Uh, just in general, people tend to react horrifically to long messages, ‘walls of text’.
… even on discussion boards, like here on lemmy, or as a first intro message to someone on some kind of dating app/site.
I’ve been using the internet since the mid 90s.
It did not used to be like this.
People thought of messages as letters, like emails.
Now, a lot of people will get viscerally angry or disgusted in basically nearly any digital context if you send a message that’s longer than roughly double the original Twitter character limit.
Hooray for normalizing slogans and soundbites in lieu of actual discourse, hooray for kicking off the trend of destroying our collective capacity to read multiple paragraphs at a time, great job Dorsey.
This is even bleeding over into professional email. I’ve noticed that if I send more than a few paragraphs, the recipient won’t actually read any of it.
I’ve taken to highlighting the important things, so they’ll at least feel like they can reliably skim.
I have had multiple VPs ask me complex, technical questions, and then I write them a complex, explanatory answer…
And the reply that I get back includes them literally just saying ‘I didn’t read anything that would have required me to scroll.’
These were boomers.
Fuck, man, ok, at that point, you’re just asking a question to waste my time, apparently?
I’m not gonna dumb down concepts that can’t be dumbed down and still meaningfully answer the question.
I was hired here because I have specialized skills, if you’re too stupid to understand them, maybe realize that good leadership is more about knowing when to defer to your trusted experts, than it is about feeling like you are in total control and understanding of everything, all the time.
It really is no wonder why the entire economy is collapsing, the elites really are just pantomiming a caricature of having a job, doing a job, being an important person.
We’ve 'boys club’d and nepotism’d our way into mass executive incompetence.
I learned early on that I should only ask one question per text or email. Every boss and project manager I’ve had has been seemingly unable to answer more than one question at a time.
I think I’ll start using your method when explaining things.
Many people are only semi literate. This cuts two ways- many people struggle with reading longer text, but they also struggle with composing longer text.
I’ve generally worked in tech with rather educated people, but even there the lower portion of their writing skills can be disappointing. Like, a low grade for English Composition 101. Now, remember that most people don’t have even that much training, and don’t practice on their own in ways that encourage (what’s traditionally considered) good writing.
I think this is part of why some people love chatgpt. They’re poor at writing, and now there’s a tool that purports to fix that problem without all the pesky work of practicing and learning.
So you then just… never develop any actual reading or writing skills.
Its turning people into something akin to zombies, more or less. Either that or maybe just trying to think of it as some new kind of addiction or mental disability would be a more apt comparison?
I… its baffling, I can barely comprehend how significant and widespread this problem is… when I was in elementary school, I finished assignments and such so fast, with such frequency, that I would get assigned to go out into the hallway and help other kids who were struggling with reading skills, I’d help them read through books, sound out words, explain what they mean.
Thats my point of reference here, I’m back in 2nd grade, helping (probably dyslexic) 4th graders learn how to read.
So you then just… never develop any actual reading or writing skills.
This is one of the scary parts, yes. Reading and writing are fundamental skills that will atrophy if not practiced. Combined with anti-intellectualism, where people fundamentally do not value reading and writing skills, it’s pretty nasty.
I don’t know how to fix it. It’s a gap in values. I often find myself wondering about the people around me, “Why don’t you care?” I don’t know why they don’t care about things.
… The reliance on machines to do their thinking has more or less made them into actual NPCs.
First it was the combined effect of all of the media machines of capitalism, providing so many distractions and distortions.
Now… its much more direct, formidable, capable… total.
Just go look into the number of people who’ve killed themselves or others after more or less being goaded or gaslit into by… their only friend, ChatGPT.
Its realworld cyberpsychosis, from Cyberpunk 2077.
to the best of my memory, at least in my experience, i think it originated on, or perhaps was popularized on early reddit, like, pre 2010, perhaps earlier in other forums?
i guess i would not be surprised if it actually originated on tumblr and then made its way to reddit, but yeah, i think i remember it basically ‘becoming a thing’ roughly around 2008ish? On reddit?
