Another place my eyeballs scan is the right side of the browser so I can see how much is left in the story as I read it. I try to resist doing that, but it's almost automatic. It's like running on a treadmill, do I look at the distance or ignore it for as long as possible?
Comparing the print age to the digital age, I would assume the author (or in these days, content creator), is getting feedback from a different slice of their audience, too. The kind of person who had read a book and then took the time and effort to compose and send a letter worth reading is, in the digital age, being drowned out by mass low effort feedback: a react button, or a brief typed comment.
Yes. This is very very true. The feedback loop distorts toward that. And increasingly, even those who leave reviews on review sites are different than the kind of feedback you used to get, even 10 years ago.
Happy to report that I was able to read through the full piece - I have some attention and focus left.
I got on the mailing list long ago, from reading a book or listening to a long podcast - not from IG or X. I wonder if in your niche using the F-pattern is of any use. If you ‘hook’ someone on IG, how likely is that they will read your books or your newsletter?
Same for me. I create apps and software, and as everyone else I have a distribution problem as I have no ‘audience’. I am trying to get better at distribution, and part of that effort is in trying to get engagement measures up, and no matter where I look for guidance, it comes down to the F-pattern approach, at best.
Skimming doesn’t seem to be a high-intent activity, though, and even if we capture a little attention, it will not ‘convert’.
In other words, while this might seem to be the only way left, it might not serve us even if it works.
In swimming, the casualty of Instagram writing is the boundary condition. Technique advice lives or dies on "true under these conditions and not those": a high-elbow catch helps the swimmer with the shoulder mobility to hold it and punishes the one without, and a 30-second reel can carry the tip but not the test for who it fits. We ran into this writing about swim golf last week — "fewer strokes" is a perfect Instagram sentence, and it is wrong often enough to matter, because races are won by the product of stroke length and rate, not by minimizing one term. The nuance that does not fit in a carousel is the whole sport. Your line about declarative sentences being structurally incapable of conditional truth is the sharpest description I have read of why technique content on social media systematically misleads beginners: they cannot tell which tips have their name on them. Which raises the question nobody in coaching seems to want to answer — if comprehension is worst under time pressure on phones, and that is exactly where most age-group coaches now get their continuing education, what does a decade of that do to the quality of the average swim practice?
> And secondly, the disadvantage in comprehension showed up in expository texts but not narrative. Meaning, stories read fine on screens, but arguments and deep dives don’t.
As someone writing science-based deep dives about ultra endurance running, it is safe to say that I am fu**ed 😂
It does feel almost subversive these days to read real books, continue to write long-form, and publish pieces you know aren't meant for virality (I do hope this goes viral as a counter-example to the premise :)).
And yet, it does feel important to keep fighting the good fight, recognizing the positive impact it can have on us even if it doesn't go viral, and certainly the impact it can have on the people who do read it. All of the research on this topic has helped encourage me to return to doing more of reading physical books, and to physically writing by hand as much as possible. So hopefully the thoughtful sharing of this type of information does continue to impact others (the way it has with me).
Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your commitment to continuing to share in a depth-oriented kind of way!
As a full time content creator for 11~ years, I love this post!
I'm a little less doomer. People have a strong need for novelty which means that if everyone "optimizes", suddenly the non-optimal stands out. There's a bit of a self-correction or yin/yang effect going on
In general what you're saying is 100% true across an entire platform though. For example, TV is the fastest growing segment on YouTube in the past few years. Now longer videos/content are doing exceptionally well on the platform (iirc a YT employee directly said the average video duration is now pushing 15 minutes across the platform, up from 10~), likely due to people wanting to toss up longer videos on their TV while they're doing other stuff.
But that also means there's an opening for individual creators in the "suboptimal" styles as more and more competition moves to the "optimal" style. Standing out is more important than being optimal. On top of that, people trend chasing the "optimal" often end up losing their authenticity, which usually means you start eroding your core audience.
