Use Technology - Don't let it use you
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to Next Level Chess podcast. I'm your host, Grandmaster Noël Studer. And today I wanna talk about technology. And yes, I do love technology because it gave me, well, my job at the moment gave me the ability to connect with so many people, to help people. It makes me sometimes more productive, but there are also tricky parts of technology nowadays, and I wanna focus on this side of the technology.

This is my personal feeling right now. For chess improvers, technology has added difficulty to chess improvement. I would argue that more people have struggled more in chess [00:01:00] because of technology and what it brings. And fewer people have improved quicker thanks to technology.

And the key problem is that technology is so advanced that if we don't use it the right way, if we are not super aware, if we don't fight it, I would even say, technology is made at this point to take advantage of us, to use us. And so I want to focus on this part and on the part you might be familiar with, which is YouTube algorithm and just in general we say social media, just general algorithms, but I think YouTube gives the kind of best example for this because compared to, let's say, podcast platforms, right? If you're listening to your podcast on Spotify, you don't get a feed with many different suggestions from the algorithm. You find your own podcast, which is a nicer experience, or somebody [00:02:00] shares it with you that knows you.

So that's a kind of a healthy way, I would say, of discovering new content. YouTube has this kind of pushing you new things, kind of trying to give you more and more and more, and just hopes that you will stick to it as long as possible. But the promise of tech companies, and that's not only YouTube, you can find that anywhere. The tech companies always want to make you believe that what they are doing is good for you. Like we are changing our algorithm to serve you. We are making this to serve you. But is it really true? Spoiler alert, if you don't know that yet. Oh, that's really painful.

But it's hell no. What tech companies want is to make more money. How they make more money is by making their product as addictive as possible. So you spend more time there, that's YouTube's incentive. YouTube wants you to stay on the platform for as long as possible, watch as many videos as [00:03:00] possible because they earn from every single ad that you are watching.

So more time from you spent on YouTube is more money for YouTube or Google.

And I can tell you as a new YouTube creator that the way they are doing this is super sophisticated. Like you get so many stats, it's incredible. You can check basically everything you want. And YouTube tries to push you towards making your content even more addictive and shows you ideas, shows you different videos that scored well, maybe something you should take from there, blah, blah, blah.

The whole goal is just to make every single creator as good as possible at keeping people on the platform for as long as possible. The problem is that what gets left behind in this [00:04:00] approach is the most important question for the viewer, for you guys at home listening to this, but then also watching a YouTube video is if you wanna improve your chess, the question for you is, by watching this video, do you actually learn something valuable?

Are you spending your time wisely on chess improvement? When you watch a YouTube video, that's very different from how long do I spend or will I get addicted to it? These are two different things. And that brings me to a concept I've been thinking about a lot, which is the illusion of improvement. I believe the chess world is filled, and I think that's a big, broader picture, but I can speak for the chess world.

Chess world is filled with content that gives you the illusion of improvement. This is not only a YouTube thing, this is also with courses. This is also with all of these random AI coaches popping up. I'm really no fan of AI in general, in the chess [00:05:00] world. AI can be useful, but in helping you trying to think better, AI at the moment, in my opinion, absolutely useless and just a waste of time.

Could be another podcast episode, but I just wanted to mention this. So some people think, well, I wouldn't watch a video if I wouldn't improve something, feel like I improve something. So I'm in control.

First of all, let me tell you that big companies like Google are spending billions, not millions, billions, on understanding how your psychology works and how they can make their content more addictive for you. So I would say in that kind of battle, you have no chance, and it's important to understand and accept that.

Then the second thing is that you get the feeling of improvement when you watch most videos. That's exactly the problem. As a coach, as a grandmaster, I see that many videos are concepted in a way that when you go away from the video, you feel like you've improved. The [00:06:00] problem is you haven't really learned something valuable and sometimes, and that happens more often than you might believe, you get something that sounds logical, but it's absolutely wrong. It is just driving you in the completely wrong direction, and that's what I call the illusion of improvement.

