It's a little weird that, on the one hand, nobody much wants to read anything long, and on the other, hours long podcasts, Netflix documentaries, and one-person YouTube videos on esoteric subjects are all quite popular. There's no lack of demand for longform content, but it's mostly not writing.
> Once a week, someone breathlessly tells me, "Oh my god, I read this article that said..." But what they mean is they watched a 30-second TikTok or skimmed a headline while scrolling through their feed. They think they've "read" something when they've consumed the intellectual equivalent of cotton candy: all sugar, no substance, dissolving the moment it hits their tongue.
Okay, but here's the thing: the article itself probably was already, as it were, pre-digested. A popular science article is already somewhat meant to be read as entertainment. Sure, reading the article is better than skimming the headline, but maybe less than you'd think. It's meant for a popular audience, it's written by a journalist who probably isn't an expert in the subject, and it's subject to the same commercial demands as anything else. A lot of popular science is like this, and it's not bad per se, but it's still a kind of product, even when it's in a Very Serious Newspaper. I read this stuff and enjoy it; it isn't non-informative. But it's also designed to be pretty easy to digest.
Reading a book on a complex topic requires quiet and the ability to focus on a single task.
Listening to a podcast is essentially another form of distraction, even if the listener still retains some information. Although I would bet that reading has dramatically more retention than listening to a podcast…
You can have the podcast or documentary or video playing while work... or scroll on your phone.
And then when you're done, you can say, "Oh my god, I listened to this podcast series about this guy who murdered his wife... I'm pretty sure it was his wife, anyway"
I wonder whether increased desire for long-form video correlates to loneliness. I asked my gf one day why in the world people watch video game streamers, and she responded that it was mostly to hear someone talking. Print doesn't even talk to us, but long-form video provides a friend-substitute who won't abandon us.
A lot of articles are not even written by a journalist, they're copy pasted press releases
I think people like podcasts and long videos because we are desperately alone and want an interaction where someone friendly talks at us and we can just listen without being challenged much or taking risks
I bet if you grab a random teenager off the street and give them a multi-page document with instructions and ask them to find a specific bit, they'll just quit because they think they have to read it sequentially from start to end.
Skimming the text quickly to find out where the relevant bits are just doesn't exist as a possibility for them
They'd rather listen to a rambling 45 minute Youtube video on how to do something and rewind it constantly and zoom in to see wtf is going on.
I think it's the opposite from the other responses you got: I don't listen to podcasts so I can't comment on that one, but for the rest, those are all usually focused on the topic at hand (yes, even the hours long youtube videos) while written articles usually have way way too much useless fluff. Over the years I've become averse to them for just that reason and use comments to see if it's worth reading.
>There's no lack of demand for longform content, but it's mostly not writing.
Because reading requires focus and attention on one thing over a prolonged amount of time, something a lot of people aren't able to do. Which speaks to one of the points the author made, what "tldr culture" does to people's brains, it robs them off the ability to focus on anything longer than fits into a handful of tweets.
> on the other, hours long podcasts, Netflix documentaries, and one-person YouTube videos on esoteric subjects are all quite popular. There's no lack of demand for longform content, but it's mostly not writing.
Those are all things that people can put on while doing something else or in the evening when they want to relax. Edutainment used to be the word, but now days it's just flat out entertainment.
> Once a week, someone breathlessly tells me, "Oh my god, I read this article that said..." But what they mean is they watched a 30-second TikTok or skimmed a headline while scrolling through their feed. They think they've "read" something when they've consumed the intellectual equivalent of cotton candy: all sugar, no substance, dissolving the moment it hits their tongue.
Okay, but here's the thing: the article itself probably was already, as it were, pre-digested. A popular science article is already somewhat meant to be read as entertainment. Sure, reading the article is better than skimming the headline, but maybe less than you'd think. It's meant for a popular audience, it's written by a journalist who probably isn't an expert in the subject, and it's subject to the same commercial demands as anything else. A lot of popular science is like this, and it's not bad per se, but it's still a kind of product, even when it's in a Very Serious Newspaper. I read this stuff and enjoy it; it isn't non-informative. But it's also designed to be pretty easy to digest.