Having attended over 100 science conference in my 30+ years of academia, I’ve realized that attending live talks has some hidden advantages over just ‘catching up later with the videos’, or ‘just doing 1-to-1 conversations’.
First, if a high enough proportion of people at a conference attend any given talk, they all have something to react to with friends, to discuss at social gatherings,, and to serve as an ice-breaker when meeting strangers (e.g. ‘Hey, what did you think of that talk by X about Y?’). This works best for plenary talks where there’s only one talk happening at a time, so everybody’s coordinated on that topic as something important to consider.
Second, live talks induce a level of collective emotional engagement, a kind of mass hypnosis, or a tribal ritualistic mind-set, that heightens the affective impact of the talk. This might be as ‘efficient’ at a strictly cognitive level as watching the talk later at 1.75x speed. But it can help the ideas sink deeper into one’s heart and brain, as it were.
Third, attending talks incentivizes speakers to do a good job of prepping their talk, clarifying their ideas, simplifying their data, and polishing their narrative. If nobody shows up, it’s disheartening. If lots of people show up, it’s very encouraging—and it sets up expectations that one must do one’s best in future talks at the same conference. Obviously there’s a game-theoretic problem here that people can do ‘social loafing’ or ‘free-riding’ on the talk attendance of others, without paying the costs oneself. But this can be offset if a research community has strong social norms that, if you attend a conference, you really should be attending lots of live talks. People can notice who’s in the audience, pulling their weight, encouraging the speakers to excel.
Fourth, great live talks can be memorable events that can reinforce one’s intellectual and ethical identity, and make one feel connected to an ongoing tradition of ideas, and to the ‘life of the mind’ in general. Decades later, I can remember seeing live conference talks by inspiring thinkers like Peter Singer, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Leda Cosmides, William D. Hamilton, Margo Wilson, Geoffrey Hinton, etc. They’re among the highlights of my intellectual life. And they’re motivating in a way that reading their books isn’t. Conversely, there have been plenty of talks by major thinkers and up-and-coming researchers that I failed to attend, and that I’ll regret not seeing.
So, in a very narrow, cognitivist sense, it might seem more ‘efficient’ to watch conference talks later, as if they’re no different than any other youtube video or podcast. But that misses out on at least four—and probably many more—hidden benefits of actually being there in person—socially engaged, part of the tribe, incentivizing the speaker, and setting up precious memories that can keep inspiring one for decades afterwards.
Chi—good points.
Having attended over 100 science conference in my 30+ years of academia, I’ve realized that attending live talks has some hidden advantages over just ‘catching up later with the videos’, or ‘just doing 1-to-1 conversations’.
First, if a high enough proportion of people at a conference attend any given talk, they all have something to react to with friends, to discuss at social gatherings,, and to serve as an ice-breaker when meeting strangers (e.g. ‘Hey, what did you think of that talk by X about Y?’). This works best for plenary talks where there’s only one talk happening at a time, so everybody’s coordinated on that topic as something important to consider.
Second, live talks induce a level of collective emotional engagement, a kind of mass hypnosis, or a tribal ritualistic mind-set, that heightens the affective impact of the talk. This might be as ‘efficient’ at a strictly cognitive level as watching the talk later at 1.75x speed. But it can help the ideas sink deeper into one’s heart and brain, as it were.
Third, attending talks incentivizes speakers to do a good job of prepping their talk, clarifying their ideas, simplifying their data, and polishing their narrative. If nobody shows up, it’s disheartening. If lots of people show up, it’s very encouraging—and it sets up expectations that one must do one’s best in future talks at the same conference. Obviously there’s a game-theoretic problem here that people can do ‘social loafing’ or ‘free-riding’ on the talk attendance of others, without paying the costs oneself. But this can be offset if a research community has strong social norms that, if you attend a conference, you really should be attending lots of live talks. People can notice who’s in the audience, pulling their weight, encouraging the speakers to excel.
Fourth, great live talks can be memorable events that can reinforce one’s intellectual and ethical identity, and make one feel connected to an ongoing tradition of ideas, and to the ‘life of the mind’ in general. Decades later, I can remember seeing live conference talks by inspiring thinkers like Peter Singer, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Leda Cosmides, William D. Hamilton, Margo Wilson, Geoffrey Hinton, etc. They’re among the highlights of my intellectual life. And they’re motivating in a way that reading their books isn’t. Conversely, there have been plenty of talks by major thinkers and up-and-coming researchers that I failed to attend, and that I’ll regret not seeing.
So, in a very narrow, cognitivist sense, it might seem more ‘efficient’ to watch conference talks later, as if they’re no different than any other youtube video or podcast. But that misses out on at least four—and probably many more—hidden benefits of actually being there in person—socially engaged, part of the tribe, incentivizing the speaker, and setting up precious memories that can keep inspiring one for decades afterwards.