From ancient cave art to four-dimension cinema, human beings have been living in a visual world. These visuals, rich in colors and shapes, show human’s rich creativity and intelligence. Visuals have been regarded as a major means to record history, express emotions, and formulate arguments. Due to the visuals’ power to illustrate arguments effectively, both children’s readers and college composition textbooks have observed the traditional practice of supplementing texts with visuals. The introduction of YouTube videos to freshman composition classes is a continuation of this practice; however, the sound, the motion, and the interactivity that are distinctive features of YouTube videos appeal to the audiences even more effectively than still images, potentially stimulating the audiences’ minds more vigorously.

Let us take the previously identified YouTube video for example: When college students see the professional news announcer, familiar life styles, busy streets, moving cars, and a crowded campus in the video, they can easily relate their own busy, exhausting, active lives to what they see. The walking students, the knowledgeable researchers, the National Sleep Foundation teen study, the news announcer in front of a big TV screen, the hospital, American sleep diagnoses, and concrete statistics that carry social meanings, once represented on the video, demystify the assignment in the students’ minds. Students perceive sleep deprivation from complex social, biological, and economic dynamics involved in it, thus feeling compelled to listen, read, and analyze the information presented through the YouTube video.

In many ways, this viewing experience stimulates students to uncover what they have already known, enlighten them about what they do not know, and inspire them to know more about the subject. Brasseur (1993) highlights the impact of vision on the process of students’ writing:

The idea that one’s sense of vision is not merely a receptive sensory skill but, rather, an active focus of one’s intelligence, is a critical concept for writers who wish to use visual thinking in their writing process. This idea crystallizes within writer’s minds the critical importance of turning to visual stimuli when attempting to work through ideas in the writing process. (p. 130)

While students watch the YouTube video, their minds are actively occupied with the movements, conversations, possible associations with the pictures, and even the essay assignment sheet. One of these pictures may attract their attention and be transformed into a most interesting point on which they intend to concentrate. Visual stimulus, thus, may help students to express ideas and shape arguments. In other words, the visuals in the videos catch students’ attention, arouse their curiosity, and trigger their imagination.

Apart from visually stimulating viewers’ minds, YouTube potentially influences students by its music or sound, which can inspire, dismay, and/or please students and subsequently impact their cognitive learning development. As a mixed product of sights and sounds, YouTube impacts audiences visually, audibly, and psychologically. The pedagogical implication of music to produce an opportune learning environment in the classrooms is noted by Nash (2009):

Music provides energy to classrooms and seminars. Music can also lighten up and energize faculty and committee meetings. Music can add just the right mood and create an atmosphere in which discussion thrives. The use of just the right song at just the right time brings smiles (and the occasional groan) to the faces of students and adult participants alike. (p. 45)

Many college students, growing up in a visual and audio culture, show sensitivity to images and sound and are able to multitask; therefore, the physical stimulus from sounds and images impact them cognitively.

According to Ron Fortune (1989), students take advantage of the computer’s capability to facilitate a move between intuitive cognition and intellectual cognition (p. 133). The sounds and images vigorously reflect diverse opinions regarding sleep deprivation among the youth and create a real living space for these college students. As discussed earlier, the familiar images, relevant conversations, and engaging music influence the learning process of these students intuitively. The pseudo-real learning environment both triggers fresh memory and engages them in dialogues with the YouTube video. Students can also choose to view other viewers’ comments on the video and even check out related video clips recommended by YouTube. In this way, they are not only interacting with their peers and the instructor but also with the computer, which forms a productive learning cycle.

The sights and sounds integrated in the YouTube video, therefore, impact students intuitively and intellectually. In a way, YouTube creates a computer-mediated space to engage students in the writing process by stimulating students’ minds and encouraging articulation, dialogue, collaboration, production, and interaction.

Starting Conversations,
Motivating Reading.