So what is a good example of this happening? A good example is you see someone that is very strong. They play a certain opening, title it in a way. Oh, how to reach 2000 or from there to there, or whatever it is. They demo demolish all of their opponents, right? And when you watch this video, it looks very easy and they maybe say something like, here, you should play this plan, or you should make this idea, or whatever.

So while watching the video and after you've finished, probably clicking the next one because it is effective, you feel like you've learned something. The problem is you're just watching somebody that is way stronger [00:07:00] than their opponent demolishing them. And whatever they say about it sounds logical because they're so much stronger that their chess will always be supreme.

So basically, whatever they try, if they try to bring over a point for an opening, they can, if they try to bring over a point for how to use bishops, they can. But it's not the thing that they teach you that is valuable, it's just that they are so much better. Obviously they will win. So they can do whatever they want and frame it as an instructional content.

It's just, well, if you're a thousand points higher rated than somebody else, probably you're going to beat them, right? And then when you watch them, you feel like, oh, this is easy. Then you sit down yourself and you blunder piece in the same magical opening or with the kind of idea that they presented or whatever, because you don't have the skills that they have.

The idea sounds logical. But what you need is not just to watch that idea and get that illusion of improvement, you would actually need to improve your skills to be able to do what they are [00:08:00] doing. And now you add to this illusion of improvement. The always more absurd promises in titles and thumbnails, and we can definitely thank Mr. Beast and Gotham Chess for that.

Now basically everybody is doing it. At least I feel like this when I go to YouTube. And it makes sense that most of you are confused and frustrated when they watch a lot of YouTube. And the problem here is really, especially for people that are lower rated, if you aren't confused yet, probably you are building up a completely random and mostly wrong foundation for chess.

I see this with many students that they get to me, they are completely stuck. And then after like seven lessons at some point they are saying, well, but I should never play this move because I saw it in whatever, in an AI coach or a YouTuber told me this, or whatever. I'm like, wait, what?

What are you saying? Like, that's totally wrong. That's completely wrong. It's just like an isolated takeaway that you don't fully [00:09:00] understand. You use it in your own games and only much later you will understand that this is just rubbish. It's just not true. So that happens very often. And here is the vicious cycle that I see many, many people in right now.

You watch videos that promise improvement. You feel like you've learned something. And again, this applies also for courses, for whatever. It's just generally in chess right now with content. Then as I mentioned, the second step is feel like you've learned something. The third step is you can't execute what you've learned.

And now because you get these promises, because these things are marketed so well. Both in a sense, the free stuff is marketed well. They earn from you watching and selling ads and the paid stuff. Obviously they earn from you buying it. You feel that what you need is more videos, more things, more courses, more whatever.

Then you watch more of these, you get more the feeling, oh yeah, now I got it. You try it again, you still fail, right? And then just this [00:10:00] repeats forever until you realize, oh that's not the real improvement. I need to change something. And the main issue is really that the reality is kind of simple.

And if you listen to this podcast a lot, you probably know what I'm going to say. Chess improvement is very simple, but chess improvement is about you improving your own skills and not you watching somebody else showing off their skills. There is a huge difference between that. You gotta sit your butt down, do some puzzles, and solve these puzzles the right way.

You gotta sit down, play a game with good focus, analyze your mistakes, and learn how to do it better next time. You don't need more knowledge, you need more skills. The problem with that is if you are thinking about the whole, like content chess, content creation, economy, let's just talk about everything that is improvement based.

Okay? If you just want fun, if you just want entertainment, you got plenty of options. But everything that [00:11:00] is framed as improvement, okay? Now, if a creator or especially like big company is, I would say being honest about what you need as an improvement.

They would say, well, maybe watch one or two videos and then go train on your own, do a lot of repetitions and maybe come back in two weeks. But that, that's not really what makes the money. So YouTube wants their creators actually not to do that, because you should always watch more videos.

You might have seen at the end of a video often what people are saying, and this is smart, from a YouTube perspective, I'm not trying to attack anyone, it's just how the reality at the moment is. You see somebody saying, watch my next video. Watch this video. You will also like this video, right? So keep you in the loop. A course selling company is not going to sell you one course and then say, you don't need more.

