I thought about whether this should go under education or entertainment, and it is kind of a fit for both topics; but since Youtube is also entertainment and not just education, I am putting it here. However, you can actually find a tutorial about anything that you want to learn about on Youtube. Wondering how to sprout a papaya seed ? Youtube will tell you. The vacuum cleaner won't work ? Ask Youtube. Car broke down.......yep, the answer is probably somewhere on there, too. You can even learn how to take carboard, spray paint it cement gray, and make fake tombstones to decorate the yard on Halloween. Honest. I saw it. (I don't remember exactly what I was looking for; but somehow, this came up on the search) Plus, any song that you ever heard in your whole life can probably be found on Youtube. Any version of that song. Movie trailers and sometimes whole movies. Alternative news videos. Conspiracy theories. Aliens. How to build an Earthship. I think that everything is on Youtube, and if you are not using it; you are missing one of the good things in life. What wonderful things do you find on Youtube that I have not mentioned ?
I have watched movies that I never heard of on Youtube. I love benedict cumberbatch, I went on to youtube and saw his movies, listened to him read a book with that deep english voice and all of this was at no cost on youtube. I have learned how to use graphics software and how to do several crafts that I researched. Also I listen to my deep mediation music on youtube.
I had to change ISP to get more data to cover youtube usage. I use it for tutorials, research, repairs, ideas, music, and to indulge in just plain curiosity. Of course there is a lot on there that you may wish you could 'unsee' but the good and useful by far outweighs the bad.. A tad off topic but I've used Google Earth for entertainment too. I 'travel' on it to places I will never visit and to some places probably no one ever visits. I love to cruise slowly over wild and remote places and look at them as though I'm in a hot air balloon. What amazes me most is seeing signs of civilization in places you would never expect to see it. Away in the wilds with no discernible roads yet there will be a tiny farm and community getting on with life. I've found places I didn't know existed and it's been a real buzz. I don't bother much with cities, been there done that. Except places like Ulan Baator, unusual ones. But 'nuff of that.
I have a hundred of acres of land in far northern Maine that is a couple of miles off the grid. The road leading to my land is a snowmobile trail in the winter and an ATV trail in the summer, although you can drive on it in a car too. It is a narrow dirt road, and my camp is the only thing there. While I was back there working on my camp one day, the Google car came by. By that, I don't mean the self-driving car that Google is developing, but one of their Google Maps Camera cars, with the data recording equipment on the roof. These are the cars that they use to generate the street-view images that you see on Google Earth. They went by at about five miles an hour, drove as far as they could (the road gets pretty wet about a half mile past my camp), then turned around and came back, still driving extremely slow.
I love YouTube. It really is a wealth of information. I have watched videos on everything from yoga to web design. YouTube is my first stop whenever I want to learn how to do something. It's also great for old school music. I love the music I grew up listening too. I also like a lot of the songs from the late 50's because my parents listened to it when I was a kid.
YouTube is one of the greatest video sites that I regularly use to find tutorials on topics such as electronics, or home decor. Although I have found some channels that are completely ridiculous. There is a channel called HowTo Basic, and I thought they would have good tutorials on how to cook things, but it seems in most of their videos is breaking and smashing a lot of eggs and other crazy-wackadoo ideas.
I, too, rely on youtube for how-to tutorials. There are so many things that I'm interested in and I can't afford to take classes in everything, so I just surf youtube. It's amazing what videos are available. The only thing I don't like is there's no way to tell, other than by watching the video, what kind of quality or content you're going to get. It's frustrating to watch a 10 or 15 minute video and realizing that you haven't learned anything new. I've been using it a lot lately for quilting and zentangles.
I too share your pain Mal. There would be times where I'm trying to find receipes and methods for making certain dishes, and in the end of the video, I find out that the misleading title is only a video about tasting the food and quickly brushing over how they do it and it doesn't give me the complete list whatsoever!
Youtube can be a great source of entertainment and education indeed. You just have to know where to look because it can be overwhelming at times due to the huge amount of videos out there. Personally, I use it to watch documentaries and listen to music. Cooking tutorials are abundant on there too, which is something I can never get enough of.
I often visit YouTube for my DIY projects. Our house is stucco and I couldn't hammer a nail in it so I went to YouTube to find out what I needed to get the job done. (First time homeowner )
I like watching the music videos, and you can find some of the older performances on Youtube. Some of the older ones are just the song with a picture of the artist, or the album cover, and sometimes people have added pictures to make the song more interesting. I also like to listen to some of the ancient astronauts programs, and alternative news programs. Caravan to Midnight is a favorite; but I got a subscription to that so I can listen to the new programs as soon as they come out. For gardening, there are also some great innovative ideas, so you can find a way to plant at least a few plants, even if you live in an apartment. I really like the idea of vertical gardening, and also the hydroponics one where you connect a fish tank with the plants,and raise your own fish to eat a the same time as you are growing your garden.
Yes, Youtube can be educational and informative along with entertaining. The trick though is finding someone who is good at teaching what you are looking for out there. Sometimes it seems like I have to go to more then one video to find someone who is on topic and talks in an instructive manner. In other words they aren't going too fast or not making any sense in what they are telling you. I have just found that no everyone who has tutorials on youtube can actually teach their subject and some seem more interested in selling something then actually teaching something. So, there are times when I have to weed through the videos to find what I am looking for.
It is true that sometimes it takes several videos to find one that explains what you are trying to learn; but sometimes, you can learn unexpected things along the way. One time, we were talking about getting some kind of styrofoam type panel to put on the outside of the old trailer where we lived to try and insulate it from the afternoon sun. We didn't want to just have a plain white styrofoam siding up there, so I was researching for a way to paint it to look like it was a log cabin. Someone had uploaded a video about decorating your house for halloween, and he was explaining how to make realistic-looking "gravestones" from spraypainted styrofoam. It was amazing how realistic that they looked when he was finsihed making them. Even though I am not likely to be spraypainting any styrofoam gravestones to decorate our yard; there very likely could come a time down the road when the basic idea would be useful in some project that I am dreaming up.
I use it almost daily. The amount of educational and instructional information that's available is amazing. Do you want to see a Heart Bypass operation or how to fix a Leaky Toilet. What's A Cochlear Implant? You Tube's got it.
Every day. History, all kinds of documentaries, humor, travel, nostalgia, and yes instruction and diy.