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Tl;DR: the decline in long-form text communication is not (necessarily) because people are too lazy to write long-form. They may just be recognizing the futili

Tl;DR: the decline in long-form text communication is not (necessarily) because people are too lazy to write long-form. They may just be recognizing the futility. My attempts to use clear and precise longer-form text generally fail to achieve my goal, and readers will respond in ways that the text anticipated and answered, but they didn't read or didn't comprehend the points. Given a sentence at a time, with 5 or fewer sentences, comprehension improves, though I still have to repeat points and correct wrong conclusions. I've seen this lack of attention/comprehension with the text of others, both as reader and as outside observer, so I know the confusion is not just poor writing on my part. You have to compare the efficiency/accuracy by results, not against some logical but unrealistic ideal.

stcredzero 8y ago
I've seen this lack of attention/comprehension with the text of others, both as reader and as outside observer, so I know the confusion is not just poor writing on my part. My wife works in banking, and she's discovered that she has a superpower: She can read large amounts of dense text quickly and comprehend it. Yes, her superpower is reading! Incredible as it sounds, there are lots of C-level people in her field who basically never get past light reading. So basically, she's become an overnight expert/resource to senior people. Is this a sign of the degradation of our society, or has it always been this way? I suspect it's actually the latter.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  Do you think your mom reads more than the CEO? Orperhap CEOs have other obligations so they don't have time to read a whole document in depth. If CEO could do everything alone, there would be no employees. If your mom can do everything alone, she should start a company and get rich off cost savings.
- SCHiM 8y ago
  I remember students in my class barely passing comprehensive reading tests. I find it hard to believe that they've improved without the pressure that school/university puts on them.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    Which class was this? I remember being shocked in my Classical Studies class that I was the only one who had read all of Thucydides (only books 6 an d7 where set) let alone doing a lot of reading of related text's

stcredzero 8y ago

I've seen this lack of attention/comprehension with the text of others, both as reader and as outside observer, so I know the confusion is not just poor writing on my part. My wife works in banking, and she's discovered that she has a superpower: She can read large amounts of dense text quickly and comprehend it. Yes, her superpower is reading! Incredible as it sounds, there are lots of C-level people in her field who basically never get past light reading. So basically, she's become an overnight expert/resource to senior people. Is this a sign of the degradation of our society, or has it always been this way? I suspect it's actually the latter.

fjsolwmv 8y ago
Do you think your mom reads more than the CEO? Orperhap CEOs have other obligations so they don't have time to read a whole document in depth. If CEO could do everything alone, there would be no employees. If your mom can do everything alone, she should start a company and get rich off cost savings.
SCHiM 8y ago
I remember students in my class barely passing comprehensive reading tests. I find it hard to believe that they've improved without the pressure that school/university puts on them.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Which class was this? I remember being shocked in my Classical Studies class that I was the only one who had read all of Thucydides (only books 6 an d7 where set) let alone doing a lot of reading of related text's