Ah fuck, apparently its first recorded usage was on usenet in 2002.
I may have been using the internet since the 90s, but I also was under the age of 10 for most of the 90s, so… yeah I did not exactly know as much about usenet, as say… gamefaqs, and neopets lol.
It’s very in line with Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death and the idea that the medium itself shapes communication and public discourse.
People seem not just unwilling, but at times unable to tolerate any sort of discussion that’s long enough to get into the real nuance of an issue. Postman blamed the news, especially TV news, and an over reliance on TV/Video as means to convey information (though he actually supported TV as entertainment). But he also cautioned against the risk centralizing what he referred to then as “computing” in a way that seem to almost prophesize what’s currently happening with social media and AI.
Well no, IM has generally always defaulted to a norm of much shorter messages.
But… fairly lengthy forum posts?
Yeah, that used to be pretty common.
And it used to be normal that if someone posted ‘I ain’t readin’ all that’, they would be mocked.
Now, its the reverse.
And also… yeah I am still baffled by people whose response to … an introduction message, on some kind of dating app/site… is to just laugh at how long it is.
… I’d used OKCupid in its early days.
Generally?
If you took the time to actually read someone’s profile, and… write something, based on shared interests… that was … a good thing to do.
Shows that you actually care.
Now? Try to do the same thing?
Apparently people can’t comprehend that an initial, long, introduction message, does not mean that all other messages will necessarily be as long, unless you explicitly tell people this.
I keep encountering this kind of behavior.
And I’m just doing the same thing I’ve been doing for … almost 2 decades?
Like… for the record, it has ‘worked’ to at least some extent, I’ve had multiple year+ relationships that started from doing that…
Just seems like more and more people are having a hostile response to a lengthy intro.
Uh, just in general, people tend to react horrifically to long messages, ‘walls of text’.
… even on discussion boards, like here on lemmy, or as a first intro message to someone on some kind of dating app/site.
I’ve been using the internet since the mid 90s.
It did not used to be like this.
People thought of messages as letters, like emails.
Now, a lot of people will get viscerally angry or disgusted in basically nearly any digital context if you send a message that’s longer than roughly double the original Twitter character limit.
Hooray for normalizing slogans and soundbites in lieu of actual discourse, hooray for kicking off the trend of destroying our collective capacity to read multiple paragraphs at a time, great job Dorsey.
This is even bleeding over into professional email. I’ve noticed that if I send more than a few paragraphs, the recipient won’t actually read any of it.
I’ve taken to highlighting the important things, so they’ll at least feel like they can reliably skim.
I have had multiple VPs ask me complex, technical questions, and then I write them a complex, explanatory answer…
And the reply that I get back includes them literally just saying ‘I didn’t read anything that would have required me to scroll.’
These were boomers.
Fuck, man, ok, at that point, you’re just asking a question to waste my time, apparently?
I’m not gonna dumb down concepts that can’t be dumbed down and still meaningfully answer the question.
I was hired here because I have specialized skills, if you’re too stupid to understand them, maybe realize that good leadership is more about knowing when to defer to your trusted experts, than it is about feeling like you are in total control and understanding of everything, all the time.
It really is no wonder why the entire economy is collapsing, the elites really are just pantomiming a caricature of having a job, doing a job, being an important person.
We’ve 'boys club’d and nepotism’d our way into mass executive incompetence.
I learned early on that I should only ask one question per text or email. Every boss and project manager I’ve had has been seemingly unable to answer more than one question at a time.
I think I’ll start using your method when explaining things.
Many people are only semi literate. This cuts two ways- many people struggle with reading longer text, but they also struggle with composing longer text.
I’ve generally worked in tech with rather educated people, but even there the lower portion of their writing skills can be disappointing. Like, a low grade for English Composition 101. Now, remember that most people don’t have even that much training, and don’t practice on their own in ways that encourage (what’s traditionally considered) good writing.
