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Short Attention Spans with regards to Technology - Does it really exist?
Paul Keith:
@app
On twitter you don't read...you scan.
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Not saying you are wrong but the same people who often mention short attention spans, often mention the fact that everyone or at least 99% of readers in the Internet are diagonal readers or F-readers.
F readers basically are people who read the first line completely when their curiosity is peaked. (ex. headlines, first sentence of post)
After that, depending on the quality of the content, they sputter out or end up reading the posts completely.
Meanwhile diagonal readers are ones who read the headers, bolded bullet points, etc. while scanning the rest no matter if they are valuable contents or something useless until they have judged the content enough to reread it, drop it or take note of some minor bits.
With a feed reader, you subscribe to content of all the same type when you subscribe to a feed. Less noise, more signal. More articles, no list of what the blogger had for lunch.
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As you alluded to in your post, this only works if you have set up the folders between Photography and Photographers correctly. Most people who go to these lengths already have gone through the issue of filtering the data to it's minimum categories.
The rest pretty much don't use these types of RSS readers at all or they use it because they don't know of Netvibes and Feedly.
If you want to see how interested people can really be with a simple 140 char post, compare the level of engagement in the original format of twitter and to the same posts imported to Friendfeed. Human filtering can make all the difference when it comes to separating the noise from the signal and generating an interesting discussion around the content that 140 chars was pointing to.
The post on twitter might pick up a comment or 2, and might even get a bunch of RT's, but a substantial group discussion that is more interesting than the original 140 chars? Not going to happen. People don't really read tweets. And there is no way to keep the entire discussion on the same page. It's too fragmented.
On friendfeed, you are still scanning for content of interest, but if you like something you mark it and it makes it more noticeable, sending it again past the people that missed it the first time. If another marks it, it starts to grow more visible, and again goes past those that missed it the first 2 times. Then comments make it a larger block, sending it past again. The more times it comes past you and the bigger it gets, the more likely you will notice it, read it, and interact with it. Your friends have filtered for you to help you find the signal among the noise. But if it is noise to you, despite the interest others have in it, you can hide it and never see it again.
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I'll admit that when I tried FriendFeed, probably because I don't have default friends, I could never read any of the discussions there or even when I join some, it gets annoying because I don't know when a thread has added a new comment or reply.
I have used Plurk though and discussions don't get better. In fact, it is perceived as a wrong thing by people who see me constantly break the 140 char. limit of the replies. (and I would argue that from my experience with both, Plurk alerts you better to new replies to your comments)
Another problem with this is that if we ignore the 140 char. limit, we still have the issue that each forums have different cultures. If I posted this on a random board with a tech sub-board for example, I probably wouldn't get any reply that equals the depth of your reply here.
But if we just attribute it to the different interest levels of different forums, than we still couldn't estimate the interest span of these areas because a forum with the most members interested in a single issue is not always the most civil of forums but is in fact more exposed to knee-jerk and rude posters. A forum with fewer members on the other hand may not even hold a candle to the community of DC.
...but the problem now is that we're going nowhere because we both already agree with the idea that short attention span (as a word) might not exist.
Unfortunately, for someone like me who is often accused of writing too long of a post, these kinds of concepts aren't just an issue of agreement or disagreement. Knowing the reality of these concepts could make or break the difference between a post that people I align with will read and from a post they will ignore.
(I often don't care about the rest of the internet population not because I don't value their opinion but they may not care so much about a topic that their comments are often just short twitter level comments and not a discussion that could help educate/enlighten/expand on my dilemmas and ignorance.)
app103:
I never said that short attention spans didn't exist. I said that most people probably do not suffer from it. Those that do suffer from it (ADD/ADHD) don't like it one bit and it causes problems in their life of one sort or another.
I'll admit that when I tried FriendFeed, probably because I don't have default friends, I could never read any of the discussions there or even when I join some, it gets annoying because I don't know when a thread has added a new comment or reply.
-Paul Keith (September 29, 2009, 02:35 PM)
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Should you ever want friendfeed lessons from a power user, feel free to send me a private message there and I'll show you all the wonders and great tools.
Unfortunately, for someone like me who is often accused of writing too long of a post, these kinds of concepts aren't just an issue of agreement or disagreement. Knowing the reality of these concepts could be make or break the difference between a post that people I align with will read from people who don't. (I often don't care about the rest of the internet population not because I don't value their opinion but they may not care so much about a topic and their comments are often just that, short twitter level comments and not a discussion that could help educate/enlighten/expand on my dilemmas.)
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You would be really surprised at what goes on, on friendfeed. A lot of very intelligent people with a lot to offer. I never saw a social network quite like it before. It reminds me a lot of this forum in a lot of ways. It is the first of the "web 2.0" social networks that actually had the ability to draw me in and capture my attention for more than 2 weeks and made me feel like I belonged. The rest of them all made me scratch my head and ask "why do people like this?" and left me feeling like a space alien. (and I think I have tried almost all of them)
But it does matter who you are subscribed to. Not everyone is social. Too many dump their feeds there and never really participate or talk to the people they are subscribed to.
Like I said, if you want a guide, message me there and I'll teach you the ins/outs and point you in the direction of who is worth following.
Paul Keith:
@app,
I never said that short attention spans didn't exist. I said that most people probably do not suffer from it. Those that do suffer from it (ADD/ADHD) don't like it one bit and it causes problems in their life of one sort or another.
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Sorry. I was just over-simplifying the point to cut my sentences short.
Should you ever want friendfeed lessons from a power user, feel free to send me a private message there and I'll show you all the wonders and great tools.
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Sure, feel free to do so. I just subscribed to your Feed:
My profile:
http://friendfeed.com/theplagiarist
You would be really surprised at what goes on, on friendfeed. A lot of very intelligent people with a lot to offer. I never saw a social network quite like it before. It reminds me a lot of this forum in a lot of ways. It is the first of the "web 2.0" social networks that actually had the ability to draw me in and capture my attention for more than 2 weeks and made me feel like I belonged. The rest of them all made me scratch my head and ask "why do people like this?" and left me feeling like a space alien. (and I think I have tried almost all of them)
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I get where you're coming from. Nothing like a forum with a nice community and friendly people behind it.
But it does matter who you are subscribed to. Not everyone is social. Too many dump their feeds there and never really participate or talk to the people they are subscribed to.
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Guilty as charged. I tried but it was like Twitter. Without friends, it felt like I was navigating through a messier RSS Reader.
(Plus I don't get, lifestreaming. Caused my posts to get double posted when I double posted on some service.)
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