The Problem with Fast Knowledge

8 minutes • Jul 27, 2025

You’ve likely heard of the term fast fashion. It refers to inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends. **The industrial revolution created new technology which allowed larger volumes of clothing to be produced more frequently. By the 1990s, chains such as Zara began to manufacture clothing at rapid rates year-round. Today, online brands such as Temu and Shein monitor social media to pushout trending styles in a matter of days. The only way brands can sustain this pace is by compromising on the quality of their materials. Clothing is no longer sewn using organic cotton or silk by skilled dressmakers. Instead, we are presented with a cheap blend of polyester and nylon, leading to the decay of clothing quality.

There exists a parallel to this, a term I call fast knowledge. I define it as superficial educational resources produced rapidly by content creators in response to the latest trends in an attempt to bolster fame and revenue. The largest video sharing platform today is YouTube with approximately 2.7 billion active users per month. It is a hub for all sorts of recreational, educational and informational content. A study conducted by Pearson titled Beyond Millennials showed that the majority of Generation Z preferred YouTube as their primary learning method instead of books. For me, this is a cause for concern.

Similar to how the fashion industry decayed with the emergence of fast fashion, so did knowledge work with the creation of YouTube. Today, the majority of educational YouTubers post content on tight schedules in order to keep-up with growing view counts. Many do not think deeply enough about the knowledge they want to convey in order to craft a lean and impactful resource for others. Some may not even use credible resources to support their claims. This absence of rigor is partially due to the lack of incentive structures based on merit. The recommendation algorithm uses view counts to decide which videos should appear in search results and curated feeds.

My advice to those seeking accurate, actionable and deep knowledge in any area is to use books as your primary source of information. The arguments I provide will highlight how the incentive structures surrounding the publishing of books, together with their proven ability for higher retention, will enable you to excel in any area.

To clarify, this advice is for those who have a subject or topic that they want to master — who want to speak articulately about it. To achieve that level of mastery, you need to be diligent about where your understanding comes from. That includes knowing which resources are shallow and which ones offer deeper insights.

I recognize that there are some skills that cannot be learned from a book, and that it is acceptable to watch educational videos as a primer. However, becoming an excellent mathematician requires you to understand proofs, solve equations, and model systems. Being a great programmer requires you to understand the elements for building reliable, scalable and maintainable software.

Incentive Structures Matter

Incentive structures motivate people to achieve specific milestones that align with established goals. Take the example of sales. Salespeople are incentivized to achieve specific metrics in return for commissions, more PTO, or promotions. Software engineers are incentivized to improve products by being offered stock options.

If you study the incentive structure of YouTube, it revolves around one key metric: views. YouTube runs advertisements for other companies while a video is playing. More views lead to more ad revenue for YouTube, a portion of which is then given to the creator. The more views a video gets, the more a creator is paid. Tied to this is the idea of viewer retention, measured as the drop-off rate. Creators ensure that viewers watch their videos in their entirety. If people are clicking off of a video, it provokes the YouTube algorithm not to recommend it to others. A common way to increase retention is to make videos shorter by cutting out details. However, without those details the subject loses nuance, a critical component of quality educational resources. Nuance helps us understand why something is the case instead of just knowing that it is.

On his podcast, Cal Newport — author of Deep Work — mentions how the incentive structure of the YouTube algorithm can lead to the skewing of content generated by a creator. Take the example of someone making videos about becoming a better student. They initially post videos giving scientifically proven study tips. However, after a few months, they notice videos that do the best are about the top 10 lists of the best note taking apps or stationery hauls. This leads them to make more videos talking about these shallow topics because those give them the highest view counts. Suddenly, their content has been skewed towards topics that are unrelated to becoming a better student.

Contrast this with the incentive structure of a book. The incentive for writing a book is that it better work. The reader must gain value from the book, only then will they recommend it to others. We expect books to provide us with the details because the author is unbounded by the amount of detail their medium — and its distribution channels — can carry. They must do thorough research, draw on their experiences, support their arguments, and convey them clearly. If there exists an audience, the only way they are going to read the book is if others have found it useful. I am not going to sit through 400 pages that seem half-baked. However, I have sat through mediocre YouTube videos while eating or waiting to fall asleep — contributing to its views and raising its rank in the recommendation algorithm. Books that do not provide ample accurate insights do not make it to the best-sellers list.

Attention and Retention

In 2018, a meta analysis was published on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension in the Educational Research Review. The findings highlighted that increasing exposure to technology may encourage a shallower kind of cognitive processing that leads to a decrease in deep comprehension in digital environments. This occurs because digital devices emphasize speed and multitasking.

Furthermore, an article written by Maryanne Wolf for ABC Australia titled Success in Circuit Lies described similar findings. A group of researchers in Singapore researched the long-term effects of screen use on young children. Findings on over 500 children showed that increased screen time was associated with weaker development of the brain regions responsible for the executive-function skills that govern attention, inhibition and memory. This happens because the brain is overwhelmed, which stunts its growth. Maryanne mentioned,

[This] could as easily describe the experiences of older children — and, indeed, adults…Screens are associated with distraction, which leads to…continuous partial attention. That…leads to less time allocated to abstract thought. The more time on screens, the more entrenched are associations to quick, superficial information-gathering.

Both of these studies focused on the effects of comprehension when reading on screens versus paper. However, I would argue, if devices are subconsciously associated with speed and multitasking, leading to shallower comprehension and weaker brain development, those learning through video alone will not retain the information they’re engaging with. The study from Wolf mentioned that readers perceived themselves better on screens because they were “faster”. This can also describe the experience of someone watching countless hours of video content and feeling like they’re understanding more than they actually are.

While you can binge numerous videos on a subject in a short timespan, well-written books are too large to read at once. They must be digested slowly and deliberately. It is difficult to read passively because it demands your attention. You’ve likely had to go back and read a paragraph because you realized you did not comprehend it. How often have you done the same with a video? Books are significantly more strict with regards to understanding. They will not let you gloss over them without bringing it to your attention, and that situational awareness is critical for acquiring knowledge. Those who see this value will practice getting faster and more efficient at reading because they see them as an untapped source of enlightenment that they must improve at consuming.

It’s Not All Digital Doom

Part of learning involves building a framework of the topic before studying the details. In A Mind for Numbers, author Barbara Oakley talks about the importance of understanding larger concepts first. This helps form effective chunks that smaller details can latch onto. Having a framework that you can slot details into is more effective than throwing them into the void and hoping they synthesize. This is where YouTube videos can help. They can allow you to get a roadmap of the terrain you’re about to traverse, making the journey through the weeds easier to navigate.

In my experience, videos can give rise to more questions than answers. I see this as a good thing. It primes the brain to go looking for the answers in more detailed mediums, such as books, which leads to better comprehension and retention of new information. This is an idea called pre-questioning, that increases interest and helps people construct mental models, making new information more potent.

Knowing what the shape of the topic is and having a list of questions about it creates a productive tension that pushes you towards mediums that provide more detail. It gives new information context to live in and provides answers, turning information into knowledge. In a podcast episode, Cal Newport mentions how reading secondary sources before the primary source allows you to develop a framework about what’s important. I see videos in this same light — as a secondary or tertiary source.

Conclusion

The ability to articulate your knowledge shows how much you value mental clarity. It adds an air of sophistication to your words that others can sense. A person who spends time obsessing over the quality of their sources improves their grasp on the topic at hand. Admittedly, you can consume several YouTube videos in the time it takes to read just four pages of a book, but what is contained within those pages will aid you significantly more on your journey towards mastery.