Mediums Overpower Messages

I find myself agreeing if you replace "makes me dumber/smarter" with "shortens/lengthens my attention span".

This feels correct.

Years ago (before I found LW) I was reading local websites, mostly political debates. Later I switched to Reddit. There I gradually replaced less interesting groups with more interesting ones. Then I replaced the entire thing with Hacker News. -- This all felt like progress from low quality to high quality. But when I take a step back, I see that I actually keep doing the same thing: reading the web. As opposed to, you know, actually doing something.

(More sadly, I realize that reading LW and SSC is also the more of the same.)

There is a symmetry to this sorting. (...) The smarter creating a certain kind of media makes me the dumber consuming it does.

I imagine that writing textbooks or creating online courses would be a minor exception to this rule. That is, creating a good online course is probably better than creating a video game, but studying an online course is also better than playing a video game.

But the important lesson is what you want to replace the category instead of replacing your place within the category. The goal is not to find a better website to read, but to replace reading websites with something better.

One thing here that seems important to note is what each medium does to your attention and what sort of cognitive work it facilitates:

To borrow a few items from your list:

• Videogames: literally a Skinner box that gives you reinforcement to keep doing the thing.
• Web surfing / news feeds / blogs / movies: makes you a passive consumer of the content.
• Direct messaging: requires you to spend time thinking about your response.
• Writing software / making videos / drawing comics: puts you in a position to think about the message you want to convey, teaching to others requires you to bridge inferential gaps, look at your models.
• Spaced repetition: literally designed to make you remember stuff.

Firstly, some topics are just easier if they can be presented the right format. Geometry will be easier in a format that allows diagrams, compared to an audiobook. Secondly, formats, like websites are often Schelling points, not many serious scientists publish their work as a series of gifs on twitter. Most scientists know this, and so don't look for a series of gifs on twitter. Then there are affordances, a video of a maths lecture on Youtube, (there are quite a few uni lectures that have been filmed and put on Youtube) might be informative, but have links to lolcats all down the side. If the medium distracts you, you will learn less.

There is also a sense of making use of the medium. Take the medium of videogame. In principle a video game can display an arbitrary pattern of pixels on a screen. However, suppose that the pattern of pixels most suited to learning some topic looks like pages of text. There is no point making a videogame, just to reimplement a document reader in it. So all the people trying to make serious learning resources use text documents. Any video game that is made is full of interactive widgets that aren't that useful for learning, and is usually targeted at those with too little attention span to read much text.

A lot of the time, I would recommend going for any format in which the information you want is explained by someone who knows the subject and is good at teaching. If the subject is obscure, go for anywhere that you can find the info at all. If distraction is a big problem for you, download the Youtube videos that you intend to watch, unplug your router and then watch them.

In my experience, the content can make a huge difference. For example videogames like Factorio or Minecraft almost feel like writing software to me. Because they require creativity and problem solving skills, just like coding.

There are also huge differences in YouTube videos. Some are very informative and thought-provoking. Watching them does certainly not make me "dumber".

I also don't understand why you distinguish between Books (fiction) and Books (nonfiction). Isn't that the same medium but with different content?

Stack Exchange

Were you using it to ask questions, or answering questions on it?

[BAD] Web surfing

Blogs

Is this all blog engagement aside from writing posts, or is there a difference like:

reading a blog < commenting on a blog < discussing things in the comments section < writing a blog < writing a blog and reading comments/getting feedback and improving (as opposed to just getting better with practicing writing, but without feedback)