I was cleaning out my Bloglines account of unread articles–I’m convinced that having 22 unread emails, 117 articles pegged for immediate reading and 3,209 unread posts cannot be good for you or your anxiety levels–and came across one on the pros of having shorter blog posts.
I get that the blog post is short. I get that people who read blog posts are probably doing it the way I’m doing it, just skimming a bunch of things in the off-chance that something catches your eye. My problem is that nearly every comment is somewhere between “I lost interest after 500 words” and “…. what?” Seriously, people, are we that inept? The “gosh, that was long” comment seems especially common in articles that seem to attract the type of person you’d associate, albeit in a stereotypical manner, with having a short attention span. Such as those who like to read about video games.
To those who leave lots of ‘I can’t focus’-type comments, I say this: I find it hard to believe that there isn’t one single topic in the world that would hold your attention for longer than 350 words or a minute, especially since you’re taking the time to leave comments. That has to take what, like a minute? At least? Didn’t anyone ever warn you about what happens to people with short attention spans?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Thanks for mentioning our site. You know, it is quite sad that we all have ever-shortening attention spans. This is definitely a symptom of too much internet use. As a society, we’ve gotten used to having information at our fingertips. So when a long article stands between ‘us’ and the information we want, many of us go elsewhere to find it in a more concise form… Very sad.
By the way, I’ve been toying with the idea of going to Buenos Aires for a month or so, and your craigslist link to rentals is great. I was going to stay in a hotel, but I think it’d be cool to live like a local and get a short term rental.