This has been shown to be not true many times over.

Different subjects need to be taught in different ways, but there are optimal ways to present information that works for everyone.

No one is a "visual learner", there are topics that are best presented in a visual format.

Where’s this list of the so called optimal ways to present information that works for everyone?

No, it's not about the "optimal way", it's about the oft-cited the factoid "90% of people are haptic learners, 30% are visual learners, 15% are auditory learners, 25% are text-based learners". Somebody did an experiment and found out 90% of subjects remembered something later when they had to learn to do it, but only 25% remembered when they had to read it. (All numbers made up, does not matter in the context of this comment)

Of course, this completely misrepresents the experiment! After learning to do something, you are 90% likely to retain it for a certain duration, after you read about it, you are only 25% likely to retain it, so in aggregate you only retain 25% of what you read.

The idea was never to find people who are "visual learning type" or the "non-learning-by-doing type".

That's what became of this idea in education through the game of telephone that mangles experimental results on their way from developmental psychology and cognitive science into education departments, and then into future high school teachers during undergrad lectures. Even my own high school teachers in Germany talked about learning types as if there was such a thing.

Sorry if I was unclear. There is no singular optimal way of teaching. But for every subject, there is an optimal way to teach it. And usually that optimal way is a combination of visuals, auditory, reading, etc.

Way too often, someone achieves understanding when information happens to be presented in an optimal way for that information and they instead believe that the way was optimized for them rather than for the information.

Then they get stuck on "I need to watch videos to truly understand it".

Ok, where’s the list of the optimal way to teach every subject?

Anecdotal counterargument: I am a visual learner. For almost all topics I learn about, watching a video is by far the most effective, fastest, and most impactful way for me to grasp and remember new concepts. A very large part of my education in math, science, machine learning, music theory, filmmaking, screenwriting, visual effects, history, and chemistry was video lectures/essays/content.

I agree that the famous "three/four types of learners, everyone belongs to one of them" factoid isn't true, but disagree that "No one is a 'visual learner.'" I am a visual learner.

This is a self report of a self assessment. So the most unreliable form of reporting coupled with the most unreliable form of assessment.

I believe you believe all of that, but I don't believe it is true. Even in your case.

Video is great for many things, but step by step instructions/tutorials ain't one of them.

I disagree. It is great because you can actually see where the steps are performed. It's sometimes faster than reading a bullet point than finding out where on the screen it is.

And I did NOT grow up on videos, I just think they're neat.

Of course, there are times when I dislike them too. It's not always black and white.

> you can actually see where the steps are performed. It's sometimes faster than reading a bullet point than finding out where on the screen it is

If and only if the steps are performed in the correct order without any fluffs. In one particularly bad example that I saw someone was showing how to use an updated feature in Photoshop. The sequence went something like

* the instructor showed the old way of doing things

* they then did 'undo' a few times to get back to the point where the new feature was different

* they started showing the new way

* they then realised they'd made a mistake earlier on - missing out a step in the new sequence

* they did undo a few times

* they did the step they'd omitted

* they then carried on from that point

I had to watch several times to work out the actual sequence of correct operations. To my mind they should have re-recorded from the beginning rather than show their disrespect for the viewers.

The easiest form of media to create is unedited video.

The hardest is edited video

It’s funny that unedited, poorly rehearsed “presenting style” has in a way taken on a life of its own. Speaking to a director off-camera, quick jump cuts of multiple takes, drawing attention to flubbing of lines, are all sort of techniques used in YouTube videos to show “authenticity” to the viewer (ie, I’m just a regular person making these videos).

I was listening to a podcast recently and noticed they left in some banter before an interview started. The banter added nothing to the discussion since they weren’t even talking about the topic yet. Its sole purpose was to make the chat feel informal and, in my opinion, “more real”.

Meanwhile radio shows were taking out individual ums and errs, even in the analog era.

This. Although I have discovered why the jump cut is so popular! Actually, even inexpert jump-cutting does improve things though, so worth doing.

Extensive use of jump-cuts lets you edit single-camera monologues as if they were text. Much easier & cheaper than doing re-shoots, using multiple cameras, et c.

I can personally attest that this style was extremely off-putting to us oldsters (millennial here—yeah, we're getting old) until we'd had a few years to get used to it. It's not something you see in traditional video media unless a mistake happens, or you're watching some kind of weird art thing.

There are very badly written articles as well though.

Yeah, but I can also usually tell an article is bad in a 15 second skim. Videos aren't always so generous.