Text's silent value.

Is Facebook the new TV? Social network says it will be 'all video' in 5 years https://t.co/LfMQfgWFdt pic.twitter.com/1LKQIszGdC

— CBC News (@CBCNews) June 16, 2016

An article over at CBC titled "Facebook says it will be 'all video' in 5 years as people abandon text" caught my attention recently. In it, Lauren O'Neil describes comments made by "Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa," who claimed that users of Facebook are moving away from text. Mendelsohn says,

"The best way to tell stories in this world, where so much information is coming at us, actually is video," she continued. "It conveys so much more information in a much quicker period. So actually the trend helps us to digest much more information."

I get this. The ability to say so many words in 30 seconds is one of the factors that led to the gradual creation my "30 Second Twitter Rants," In 30 seconds I can create a long, clause-laden sentence and fill it with inflection and gusto.

Also, it's easier to upload video to the Internet than it is to upload basic audio. Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube all support video, but not mere audio. Since it's easier to upload video to these social networking sites, it's no surprise that video is growing more dominant.

Not to mention how easy it is to make video content today. Anyone can do it. It's not even worth linking to video-makers as an example because this has become such an obvious fact.

But video has some severe limitations inherent in its format:

1. IT MAKES NOISE TO RECORD THEM. It's tough to make a private video and not invade somebody's space. There are plenty of times when I've thought I'd like to make a video, but then I can't find the space to do it. I don't want to disturb people or be distracted, and spaces that make room for that can be hard to come by. Not all of us don't care about what we look like while we record.
2. IT MAKES NOISE TO VIEW THEM. Someone can read something in silence, sans headphones. Video just doesn't work that way. Video takes a set amount of time with some sort of volume on; it forces the viewer into a timeframe that they might not be able to use.
3. IT TAKES AN EXCESS OF TECHNOLOGY TO PRODUCE THEM. Sure, there are some people who create content without more than a webcam, but the standards have gone way, way up in the last couple years. You need to be obscenely beautiful to get away with nothing but a webcam now, and people will quickly expect you to improve your equipment and skills.
4. TO MAKE GOOD VIDEO CONTENT, YOU NEED TO WRITE MOST OF IT DOWN ANYHOW. Really, very few people can make consistent video content without a load of detailed notes, at least. So you might as well post the notes in addition to your video.
5. VIDEO CONTENT IS A PAIN TO EDIT AFTER PUBLICATION. If you make a mistake on a video you publish, you need to create a whole new video to fix it. Text is hundreds of times easier to edit. If you make a mistake on a YouTube video, for example, you need to upload a brand new one; if you make a mistake on a text document, you annotate it and fix it. Done.

Video's great, and I enjoy making video content now and then as well. But text is superior for its editability, its clandestine potential, and its ease of use. Sure, Facebook might move to more video content, but text is here to stay.

And for someone like myself who's barely on Facebook in the first place, I guess it doesn't matter what Zuck and co. do anyhow.