I believe this yin/yang effect is also true on a platform vs platform level. TikTok started massively growing in the US post-2019. But at the same time Podcasts started massively surging among Gen Z. I don't think people would've expected the younger generation growing up on short form content to also love long form podcasts, but they do.
Like some of your other readers, I'm happy to report I read the whole article. No skimming even though I'm on my phone. I do prefer using Substack on my old desktop computer! I struggle with this issue when I write posts here on Substack occasionally. They're always shorter than I'd like but I know that's what my readers want.
I am old. Give me a book over digital any day, no worry about power or wifi access.. I still read a printed newspaper and do the printed puzzles every day. Enjoy reading essays and non-fiction just as much as a god mystery. For me, it’s not so much content as it is having something physical in my hands. Plus I find ads copy words stick in my head longer than digital ones do. I did read your full post, word by word, and appreciate the effort and thought put into it.
I wonder what's your take on another substack trend -- the extremely long and rambling posts. These posts are sometimes quite popular, but I have trouble imagining all those people read it to the end.
Thank you for your regular and insightful writing.
Quotes I'm pondering (from your article):
> [T]he gap in comprehension showed up...when scrolling was required.
I've been concerned about my ability to comprehend and retain information from "long-form" writing that I read on screens with scroll bars, so I'm trying to train a new habit: I physically take my hands off the input to the device, sometimes going so far as to literally sit on my hands, until I read to the bottom of the screen, when I deliberately scroll on, then repeat. I haven't collected data to determine what effect, if any, this has on my comprehension. I have noticed that whereas before I would be tempted to scroll on a bit after I finished reading each paragraph, no matter how short, now the "read" and "advance" functions of my interaction with the text are more delineated and regimented, more closely resembling my interaction with printed text.
> Audience capture occurs when you start crafting your content around what you know will resonate.
Your discussion of this concern brought to mind the following passage from Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to death": "[T]he unwritten law of all television preachers: 'You can get your share of the audience only by offering people something they want.' [...] There is no great religious leader...who offered people what they want. Only what they need."
> Our divided attention is changing how we consume just about everything. We're actively designing our world (and training our brain) for quick superficiality.
To me, this observation is frightening and promising. Frightening, because I don't want to live in a world of "quick superficiality". Promising, because it leaves open the possibility that we can design our world (and train our brains) for other ends.
> There's nothing wrong with a Netflix show on in the background, just like there wasn't anything wrong with SportsCenter on in the background of every college male's dorm two decades ago.
I would counter that two things are, if not wrong, then at least risky, with much background activity. First, it promotes a baseline of divided attention, which, as you argue, affects (vitiates?) how we interact with "just about everything", including one another. Second, it offers a quick and easy escape from cognitively challenging tasks, which for all but the most disciplined is apt to disrupt concentration and flow.
> What happens when the primary way people consume writing is from a model that compresses and summarizes the whole thing?
I suspect we are on our way to finding out.
Here are some guesses:
1. Context is lost and gained. The effect of summarization by a third party (in this case, an LLM) has parallels with reading _about_ a research study, versus reading the entire original study (or the larger research arc and conversation in which the study took place). On the other hand, LLMs can aggregate and compare contexts from multiple writers, potentially providing readers with a wider, richer tapestry in less time and with greater ease.
2. Readers are further separated from the topics about which they are reading. Writing always filters the subject matter through the writer. LLMs interpose another filter, between writers and readers. This introduces opportunities for both enrichment and misunderstanding.
3. Readers atrophy in their innate abilities to engage extended discourse and to extract and summarize meaning. In response, writers provide shorter and more obvious writing; speakers, shorter and more obvious speech.
Another place my eyeballs scan is the right side of the browser so I can see how much is left in the story as I read it. I try to resist doing that, but it's almost automatic. It's like running on a treadmill, do I look at the distance or ignore it for as long as possible?
Good point. It really is the treadmill. That distance measure can drive you nuts.
