If you don’t know what to do next – no, you don’t form a working group these days. Instead, you take out your smartphone, open YouTube and type in a few terms. The video platform can be considered the home of clear demonstration: among the thirty-three million tutorials, there is always one that offers the answer to the question. In this way, even people with two left hands can learn how to repair a washing machine or a bicycle brake.
Or you can learn how to drive a car. That’s actually logical; nevertheless, it can be assumed that the Swabian police recently looked through the speed camera photos in amazement. Because behind the wheel of a vehicle caught in Möttingen (Donau-Ries district) was a young woman instead of the male owner. A woman who was too young. Investigations showed that it was not the man who was driving, but his 15-year-old daughter. “The girl told officers that she had learned to drive on YouTube,” the police said. The young woman is now facing charges of driving without a license – while the father must answer for allowing the driver to carry out what he had learned.
But this is a lesson you have to learn from YouTube: that not every instruction is equally helpful. For example – but these are extreme cases – some graduates of the YouTube Academy believe that the earth is flat, the coronavirus was an invention and lizard creatures have infiltrated humanity. From this perspective, learning to drive via the Internet is only recommended to a limited extent and can still be one of the better decisions compared to other options.
In any case, the introduction of video study into everyday life cannot be stopped. It is simply too practical. There is even an anecdote going around the editorial office about a young assistant doctor who – left to his own devices in the emergency room at night – watched a procedure on YouTube before attempting it on a patient. The rumor also says that the patient survived the procedure. It is quite possible that in the operating room, the call will soon no longer be “Nurse, scalpel, please!” but rather “Nurse, cell phone!”