2 ms·

I lost interested about 1/3 of the way through the article. I remember reading somewhere that long forms (5000+ word articles,which this particular one is, or 2

by fhe 16y ago

I lost interested about 1/3 of the way through the article. I remember reading somewhere that long forms (5000+ word articles,which this particular one is, or 2hr videos) just don't work so well on the Internet: either it's something intrinsic to the Internet as a medium or we are being trained to having short attention spans. Just as I was giving up on the article (and came to HN for a summary), I realized that this is precisely what the article was talking about: not having the patience/stamina for delayed gratification, presumably will come about as one ploughes through the entire article. My takeaway from the article: 1. delayed gratification is important to success. but even if you aren't good at it, you can hack it, by understanding your thought process. 2. there might be a place for long form journalism like at the New Yorker, but it's probably going to be a small niche.

brianwillis 16y ago
I had a similar reaction to the length of the article, but my conclusion was different. Just yesterday, someone posted a link on Reddit to an article written by a young person who, for various reasons, refuses to adopt eReader technology. The article inspired some great comments on Reddit, but one that stuck with me came from the always insightful Kleinbl00 (http://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/d9jh2/at_26_im_part_of_a_generation_raised_on_gadgets/c0yjrr4 http://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/d9jh2/at_26_im_part...) who drew an analogy to someone he once knew, taking the same stance with music: >Her solution was to go back to the CD wallets she used to carry around. Note that her problem wasn't fidelity. Her problem wasn't portability. Her problem was that for some reason she didn't have the attention span to listen to an entire album in its entirety unless she was forced to press eject, fish the CD into a wallet, fish another back out of a wallet, and fish it back into the CD player while in traffic in Manhattan. >And somehow, this was the fault of the iPod. Attention management has never been harder. However, the problem isn't the medium or the message, it's us. I've noticed that it's gotten harder over the last few years for me to focus on any long form writing. Yet the amount of reading I do (in terms of words-per-day) has probably increased dramatically. Even quieting down my mind enough to read books has become tough, despite being something that used to be perfectly natural for me. I'm sure this would make for an interesting discussion, so if any of you can offer some guidance, speak up.
- sheena 16y ago
  However, the problem isn't the medium or the message, it's us. Unless you're claiming that people themselves have fundamentally changed, I don't see how the medium gets absolved of responsibility. The medium influences us, doesn't it? We're trained daily by the things we do and how we do them.

by fhe 16y ago

brianwillis 16y ago

I had a similar reaction to the length of the article, but my conclusion was different. Just yesterday, someone posted a link on Reddit to an article written by a young person who, for various reasons, refuses to adopt eReader technology. The article inspired some great comments on Reddit, but one that stuck with me came from the always insightful Kleinbl00 (http://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/d9jh2/at_26_im_part_of_a_generation_raised_on_gadgets/c0yjrr4 http://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/d9jh2/at_26_im_part...) who drew an analogy to someone he once knew, taking the same stance with music: >Her solution was to go back to the CD wallets she used to carry around. Note that her problem wasn't fidelity. Her problem wasn't portability. Her problem was that for some reason she didn't have the attention span to listen to an entire album in its entirety unless she was forced to press eject, fish the CD into a wallet, fish another back out of a wallet, and fish it back into the CD player while in traffic in Manhattan. >And somehow, this was the fault of the iPod. Attention management has never been harder. However, the problem isn't the medium or the message, it's us. I've noticed that it's gotten harder over the last few years for me to focus on any long form writing. Yet the amount of reading I do (in terms of words-per-day) has probably increased dramatically. Even quieting down my mind enough to read books has become tough, despite being something that used to be perfectly natural for me. I'm sure this would make for an interesting discussion, so if any of you can offer some guidance, speak up.

sheena 16y ago
However, the problem isn't the medium or the message, it's us. Unless you're claiming that people themselves have fundamentally changed, I don't see how the medium gets absolved of responsibility. The medium influences us, doesn't it? We're trained daily by the things we do and how we do them.