult to keep it as part of history, but I hope it does.