You don't need more opening courses. Why are you buying a second opening course on 1. e4? That's not going to help you. They're saying, oh, yeah, yeah, buy more. Come on, come on, come on. More and more and more. We've got this new course and that new course, and [00:12:00] this subtle line and this subtle line and buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.

So kind of what helps you, which would be sitting down with a puzzle, thinking for your own, working on your skills, is not really pushing the algorithm, the content, the whatever. And so someone telling you what I'm telling you right now, maybe after listening to this podcast, don't go listen to 15 more podcasts of mine or after watching a YouTube video of mine don't go watch all the others, but maybe try to train your skills, is not smart from a business perspective.

And so what this turns out is that everything that gets watched a lot as a tendency okay, is more in the entertainment, more in the making, addictive more in the, oh, this is good. From a YouTube algorithm perspective will be a little bit lower quality. I'm very generous right here. Okay. Little bit lower [00:13:00] quality, let's be honest.

Okay? This is my podcast. It's often going to be very much trash. And so this is a trade off that creators are basically making. And don't tell me that creators don't know or whatever, right? I'm not going to say more about that, but. Let's leave it at this. So when you wanna make super viral content, when you wanna click bait as much as possible, the trade off you're making is the teaching that you're doing is probably not that high quality anymore.

You leave out some of the quality so you can be quicker, you can be more exaggerating, you can be more promising, you can be more whatever. You're not as real anymore, not as helpful to people. So if you are simply focused on the algorithm. Let's take this back to you guys. At home, you will get seen more or get pushed or see on your feed more of this type of content that takes the trade off of, I want to get as much views as possible.

I [00:14:00] don't really put as much effort into really helping these people. That's what the algorithm right now in chess, YouTube is looking like.

So now the big question, what are you doing about it? How can you take back the control? And this again, is simple, but it's hard to implement. And I notice myself because I also, I am on YouTube a lot as a person watching content, not chess, but other things. And I realized that you can get dragged in quickly and so on.

So here is what I recommend. And yes, I realized that for some of you this will mean consuming less of my content. And I'm totally fine with that. I see myself first as a coach, so I'm trying to help as much as possible. And then I am a content creator. I believe a lot of people you see online they switch the thing around.

So [00:15:00] here's what I recommend you do. Step number one, clean your history. If you realize that you don't like what you're fed, I see also below my YouTube videos, a lot of comments in the direction of, oh, finally someone that actually helps me, what I'm seeing usually. So if you have that kind of feeling, try to clean all of your search history.

You can easily do that. If you don't know how to Google it or ask AI how to do it, you'll find a way. So you reset the algorithm. Okay. The less temptation you get, the less FOMO you feel. Because one of the things is, and this is interesting in human psychology. Psychologists have found that what makes us mad, makes us angry, makes us upset is what we usually consume a bit more.

So you might not like something, but your brain wants more of it and the more you watch of something, the more you get it recommended. So that's how your algorithm can suddenly look like something you actually don't enjoy at all. But it's what you spend so much time on [00:16:00] watching and like, I can't believe this clickbait or whatever.

Point number two is get an improvement plan. Don't wander around the internet without a clear idea of what you need, because then you are such an easy target for the illusion of improvement. You don't know what you need, so people can just promise you something, whoever promises the most.

Sounds cool. Oh yeah. I love that. Again, that's very subconscious. It doesn't mean that you're stupid or whatever. It's just humans are bit like that. We are drawn towards the easy things, the big promises that all win 300, 400 points. So if you want to be immune to this or at least less susceptible, then get your own plan and know what you want to improve.

The easiest plan possible is following my one third rule. You'll find articles on this. You'll find this everywhere. Just Google it, or there might be a podcast episode as well. So just follow the one third rule. It's pretty simple. It requires you to spend way less time on YouTube or on [00:17:00] whatever is fed to you and just you just do what matters.

