The idea for this post came to me in a dream last night. I realized that one of the problems that plagues modern society, largely because of television and the internet, is impatience and shortness of attention span. We want pictures instead of words. If an article is too long, we want someone to read it, summarize it, and tell us what to think about it.
Articles that have any length to them are often pointed to along with the annotation TL;DR, which stands for Too Long; Don’t (or Didn’t) Read. This is sometimes accompanied by commentary on the article. There are any number of things wrong with this. First, how do you know the person that is summarizing the article in question isn’t leaving out significant points/ For that matter, how do you know that they aren’t injecting their own spin that wasn’t even in the original article? Maybe they don’t mean to do these things but they do it unconsciously because that is the way they interpreted (or misinterpreted as the case may be) the article.
By not reading it yourself you are not filtering the ideas through the lens of your experience. You have a unique perspective on the world based on your experiences and values. If you are interested in the topic that the article is written about, you should take the time to read it so that you can understand it in your own personal context.
We need to spend more time reading succinctly written articles from many different points of view. When we have this fodder to think about, we can come to our own, personal conclusions. We may even have our own ideas to contribute to the discussion. This is the way that rational people decide issues of profound importance.
We have become a society of impulsive behavior. Instead of thinking about a topic and writing their considered thoughts, we read a summary and write a 140 character tweet. Or even more likely, we just retweet someone else’s 140 character tweet. Few profound thoughts can be expressed in 140 characters or less.
We don’t teach critical thinking in our schools any more. We haven’t done so in most schools since I was in high school forty years ago. We rarely require students to read things, think about them, and rationally express their opinions on them. Critical thinking, if it is developed, is left for individuals to acquire on their own. The vast majority of people never bother.
TL;DR – most people are ADHD, semi-literate, and impulsive. Go read a book.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.