Engaging with Video Content

Shahrzad Rafati’s video consumption talk suggests that we are what we watch. As a youth, her video content was constantly rationed. Moving to Canada, television and film were important educational tools that assisted her in learning the language and culture. Now, Rafati asserts that when it comes to video content, we’re asking the wrong questions. It’s not whether video content is good or bad for children, but the nature of our relationship with it. In judging what we watch, we are actually judging ourselves.

Rafati notes that we have more control over what we watch than ever before. With more broadcasters and content-uploading sites like YouTube, we have more options. And increasing technology, means we can access video content in a variety of ways. She wonders why more parents don’t treat video consumption as a participatory, active process. Rather, she notices that we often treat video consumption as a benign and incidental activity. Rafati contents that video consumption need not to be a mind-numbing past-time; instead, we can leverage our new-found power of choice and utilize video as a self-inspiring and self-motivating activity.