I think this is part of why some people love chatgpt. They’re poor at writing, and now there’s a tool that purports to fix that problem without all the pesky work of practicing and learning.
ChatGPT also dramatically worsens the problem.
It just does the writing and reading for you.
So you then just… never develop any actual reading or writing skills.
Its turning people into something akin to zombies, more or less. Either that or maybe just trying to think of it as some new kind of addiction or mental disability would be a more apt comparison?
I… its baffling, I can barely comprehend how significant and widespread this problem is… when I was in elementary school, I finished assignments and such so fast, with such frequency, that I would get assigned to go out into the hallway and help other kids who were struggling with reading skills, I’d help them read through books, sound out words, explain what they mean.
Thats my point of reference here, I’m back in 2nd grade, helping (probably dyslexic) 4th graders learn how to read.
This is one of the scary parts, yes. Reading and writing are fundamental skills that will atrophy if not practiced. Combined with anti-intellectualism, where people fundamentally do not value reading and writing skills, it’s pretty nasty.
I don’t know how to fix it. It’s a gap in values. I often find myself wondering about the people around me, “Why don’t you care?” I don’t know why they don’t care about things.
Why don’t they care?
… The reliance on machines to do their thinking has more or less made them into actual NPCs.
First it was the combined effect of all of the media machines of capitalism, providing so many distractions and distortions.
Now… its much more direct, formidable, capable… total.
Just go look into the number of people who’ve killed themselves or others after more or less being goaded or gaslit into by… their only friend, ChatGPT.
Its realworld cyberpsychosis, from Cyberpunk 2077.
Now you’ve got me wondering when tldr became a thing on the internet
to the best of my memory, at least in my experience, i think it originated on, or perhaps was popularized on early reddit, like, pre 2010, perhaps earlier in other forums?
i guess i would not be surprised if it actually originated on tumblr and then made its way to reddit, but yeah, i think i remember it basically ‘becoming a thing’ roughly around 2008ish? On reddit?
Ah fuck, apparently its first recorded usage was on usenet in 2002.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TL%3BDR
I may have been using the internet since the 90s, but I also was under the age of 10 for most of the 90s, so… yeah I did not exactly know as much about usenet, as say… gamefaqs, and neopets lol.
It was like this in the early 00s, you may just have rose coloured glasses.
It’s very in line with Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death and the idea that the medium itself shapes communication and public discourse.
People seem not just unwilling, but at times unable to tolerate any sort of discussion that’s long enough to get into the real nuance of an issue. Postman blamed the news, especially TV news, and an over reliance on TV/Video as means to convey information (though he actually supported TV as entertainment). But he also cautioned against the risk centralizing what he referred to then as “computing” in a way that seem to almost prophesize what’s currently happening with social media and AI.
On IRC and ICQ and AIM? No, lowercase phrases without punctuation was the norm for short messages.
Text messages are closer to those old short messages (hence the name “short message service”) than to email.
Well no, IM has generally always defaulted to a norm of much shorter messages.
But… fairly lengthy forum posts?
Yeah, that used to be pretty common.
And it used to be normal that if someone posted ‘I ain’t readin’ all that’, they would be mocked.
Now, its the reverse.
And also… yeah I am still baffled by people whose response to … an introduction message, on some kind of dating app/site… is to just laugh at how long it is.
… I’d used OKCupid in its early days.
Generally?
If you took the time to actually read someone’s profile, and… write something, based on shared interests… that was … a good thing to do.
Shows that you actually care.
Now? Try to do the same thing?
Apparently people can’t comprehend that an initial, long, introduction message, does not mean that all other messages will necessarily be as long, unless you explicitly tell people this.
I keep encountering this kind of behavior.
And I’m just doing the same thing I’ve been doing for … almost 2 decades?
Like… for the record, it has ‘worked’ to at least some extent, I’ve had multiple year+ relationships that started from doing that…
Just seems like more and more people are having a hostile response to a lengthy intro.