Rarely do people read content from beginning to end. As a current population, our news, social media, and communications are consumed mostly in the form of soundbites. It is a rare reader that takes the time to read verbatim.
From the moment we awake each morning, we skim and scan our way reading through the multiple digital inputs we are constantly surrounded by because there are only so many hours in the day to get “it” all done and yet be in the know. Taking shortcuts (good and bad) has become a coping mechanism of sorts and our reading aptitude and comprehension have consequently taken a direct hit.
How many times have you sent an email to a colleague or a friend, meticulously writing the email to include details and vital info only to have that person fire back a response asking questions that you provided answers to in your original email? It happens almost daily to me and it drives me batty!! The person didn’t take the time to READ my correspondence which then feels like a slight.
As a bookworm, writer, content creator, eagle eye, wordsmith, and word gal (I’ve been called all of them at numerous points in my life), the thought that people don’t take the necessary time to fully read whatever it is in front of them just baffles me. Maybe it is an occupational hazard but I do blame our technology, as one of its downsides is that it is fostering less and less true readership.
Skim, Scan, Swipe
Logically I’m well aware for the past several years that our culture is now defined by instant gratification. I see that propensity in my 9-year old who has grown up around screens and swipes his whole life despite also having shelves of books and games at his disposal.
A large majority of people have become skim and scan types of readers which makes it crazy challenging to be a writer. They want the golden nugget or takeaway faster and faster without wanting to digest too much context or fluff.
As a writer finding that perfect formula to engage an audience is a moving target to hit. Crafting sentences that “hook” in a reader without sounding like clickbait then proceed to educate, inform or entertain with catchy wordcraft or appealing alliteration but formatted into a SEO dictated word parameters and structure, takes oodles of energy and effort to pull off.
Short, Shorter, Shortest
Over the years, copywriting asks from my clients have gotten tighter and tighter in word counts. For those who don’t write for a living, it would seem perfectly normal to think that fewer words to write equals an easier task. Umm, that would be a hard “no”.
Writing succinctly is an art form that takes years of practice to hone. A less is more approach makes sense in theory but is rough in practice to make work unless you have done it many times over.
It is 80% of the reason why I’m hired as a copywriter because someone who thought they could tackle the writing for their website, blog or white paper, waves their frustrated white flag at not being able to condense their thoughts down into bite-sized morsels.
In my time working with redlines and client rewrites, people write like they talk so I get a brain dump that is pages long or a 60-minute recorded Zoom call to decipher and they want me to summarize it in a few paragraphs or in a zippy three line marketing piece. Okie Dokie.
Our Minds are On Overload
Our inboxes are stuffed, we multitask on our computers and phones and on a daily basis we experience a deluge of incoming messages, texts, and emails while our online feeds refresh constantly with posts populating by the second.
All of these things are vying for our short attention spans. I equate it to our brains being asked to play “squirrel”, “go left, no I mean go right, now look up, sorry, I meant down”. We are becoming unable to settle on one task at a time and that includes the act of reading something from start to finish, no matter the length or medium.
It’s All About Scannable Content
You can tell I’m not a raving fan that writing these days has to cater to all of these readability limitations but I’m also a realist so I know that my most important task is to come up with word work that engages in that small window of time that gets a reader to continue…reading.
Did you know that 55% of people spend fewer than 15 seconds actively on any one webpage? In fact, hold onto your hats, research on the way people read websites found that only 16% of their subjects read a webpage word by word. Most participants—79% of the test subjects—scanned new pages they came across.
Eh gads! The takeaway from those stats is that less than two out of ten people will actually read, for example, an entire blog post like the one you are reading right now. The vast majority will be highly selective about what they read and will merely scan through it.
Much like my previous blog on SEO where I spoke about, from my perspective, how too much optimization muddles the reader experience, I feel at times that needing to adjust the way we write to the current reader’s lack of time and attention plays into the instant gratification vortex.
I can’t change other’s reading habits no matter how much I may desire to, I can only stay the course myself thoroughly reading whatever it is that I find in my reading queue, giving it my respect in the moment because the author(s) of the email, article, news bit, book or social media post deserves my respect.