So true
Comparing the print age to the digital age, I would assume the author (or in these days, content creator), is getting feedback from a different slice of their audience, too. The kind of person who had read a book and then took the time and effort to compose and send a letter worth reading is, in the digital age, being drowned out by mass low effort feedback: a react button, or a brief typed comment.
Yes. This is very very true. The feedback loop distorts toward that. And increasingly, even those who leave reviews on review sites are different than the kind of feedback you used to get, even 10 years ago.
Happy to report that I was able to read through the full piece - I have some attention and focus left.
I got on the mailing list long ago, from reading a book or listening to a long podcast - not from IG or X. I wonder if in your niche using the F-pattern is of any use. If you ‘hook’ someone on IG, how likely is that they will read your books or your newsletter?
Same for me. I create apps and software, and as everyone else I have a distribution problem as I have no ‘audience’. I am trying to get better at distribution, and part of that effort is in trying to get engagement measures up, and no matter where I look for guidance, it comes down to the F-pattern approach, at best.
Skimming doesn’t seem to be a high-intent activity, though, and even if we capture a little attention, it will not ‘convert’.
In other words, while this might seem to be the only way left, it might not serve us even if it works.
Thanks for taking the time to articulate this
In swimming, the casualty of Instagram writing is the boundary condition. Technique advice lives or dies on "true under these conditions and not those": a high-elbow catch helps the swimmer with the shoulder mobility to hold it and punishes the one without, and a 30-second reel can carry the tip but not the test for who it fits. We ran into this writing about swim golf last week — "fewer strokes" is a perfect Instagram sentence, and it is wrong often enough to matter, because races are won by the product of stroke length and rate, not by minimizing one term. The nuance that does not fit in a carousel is the whole sport. Your line about declarative sentences being structurally incapable of conditional truth is the sharpest description I have read of why technique content on social media systematically misleads beginners: they cannot tell which tips have their name on them. Which raises the question nobody in coaching seems to want to answer — if comprehension is worst under time pressure on phones, and that is exactly where most age-group coaches now get their continuing education, what does a decade of that do to the quality of the average swim practice?
> And secondly, the disadvantage in comprehension showed up in expository texts but not narrative. Meaning, stories read fine on screens, but arguments and deep dives don’t.
As someone writing science-based deep dives about ultra endurance running, it is safe to say that I am fu**ed 😂
It does feel almost subversive these days to read real books, continue to write long-form, and publish pieces you know aren't meant for virality (I do hope this goes viral as a counter-example to the premise :)).
And yet, it does feel important to keep fighting the good fight, recognizing the positive impact it can have on us even if it doesn't go viral, and certainly the impact it can have on the people who do read it. All of the research on this topic has helped encourage me to return to doing more of reading physical books, and to physically writing by hand as much as possible. So hopefully the thoughtful sharing of this type of information does continue to impact others (the way it has with me).
Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your commitment to continuing to share in a depth-oriented kind of way!
A friend of mine addressed the change in writing styles of television shows and movies as a direct result of the decline in reading in society.
It makes a lot of sense to me!
As a full time content creator for 11~ years, I love this post!
I'm a little less doomer. People have a strong need for novelty which means that if everyone "optimizes", suddenly the non-optimal stands out. There's a bit of a self-correction or yin/yang effect going on
In general what you're saying is 100% true across an entire platform though. For example, TV is the fastest growing segment on YouTube in the past few years. Now longer videos/content are doing exceptionally well on the platform (iirc a YT employee directly said the average video duration is now pushing 15 minutes across the platform, up from 10~), likely due to people wanting to toss up longer videos on their TV while they're doing other stuff.
But that also means there's an opening for individual creators in the "suboptimal" styles as more and more competition moves to the "optimal" style. Standing out is more important than being optimal. On top of that, people trend chasing the "optimal" often end up losing their authenticity, which usually means you start eroding your core audience.