Then point number three, watch only select people. You can judge for yourself who you think is first a coach, and then a content creator. If you want to improve your game, again, this is important. We'll get to that by the end of it. Also, if you just want to enjoy some, like some video and don't want to improve, then who the hell I am I to tell you what you should watch, just watch what entertains you.

Just what's fun, there's no problem at all, right? Entertainment has its space. That's totally fine. So watch whoever you want. The problem is a little bit with this, again, the illusion of improvement. Entertaining videos that are packaged in a way that they say you also learn something. That's always the tricky part.

So choose for yourself who you think is valuing your improvement highly and kind of things. Okay. Yeah. I want to give [00:18:00] valuable content. I want to help you improve, and I for sure, I think everybody makes slight compromises to make it a little bit more interesting or to title it, not in a clickbait way, but in a way that it's actually interesting, right?

So I don't want to say also that, oh, I'm the perfect guy. I never do any trade offs. I'm the hero of chess improvement or whatever. I don't mean in that way, but like, who is setting first I'm a coach and then second I'm a creator. Okay. Then, make your own list of these creators, however many they are, again, applies to courses as well, applies to whatever it is. And then save them and go to watch them specifically, instead of getting into the algorithm.

That brings us to point number four. If you're on YouTube, stop your notifications and clean your feed so you can have subscriptions. But I don't recommend, again, that's kinda stupid as a YouTube creator, but I don't recommend that you have the bell on.

I don't [00:19:00] recommend that you get push notifications, especially on your phone every single time someone is pushing out a video because you're just pushing yourself out there more, like you're stepping into the trap yourself. You ask to get distracted, to get FOMO, to get whatever it is.

So take this away and then I highly recommend, and I did that on all of my devices and it's super useful to have a extension, like I use Google Chrome, so I have the newsfeed eradicator. And there you can choose for social media also for YouTube to eradicate the whole kind of newsfeed. What does that mean?

When you go to YouTube, you just see a blank page. You don't see any videos, so the algorithm is not pushing you any videos. Once you use the search function, you can then find videos, or once you go to your creator, you can then find video, but you don't get that kind of algorithm, which again makes it easier not to get tempted by whoever is promising more, maybe [00:20:00] not having as high quality content as you would wish for.

And I already talked about it, but step number five is then specifically searching for videos that are important for you right now. So you have a plan. You don't have the kind of algorithm all the time, you don't have notifications. So when in your plan it's coming up to say, okay, I wanna learn something about pawn endgames, for example, you can find specifically a video by a creator you like.

That you think, okay, they are actually putting in the time to really teach me something. Not to just play what I would call the YouTube game. And then you specifically search a video and you go watch this video. This, in my opinion, is the best way to try to use the technology now at the example of YouTube, but it's the same for other things.

For example, if you buy a lot of Chessable courses, try to just not get there, not getting any push notifications, not subscribing to them on any [00:21:00] social media. So you don't just get push new courses towards you, but when you need a new course, you know exactly. Okay, I need this new course on whatever it is. Then you can either google it or go search it specifically and find what you specifically need and not just get pushed something.

You need this, you need this, you need this, you need this. It's not a hundred percent foolproof or not a hundred percent that you will always find something that is useful. I can't promise you that there is simply, especially when you watch free content, there is simply quite a lot of low quality in the chess improvement sense content.

I'm really sometimes going bananas because I see so many videos that are teaching either as just obvious things or mostly just things that aren't true combined with expectations that are just insane. So be aware of that. That kind of small rant about free content brings me to a kind of idea that nothing is fully [00:22:00] free, especially nowadays.

Social media is used a lot and I'm also a content creator, right? Is used a lot to promote things or to make money via ads.

And so what does that mean? That means that every creator has a financial incentive. To make you watch longer, and they have very little financial incentive to actually teach you something that helps you, because at least if you're of the same opinion as me, that would push you a bit off the platform, make you more independent.

Also, with my work, I'm trying to teach you how to fish. If you teach people how to fish, they don't rely on you anymore. They might watch you less. So if you think, okay, I don't wanna waste time at all, then maybe watching free content is not what you want to do.

