Nobody Reads ANYTHING Anymore
Jul 14th, 2007 by Alex
Remember when you asked a question and got an answer to that question? I can’t remember when it last was, but I miss those days. People don’t take the time to read anymore. Not with any care anyways. Skimming is the trend now, whether you talking about letters, articles, newspapers, email, or text messages. People aren’t paying attention when they skim. People think they’re too busy to pay attention, yet they burn and inordinate amount of time doing other needless things. There’s plenty of attention for the things that shouldn’t need attention. As a result people miss things. Important things. Things that were the entire purpose of communicating in the first place.
Onto other digressions. Why is it that the people who ask for directions are the same people that don’t follow them and subsequently get lost? then get mad at you for “your crappy directions.” It’s the same thing with documentation; the same person that asks you to write a lengthy document is the least likely to read it.
At one point people worked slowly enough to give things a good measure of care and attention. At some point in time or perhaps gradually this has changed. We have a lot of people who don’t take pride in their jobs and provide half-assed work. I don’t know exactly when this happened or what caused it, but I think it’s all related. To what, I’m not exactly sure.
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I just read (not skimmed) your post and would agree.
We can communicate now via blogs, email, instant message, Myspace comments, Myspace messages, Flickr comments, Flickr mail, Facebook, messageboards, listservs, text messages and those antiquated things like phonecalls, letters, and talking in person.
Yet, it is so rushed. It is rare when someone seems to be reading or listening or working mindfully.