Learning stuff

One of the things that the Internet, and YouTube in particular, excels at is making it easy to find out stuff. Whether it’s learning how to fold a fitted sheet, or a shirt, or maybe the effects of sitting all day, or anything else we might want to know, some site or video will tell us.

The trouble, though, is similar to that with news sites: How can we tell what’s good and useful, and what’s, well, not? For me, much of it is trial and error, usually because I stumbled across something. That’s certainly the way I’ve found a lot of useful YouTube Channels, ones that teach me stuff. I’ve shared many videos from those channels over the years.

But sometimes a recommendation from someone I know—even just when they share a video—can help me find new sources for learning stuff. The video above, from WatchMojo, counts down the “Top 10 YouTube Make You Smarter Channels”. I’m subscribed to many of the channels they list, but it gives me a few more to check out (and yes, I’ve shared a WatchMojo video before, too).

The thing I find YouTube most useful for is when I want to know how to do something: Chances are good there’s a video to instruct me on whatever it is I want to learn how to do. The “how to fold” videos I’ve shared are examples of this. I’ve also found text-based sites with instructions on how to do something I want to learn, but videos seem to make the skill easier to learn. Maybe that’s just me.

Finding good and reliable sites to learn stuff is relatively easy, I think, and worth the effort. Who wouldn’t want to learn new things?