I'm becoming concerned about the increased use of media on webpages. By this, I mean you tube videos, animation, talking greetings: in other words, lots of different sound and audio gimmicks all going on at the same time. Are we overdoing it? Aren't people becoming desensitized to all of this gimmickry, or is the young demographic expecting this all the time?

It depends on the media that you use.

Video can be good. Some people prefer reading content, others find it easier to absorb video content. As long as you have both on the page, you cater for both audiences. Just make sure that the video doesn't automatically start playing. Leave that choice to the user.

Avoid animation like the pest. Animation draws the eye and distracts users from the content. Research also clearly shows that animation annoys users and makes them close the page quicker. Unless you want the user to ONLY notice the animation on that page and NOTHING else, it is counter productive.

Don't forget that many sites don't care if you read the content. They want to be found for their content and then want you to click on their ads. That is why they post ads that are disruptive. However, this is not in the users interest and leads to the clutter and noise that makes the Internet less usable.

Have you noticed that alot of youtube videos now have these popups of text that you can not get rid? They are very annoying....

Annoying perhaps, but it is a source of revenue for YouTube. YouTube has been running a loss since its creation. If Google can't monetize it, one day it might disappear, which would be a shame.

The text ads you see are called in-video advertising, and at the time of this writing you should be able to X them out. I am not aware of these text ads being mandatory viewing.

In the add, there should be a round, gray button with an X in it. Click on that button, and the ad will be hidden.

I guess that with things like youtube, if you want them to continue to be free to use, you'll have to put up with the ads. There are some that won't let you 'X' it off until it's at least part played, which is pretty sneaky, but hey.. they gotta eat right?

I am particularly not in favor of using youtube much because..one they take time to load and somehow I feel with the attention span of viewers so low...isn't it better to just say it in words and then maybe put a link to the video so that those really interested can open the video...