tl;dr
One of the persistent criticisms of the age of media hyperabundance is that it has shortened our attention spans. We are like hummingbirds, quickly sipping this or that bit of nectar before darting along to the next flower. There is always a next flower: there is no end to the web, no end to the creativity of humanity revealed with in it. We are always torn between the jewel in front of us and the greater spectacle of the jewels all around us. This constant tension divides our soul, and makes us reluctant to commit to anything unless it promises a quick burst of refreshment or illumination.
Hence, when we are confronted with something substantial – say, an essay of 4300 words – our soul cries out the question, ‘Isn’t there something else I’d rather be doing instead of reading all those words?’ The answer, more and more, is yes. So we navigate away from that which is too long, on to something else, something bite-sized. This phenomenon has become known as ‘tl;dr’, an acronym for ‘too long; didn’t read’. It sums up more and more of our web experience, as text overflows our inboxes, our RSS feeds, and our brains.
Nothing will stop this avalanche of text, but it is possible to write so as to ensure you will be read: the natural limit is 300 words. That’s as much as someone will commit to. All of my postings have followed this rule religiously. Now that the inmates are firmly in control of this asylum, it’s become clear that we have a lot to say. That’s good, that’s as planned. Now it becomes a matter of how to say it. Trim it down into a tidy, digestible, nectar-laden nugget. It’s hard. But necessary.
Enough said.
Tags: attention currency, reading, sharing, tl;dr, web, writing
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 4:30 am and is filed under Meta, Share This Course, author. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:55 am
Omit need less words.
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December 9th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
My own attention span is somewhat longer but, point taken. I do tend to go on
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December 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
will try too! I tend to write long posts usually also
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December 9th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
This is an opportune time for me to plug my low word impact post, “A picture’s worth 300 words.”
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December 9th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Just so everyone knows – I slaved for hours to keep the Google Wave post to under 300 words, and ended up with 352 or something and knew I couldn’t shave another bit. So it can be done – sorta.
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December 11th, 2009 at 1:14 am
I took a creative nonfiction course where the professor was zealous about us following her (usually quite short) word-count requirements for short essays. Almost every time I wrote something twice as long and sweated over shortening it. But almost every time I liked the final product better. And remember, that was in a literary creative writing atmosphere–how much more important is it to write concisely online!
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December 11th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Condensation takes perspiration though. Big problem, as our accelerating times leave us ever less time for this (kind of work).
Recall Blaise Pascal’s verbosity apology: “I only made this [letter] longer because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.” (Provincial Letters XVI)
See also from Henry David Thoreau: “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”
Ergo: our Catch-22 has become: we have too short attention spans (for reading anything over 300 words), but we have too little time to shorten things to fit under the shortened and shortening attention span limit(s).
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
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mpesce Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 8:58 am
@Philippe Van Nedervelde, I’d say it’s better damned if you do. Because if you don’t you won’t get read.
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April 16th, 2010 at 11:03 am
What Ever Happened to the Book? | the human network says:[...] development of attention is the shortening of the text. Under the tyranny of ‘tl;dr’ three hundred words seems just about the right length: long enough to make a point, but not so long as to invoke any [...]
April 18th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Share This Course! » Blog Archive » What Ever Happened to the Book? says:[...] development of attention is the shortening of the text. Under the tyranny of ‘tl;dr’ three hundred words seems just about the right length: long enough to make a point, but not so long as to invoke any [...]
April 23rd, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Making things happen to the book « ptsefton's Anotar discussion blog says:[...] of attention is the shortening of the text. Under the tyranny of ‘tl;dr’three hundred words seems just about the right length: long enough to make a point, but not so long as to invoke [...]
April 23rd, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Making things happen to the book « ptsefton's Anotar discussion blog says:[...] of attention is the shortening of the text. Under the tyranny of ‘tl;dr’ three hundred words seems just about the right length: long enough to make a point, but not so long as to invoke any [...]