There are days like today when I really wish I'd stayed in bed. It all started a bit odd from the moment I stepped out of the house, if you ask me. I made my way to the tube station as I invariably do each day and went to the ticket counter to get my travelcard renewed. The man behind the glass screen beamed at me at my approach, and as he proceeded to renew my travelcard, he started telling me about how he'd just come back from Dubai and how he'd loved it. I was still half-asleep but I managed a polite smile, which then prompted him to randomly say: "You should go there, you know." I laughed, and replied: "Yeah, in my dreams."
"No, really, you look like you need to go to a nice, sunny place," he insisted.
"Ah, don't tempt me... I have to go to work..." I sighed, and off I went down the hole that would lead me to my train platform.
As it happens, I didn't really have 'work' today as I had to attend one of those workshops that are supposed to make you better at your job. This one was about teaching us how to write better web-friendly content. I slumped on a chair at the back of the room, switched on the computer and listened to the droning voice explaining how people's attention span is now so low that we had to adapt our writing to it.
It was all about 'short' sentences, and God forbid you even think about writing paragraphs longer than 25 words. Sentences should be as short and to the point as possible, the man said, otherwise it became too complex for people's brains and they'd just leave your page.
I looked around me at that point, thinking surely I couldn't be the only one to find that absolutely shocking and laughable. But as I glanced around, everyone was just nodding their head approvingly. I wanted to say: "Why should we have to lower standards of writing to adapt to people's degenerative brains? Surely if the media kept a higher standard in the first place, it wouldn't have added to the trend of shorter attention span." But for some reason as soon as I opened my mouth, the man just ignored me and moved on from the subject at once before I could even utter a word.
Everything about today's 'teaching' was about adapting to mass stupidity. By the end of the day I felt so depressed and frustrated I just wanted to go home and cry my eyes out.
I just find it incredible that mainstream's logic could be so backward and actually quite inflexible. Its logic is reactive, not pre-emptive at all. Does anyone - anyone at all in this big universe - know what I mean, here? Reactive logic is that of following the following train of thoughts:
"Everyone is getting dumber, let's just dumb our own stuff down to meet their dumbness."
Pre-emptive logic, if followed from the beginning, would never need to rectify anything. But even if things go wrong at some point, pre-emptive logic would require sticking to the standards and expect the degenerative brains to move their asses and start making efforts again.
Of course, a profit-driven society could follow nothing but the former example - that of dumbing yourself down to meet the mass degeneration. Why? because profit is all about what you can achieve now, what you can earn the most right now. And so it is that we find ourselves immersed in an environment dumbing itself down for profit, because taking any other course of action would at first take a loss.
I sat there all day, having to listen to the man telling me how to write 'better' content, and all I could think of was how depressing it was. Unsurprisingly, he had the pleasure to let me know that my attempts at an exercise he gave us was the worst one. But if the aim was to write in the most dumb-friendly way, then I suppose that coming out as the worst performer in that instance should actually tell me something far more positive in the end.
I have nothing against dumbness itself. I just can't stand having to sit there and watch dumbness be heralded as the next step in human intelligence.
I will not change my style, and I will not accommodate anyone because they have a 'short attention span'.
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2 comments:
So when are you going to go to Dubai then? Having experienced conversations like that myself I know just how odd they are and I actually find it a bit unsettling when people just start opening up like that for no apparent reason. But he had obviously had a very enjoyable time and wanted to share it with someone although the ‘why me’ or rather the ‘why you’ question comes to mind. Maybe he thought that you needed a bit of break and judging by some of your entries both here and your past blog maybe he’s right. And that’s all I shall say on that as I’m really in no position to comment; I only wanted to reply to your later writing on your ‘exciting’ course.
It is often refreshing to read your blog and I do read it often as I happen to agree with many of your observations and comments on people and society. You definitely hit the proverbial nail on the head about information being dumbed down for the masses. I have believed that for quite sometime now and it has crept into just about every aspect of information dissemination. Schools and colleges break everything down into ‘bite’ sized chunks and it’s got nothing to do with the children not being able to understand a new concept but everything to do with their attention span being akin to that of a goldfish. Maybe there are too many distractions around us after all as you rightly said as a profit driven society it’s about what we can earn the most of right now. If people are sufficiently distracted they wont question too much something which is wrong or doesn’t ring true.
This probably isn’t a very example but if you watch television you might have seen adverts for the no touch dettol soap dispenser. Now if I remember correctly it is for their antibacterial hand soap and works through a sensor dispensing soap when you place your hand underneath it. Their selling point is that you don’t have to touch it and pick up ‘germs’ from the top. I’m guessing that most people will think ‘wow that’s cool and hygienic’ when in actual fact it’s completely pointless. If it was a normal pump-top type dispenser yes you would pick germs from the top but seeing as you are going to wash your hands anyway what difference does it make; absolutely none is the answer.
Would I be right in saying you did poorly in the exercise because you didn’t ‘dumb down’? I’m glad and actually not too surprised when you say that you will not change your style, my only hope is that my attention span does not wane as I will surely be the poorer for it.
When am I going to Dubai? Well, if I was to go somewhere in the Middle East region, I have to say my first pick would be Egypt just because of the history and yes, the pyramids and all the mysticism/mystery around it... something like that.
You probably guessed right as to why the man started talking to me about his trip because I saw him again today to renew my travelcard and this time his eyes looked dead and he wasn't smiling at all. I don't even think he really 'saw' me, he was just mechanically doing his job, which I guess seems to be what happens after a short while in most 'modern' or repetitive jobs nowadays.
"Would I be right in saying you did poorly in the exercise because you didn’t ‘dumb down’? I’m glad and actually not too surprised when you say that you will not change your style, my only hope is that my attention span does not wane as I will surely be the poorer for it."
Yes, you're right, I didn't dumb it down and I often get a hard time because my sentences are 'too long' or using too much grammar, I guess. I've always had a tendency to write winding sentences, for better or for worse, even in my native language. I've learned to appreciate constructive criticism because I know that sometimes expression can be more effective by being more to the point. But when it comes to people saying that we should simplify writing for the sake of making it easier for people with poor attention spans, then I just find it ludicrous. The trouble with short attention span is that it probably creeps up on you and before you even know it, you're already affected. I suppose carefully selecting what one reads/watches can help, but in a day and age where we're bombarded 24/7 with information seeking our attention by any means necessary, that's easier said than done.
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