I do use it from time to time. Lolo about a year ago I was needing info and my GD heard my need ..she turns to me and said..look it up on UTube mamawa, everything you ever wanted to know is on there. tha is kinda scary actually
Yesterday, we met a young mother who bought an IPad mini for her 3 year old daughter. Apparently, the $500 IPad the little girl had was stolen out of the car. Along with the games that the girl had to have on the Pad was.....yep.....YouTube. A 3 year old?
I love YouTube. Watch more on it than all my other streaming channels put together. Once you know the tricks to the search, it's amazing the older movies, concerts, information, etc. you can find on there. My grandson doesn't have many subscribers, but it gives him lots of joy to have his own channel. When I miss him, I can watch him on my TV.
He is God's reward to me for not killing his mother when she was a teenager. He also looks a lot like me!
There are mainly two places on the internet that I spend time (not counting this forum, of course), and YouTube is definitely one of them. If I need to learn something, watch a tutorial video about a product, or just want to watch something educational, YouTube is my main place to go. I have a YouTube account, so I have a list of favorite subscriptions that i can look through for new videos, plus just browsing for anything else I might want to know about on some whim. Personally, I can’t see how ANYONE can get through life without YouTube , but I do realize that not every one thinks the same as I do. The second place that I spend time is with my Facebook Groups. Besides keeping up with my friends and family on my facebook main page, I also belong to a bunch of news groups, and health groups, and even one for spiralizing veggies, and of course, the one for lost/found dogs in our neighborhood, in case I see a stray wandering down the street looking lost. If I am involved in knitting, or some such activity that i can’t watch a video, I will find one of the many podcasts, which are like listening to a radio program , basically. Over all, YouTube is an excellent place for anyone who wants to keep their mind active and learn new information, and enjoy doing it.
Does it bother anyone that Youtube is filled with a bunch of basement dwellers who churn out sensational click-bait videos, conspiracy theories, and downright propaganda? All the "political commentary" and "experts"... it's overwhelming. I always wonder what their credentials are and exactly how they obtain their inside information, and exactly who their audience is.
I gather that we’re not talking about for entertainment so to me it’s like any of the other forms of media. I’m very picky about the presumed non-fiction videos and even then, if something is said that I doubt then I go researching for facts. I open up a few free lectures like TEDx talks and some at MIT and USC etc. and even click on a few debates but as always, I’m constantly looking for possible errors which leads me to further study. I also use YouTube for a few mechanical tips especially if the problem is name brand specific. Sadly though, the one’s that bug me are those videos that are health oriented. People put on a white coat and a stethoscope around their neck and bazinga, they’re a doctor or a health specialist. I’ve already seen my share of some very bad information coming from some of them and I don’t mind commenting when I see and hear it. That is, if they haven’t already turned the comment section off. Oh yeah, I try not to go near what I believe to be a tik-tok’ er on YouTube. I thought I had heard and seen it all until Tik-Tok came along and YouTube allowed their videos to be shown on their platform.
In a sense, I agree. There's a whole lot of crap there, much of which I recognize and no longer click into their channels. But even those who are probably sincere about bringing information are often wrong because they don't have access to the true stuff; they are basically people who, like many of us, are trying to figure out what's going on but may have the resources or the tech-savvy to make a production out of it. Some of them have clear agendas beyond the simple dissemination of information, while others are likely more objective, but they all want, perhaps more than anything else, to make a name for themselves on social media so that they can bring their numbers up to the point where they can, first, make a living from YouTube and, secondly, become filthy rich through their channels and other media. However, this doesn't differ much from the mainstream media. Complicating matters, we have to deal with YouTubers uploading other people's content and adding their own click-bait to it. After weeding out the YouTube channels that I have determined can't be trusted, I think I get more objective information from social media than from the mainstream news, which is, for the most part, strictly agenda-driven and not at all above outright lying or withholding information. Still, you've got to have more than one grain of salt on hand.