Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill G
It seems that Youtube is very much a part of our lives these days. I recently needed some videos to help me understand what I was getting into on a couple occasions: refrigerator door leveling, brake pads on a John Deere lawn tractor, Delta shower faucet rebuilding and garage door insulating....Just to name a few. For each of these there are numerous videos that range from downright hacks to knowledgeable pros. I usually go through all the various videos and try to piece together my best course of action.
Videos serve a purpose, and are very appreciated. I have done a couple myself and holy cow. The last one I did took about 3 hours to do a 2-1/2 minute video, but I am a novice at filming and editing. My hat is off to those who have dedicated countless hours of time to produce their content. Sometimes seeing the process is much better than reading it 100 times from a book.
I might have methods and techniques that differ from video authors, but I still watch them. I can tell you that in my early times of owning my Model A, I got to know the car a lot better and knowing some hints and traps by watching videos. Jack Bahm comes to mind. He does a great job of presenting simple and practical content that may or may not be absolutely condoned by some, but his videos are such that a novice can generally keep their car on the road by those videos. More recent content by Paul Shinn is also very much at the top of my list.
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I think you have hit the nail squarely on the head! The biggest downfall to videos IMO is it has removed the most valuable tool in the garage. It has eliminated the need for problem solving. For example, if a 'mechanic' finds himself spending an hour watching 3 or 4 videos for someone to show how they did a task, what has that 'mechanic' actually learned? On the other hand, instead of watching videos, if the mechanic went straight to the garage to do the necessary task and spent 30 minutes using learned "problem solving" skills to do the same task, not only is valuable time saved ...but the mechanic has used his most valuable tool, -his brain, to understand the entire mechanism. Experience will always be the best teacher, but if "problem solving" skills are not used frequently, we lose them. IMO, finding an applicable video on YouTube is not really problem solving.
Something else to ponder, think about how many Model-As were restored 30-50 years ago by hobbyists who did not have YouTube nor Les' book to refer to when they worked on their Model-A. By comparison, think about how many fewer Model-As are being restored today (-or the last decade or so) by hobbyists, -and even how many hobbyists struggle with the simplest of Model-A tasks (-as evidenced by the questions asked on social media and online platforms).