I believe this yin/yang effect is also true on a platform vs platform level. TikTok started massively growing in the US post-2019. But at the same time Podcasts started massively surging among Gen Z. I don't think people would've expected the younger generation growing up on short form content to also love long form podcasts, but they do.
I gave this article my undivided attention. Sort of.
Totally agree. it seeps into the writing of accounts I love as well.
Like some of your other readers, I'm happy to report I read the whole article. No skimming even though I'm on my phone. I do prefer using Substack on my old desktop computer! I struggle with this issue when I write posts here on Substack occasionally. They're always shorter than I'd like but I know that's what my readers want.
I am old. Give me a book over digital any day, no worry about power or wifi access.. I still read a printed newspaper and do the printed puzzles every day. Enjoy reading essays and non-fiction just as much as a god mystery. For me, it’s not so much content as it is having something physical in my hands. Plus I find ads copy words stick in my head longer than digital ones do. I did read your full post, word by word, and appreciate the effort and thought put into it.
I wonder what's your take on another substack trend -- the extremely long and rambling posts. These posts are sometimes quite popular, but I have trouble imagining all those people read it to the end.
Dear Steve,
Thank you for your regular and insightful writing.
Quotes I'm pondering (from your article):
> [T]he gap in comprehension showed up...when scrolling was required.
I've been concerned about my ability to comprehend and retain information from "long-form" writing that I read on screens with scroll bars, so I'm trying to train a new habit: I physically take my hands off the input to the device, sometimes going so far as to literally sit on my hands, until I read to the bottom of the screen, when I deliberately scroll on, then repeat. I haven't collected data to determine what effect, if any, this has on my comprehension. I have noticed that whereas before I would be tempted to scroll on a bit after I finished reading each paragraph, no matter how short, now the "read" and "advance" functions of my interaction with the text are more delineated and regimented, more closely resembling my interaction with printed text.
> Audience capture occurs when you start crafting your content around what you know will resonate.
Your discussion of this concern brought to mind the following passage from Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to death": "[T]he unwritten law of all television preachers: 'You can get your share of the audience only by offering people something they want.' [...] There is no great religious leader...who offered people what they want. Only what they need."
> Our divided attention is changing how we consume just about everything. We're actively designing our world (and training our brain) for quick superficiality.
To me, this observation is frightening and promising. Frightening, because I don't want to live in a world of "quick superficiality". Promising, because it leaves open the possibility that we can design our world (and train our brains) for other ends.
> There's nothing wrong with a Netflix show on in the background, just like there wasn't anything wrong with SportsCenter on in the background of every college male's dorm two decades ago.
I would counter that two things are, if not wrong, then at least risky, with much background activity. First, it promotes a baseline of divided attention, which, as you argue, affects (vitiates?) how we interact with "just about everything", including one another. Second, it offers a quick and easy escape from cognitively challenging tasks, which for all but the most disciplined is apt to disrupt concentration and flow.
> What happens when the primary way people consume writing is from a model that compresses and summarizes the whole thing?
I suspect we are on our way to finding out.
Here are some guesses:
1. Context is lost and gained. The effect of summarization by a third party (in this case, an LLM) has parallels with reading _about_ a research study, versus reading the entire original study (or the larger research arc and conversation in which the study took place). On the other hand, LLMs can aggregate and compare contexts from multiple writers, potentially providing readers with a wider, richer tapestry in less time and with greater ease.
2. Readers are further separated from the topics about which they are reading. Writing always filters the subject matter through the writer. LLMs interpose another filter, between writers and readers. This introduces opportunities for both enrichment and misunderstanding.
3. Readers atrophy in their innate abilities to engage extended discourse and to extract and summarize meaning. In response, writers provide shorter and more obvious writing; speakers, shorter and more obvious speech.
/The medium is part of the message./
This is why an SMS is different from a voice message from a meeting.
This is why serious things entail serious settings, etc.
There is coupling between context/medium and content/message.
this is so good Steve. thank you..