The Dumbest Generation Ever?
This post is a commentary on the article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on August 16th of this year (a popular source of information for my posts in this blog, and yes the paper was still on my desk at the time I wrote this) in response to Mark Bauerlein’s book “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30″.
OK…first things first, I haven’t read the book…however I’ve often thought about the ramifications of the industry in which I work and how it has impacted the youth that is the prime consumer of many of the Internet properties in which I’ve helped to build. Of course…when I say “helped to build” I don’t necessarily mean literally, but through the advancement of Internet technologies and systems to which I have contributed a very small part of…one could argue I’m closer to the centre of this situation that most.
In helping to create and deliver various Internet related training courses in dealing with web writing, we have always preached that content on the web needs to be short and direct. In fact, at times we used to use rules of thumb since most writing and content on websites was repurposed from print material. One of those rules was to take a document for print, and cut it in half, then cut it in half again in order to arrive at the optimal amount for a web document. Obviously rules of thumb are just a guideline, but the point was clear…keep things short and sweet for online writing.
Jakob Neilsen’s How Users Read on the Web mentions several details about how users read web pages, and consequently how writers should write. Virtually all of this advice leads to shorter copy, content that is bulleted and built to enable users to “scan” the page rather than truly reading it. In fact, his research suggests that only 16 percent of users actually read a web page word-by-word.
Back to the article…the basic concept behind Bauerlein’s book is that people are constantly hooked up via e-mail, IM, social networking sites and the like. So much so that “something insidious is happening inside their heads.” In fact, the Internet gives us access to so much information and so easily, yet people merely seek to connect with a closed circuit of contacts.
As I read the article, I found myself thinking that our best efforts for our clients result in producing websites and web applications that feed this very problem. Instead of creating websites and applications that would help curb this problem, we rather just accept the fact that people no longer read or truly understand a web page, but are merely focused on quickly scanning the page and moving on to the next bit of information or content. An interesting irony that we have so much easy access to volumes of details and information, and nobody is really paying attention.
I wonder what website and information architects think about this situation as they design sites that are intended to drive sales, or sell products, or deliver services in as quick and efficient a manner possible. I wonder where we’ll be 10 years from now and whether or not we’ll even have the attention span to finish a blog post like this in its entirety…did you make all the way to end of this post?