4 ms·

I can't believe I'm saying this at 28, but that's a really young-person point of view. I'm 48 and disagree with you completely. Email is long-form written comm

I can't believe I'm saying this at 28, but that's a really young-person point of view. I'm 48 and disagree with you completely. Email is long-form written communication - which we've been doing for hundreds of years (letters, essays, books, and much more recently, email). We (my generation, the ones before, and the one or two immediately after) grew up with long-form written communication. I've long been of the opinion that telephone conversations have no place for serious ideas, because they are conversational, because they are mostly made up on the spot. Serious ideas (business proposals, scientific research, system and software design, novels) require long-form written communication because it forces you to think, to organize, and to express clearly. Email - and Usenet and modern fora such as this one - can be used effectively for this same long-form written communication. The generations I am concerned about are those that grew up with PowerPoint and SMS and Twitter: These media favour catchphrases, sound bites, etc. Yes, there have always been these - but once upon a time they were a specialization that required thought. Witness copywriting and Churchill's famous comment about prepping a two minute speech. More recently, these became the de facto standard, legitimizing the sound bite conversations of a great many second rate thinkers and managers. The long-form business plan, long-form business communication of any kind, has slowly dwindled, replaced with bullet speak and now tweet. I would argue that the opinion expressed in the original article is in fact the oldest of old-school ideas: If you cannot take the time to think through what you are trying to say and compose a meaningful email, then I will use that as a first-pass filter and remove you from my overloaded queue. If you cannot take the time, you are not worth my time. Most of the time. Yes, email can and often is used for bullets and tweets. Sometimes that's appropriate. That's one of the things I like about email: It is largely content and length agnostic. I am very much relieved to know that the preference for long-form remains alive and well, even if somewhat hidden. Bullets and tweets and soundbites will grab attention, which can be fine, but will generally fade. Except for those very few well-crafted sentences of lasting impact. I would guess that the proportion of lasting impact to total expression in long-form is much greater than short-form for two simple reasons: There is far less of the former and its overall quality is simply higher on average, and there is much of the latter with so much noise and so little signal.

adyus 12y ago
At last, some good debate :) You're right that long-form as a means of communicating complex, impactful ideas won't go away. However, you are assuming that the average audience tends toward the ideal (being on HN for a while certainly influences that assumption). In my short experience, I found that most people outside HN can easier express their thoughts and ideas on the spot, and will rarely take the time needed to craft a thoughtful long-form missive. This doesn't necessarily mean that their ideas are not worth our time. It does, however, point toward a less than ideal conversation partner and to future communication issues. Although we'd all love to live in a world where communication is held to the highest standards, we have to adapt to what's available (within reason), even if that brings us down to bullet speak, Top 10 lists and click-bait titles. How else will we find a broader audience for our messages? Your last point on lasting impact is, however, valid. I can't remember the last time I've re-read a tweet, but I constantly refer to old emails for clarification.
- PeterWhittaker 12y ago
  I make no assumption about the average - or at least I don't in what I wrote. Though I can understand where one might read that in.... :-> My actual assumption is that long-form writers have always been and likely always will be a definite minority - hence our value in many situations. (A necessary step to attaining that value is, not so ironically, learning to summarize and to "hook", because like it or not, even if we deal only with other long-formers, we all have so much on our plates that we cannot devote sufficient time to reading through everything each other writes to decide whether it is worthwhile to read. We need abstracts, filters, curation, etc. It's not ironic because we have to have had the hard slog first to get the long form before we tweet, bullet, etc.) My other assumption - more of a grumpy old man conclusion, really - is that the rise and acceptance of the bullet and the tweet and the SMS has given voice to a great many who otherwise would be excluded from many serious conversations. Yes, there are gems in their output, but so few and far between that their output rarely rises to the level of discourse and rarely becomes impactful or lasting. On the whole, intellectually I think we are worse off for the additional noise, but socially better off for the addition of their voices. Overall, we are slightly better off, and if that means we need to work harder to filter for the signal, so be it, better to have more voices than fewer. At least socially we are better off. As a whole. But a great many specific communities are worse off because of the minimal level of effort required to inject one's meanginglessness and laziness into serious discussions. Witness "me too"/"this"/"+1"/etc. in comments, tweets, emails, etc. So I'm happier human being because so many people are able to join in global conversations, but I'm grumpier subject matter expert because too many are wandering about my enclave leaving mud everywhere.

adyus 12y ago

At last, some good debate :) You're right that long-form as a means of communicating complex, impactful ideas won't go away. However, you are assuming that the average audience tends toward the ideal (being on HN for a while certainly influences that assumption). In my short experience, I found that most people outside HN can easier express their thoughts and ideas on the spot, and will rarely take the time needed to craft a thoughtful long-form missive. This doesn't necessarily mean that their ideas are not worth our time. It does, however, point toward a less than ideal conversation partner and to future communication issues. Although we'd all love to live in a world where communication is held to the highest standards, we have to adapt to what's available (within reason), even if that brings us down to bullet speak, Top 10 lists and click-bait titles. How else will we find a broader audience for our messages? Your last point on lasting impact is, however, valid. I can't remember the last time I've re-read a tweet, but I constantly refer to old emails for clarification.

PeterWhittaker 12y ago
I make no assumption about the average - or at least I don't in what I wrote. Though I can understand where one might read that in.... :-> My actual assumption is that long-form writers have always been and likely always will be a definite minority - hence our value in many situations. (A necessary step to attaining that value is, not so ironically, learning to summarize and to "hook", because like it or not, even if we deal only with other long-formers, we all have so much on our plates that we cannot devote sufficient time to reading through everything each other writes to decide whether it is worthwhile to read. We need abstracts, filters, curation, etc. It's not ironic because we have to have had the hard slog first to get the long form before we tweet, bullet, etc.) My other assumption - more of a grumpy old man conclusion, really - is that the rise and acceptance of the bullet and the tweet and the SMS has given voice to a great many who otherwise would be excluded from many serious conversations. Yes, there are gems in their output, but so few and far between that their output rarely rises to the level of discourse and rarely becomes impactful or lasting. On the whole, intellectually I think we are worse off for the additional noise, but socially better off for the addition of their voices. Overall, we are slightly better off, and if that means we need to work harder to filter for the signal, so be it, better to have more voices than fewer. At least socially we are better off. As a whole. But a great many specific communities are worse off because of the minimal level of effort required to inject one's meanginglessness and laziness into serious discussions. Witness "me too"/"this"/"+1"/etc. in comments, tweets, emails, etc. So I'm happier human being because so many people are able to join in global conversations, but I'm grumpier subject matter expert because too many are wandering about my enclave leaving mud everywhere.