Why I don’t like recording events

I was asked earlier why I don’t like recording events and realised I’d never actually written it down. There are a few reasons I feel increasingly strongly about this:

• We have started to record academic events by default and I think that is fundamentally problematic in principle
• There’s an assumption that the ease with which we can record online events means we should record them and I just don’t get why that is
• There’s a fundamental value in the academic event as something that brings people together synchronously which recording undercuts
• The biggest problem with online events is passive engagement and (automatic) recording of them fits into that structure
• The quality of engagement should be more important than the quantity in most cases. What matters is how richly a core audience engages and there are trade offs which we need to recognise.
• Recording undermines the space for intellectual improvisation and risk taking
• The evidence I’ve seen (as someone who ran a lot of academic social media for a long time) is that engagement rates with event recording is very slow.
• My hunch is that the request for a recording often tracks a fear of missing out as much as it does a deliberate intention to engage with the recording

I’m not saying never record events. Clearly this serves a purpose in some cases. But we should only record events when we are clear about the rationale for doing so.