Maybe it's time to get paid courses. And again, I say this, I mentioned Chessable already, that it can also be tricky with courses. But with courses, you have a better chance to actually get something [00:23:00] useful. And there is this kind of feeling sometimes from people that courses have things that are never mentioned anywhere for free.

I don't agree with that. I think if you scratch together free content, you can get close to what courses teach you. It's just you will spend so much more time and have a risk of getting super overwhelmed and pick the wrong stuff. Courses usually have the advantage of structured content, so really step by step stuff.

A selection and is targeted, hopefully, if it's a good course at a specific audience. So when it's a specific audience, oh, I'm part of that audience. When it's, again, YouTube, the title might be very broad and you don't know, is that for somebody 800, 1200, 1700, it's not really clear.

This is the advantage of paying for stuff. If you feel like your time is the most valuable thing, I recommend sometimes looking into courses, and I'm not only saying that for my own courses, but really just if [00:24:00] you find a creator that you like and they have a course and you trust them and you think they do something well instead of scratching together all of their videos, if you have the budget for it, might be smart to just get a course and say, okay, I do the course instead.

Because then again, you have all of these advantages. And this is basically what I did for myself. When I study other things on YouTube, when I go research things about business, when I go research things about poker, when I go research things about anything I want to learn, basically, I have a four step method.

It's watch some YouTube videos. Two select the creators I think are first a teacher, then a creator. It's sometimes pretty difficult, but I have a pretty good feeling for that because I also know the ways that one could bring in more audience and whatsoever, all the trade offs that you could do.

Point number three is see if they offer a course that is specifically for someone. In my situation, again, I try to understand what [00:25:00] exactly I need. I'm not just going to the creator and saying, oh, whatever you offer, I'll buy. That's not really how I try to do it, but I'm like, okay, I would like, let's say when I started learning poker, it's like I would like a course that offers fundamental understanding of tournament poker with more ideas and instructional concepts instead of specific moments.

And I found that. I found a creator. I found that course. I was very happy with that course, so that was very positive. And then point number four is once you have, and this is actually, if you are still listening and you are a student to my courses. Yes, you can get some value still from my free content.

But when something is in the free content or there is something in the course itself, I always prefer to go in the course and learn it from there and not from the free content. This is just because usually, the most curated is always in the paid content. So if you have access to [00:26:00] both, I would say watch videos and articles and so on with caution.

I do believe my stuff still helps. But I sometimes see that when somebody buys my course, let's say, and there, things are more structured. Things are maybe more in depth, there are maybe spreadsheets and so on. And then they see a newsletter where I break down this thing that I had in the course, more simple and maybe some nuances get lost.

They then write me, oh, should I do it now this way? And I'm like, no, wait. You have the course, you have the thing that is more in depth, is more curated, is very clear. That I worked, maybe let's say when I work on a newsletter, might take five hours. If I work on the same topic in a course, it might take 50 to just nail it in the way that I want it.

That's just the nature of how things are done. So if you have then access to a paid product, use that paid product. Don't get [00:27:00] overwhelmed by the free content. If anything is in both paid product and free, it's probably the paid product you wanna follow.

And that has been it, that has been a very, very long podcast. But I hope this helps you understand how to take back the control of content and giving you an honest take from someone who is in these shoes now, creating YouTube content, creating free content, also selling courses, what is the creator side of things and how you can get the most out of free content and paid content in chess.

And one last thing is if you really like somebody's content especially, no, let's go back to YouTube. Really taking the 20 seconds that it takes to like their video, subscribe and write a short comment is helping out a ton because that really pushes the algorithm in the way of like, more people [00:28:00] enjoy this video.

When more people enjoy this video, it'll be pushed to more people. So that's your way of being able to structure the algorithm a little bit. The more people are doing that, if you really enjoy someone, always take these 20 seconds, like video, write, subscribe. That can really help.

Again, I don't recommend putting the bell on. It helps the creator, doesn't really help you as much. That's enough for me.

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