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Comment by davedx | Hacker News Reader

> The body of the article is too verbose for my taste.

Kind of one of the points the article's trying to make I think. Our attention spans are shot to hell. I just read it in about 10 minutes with a couple of interruptions from the kids. Too verbose?

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"too verbose" generally means that the writing style doesn't resonate with reader, making it tedious to read.

What resonates with you as a reader is a pure function of what you’ve read in the past though. There’s an argument for trying to stick with movies/books/articles/etc you find difficult precisely to keep the mental torpor described at bay.

My feeling was that the same thoughts could have been expressed in fewer words and that the article would have gained in clarity from that.

> Our attention spans are shot to hell.

I agree. My comment was mostly on the presentation, not on the substance of the article.

Our attention spans are shot. The article is verbose. Two things can be true at once.

While you make a fair point, there is another side to it: Whether or not I actually spend the amount of time reading a piece of text or give up halfway through, too much verbosity (whether that's due to repetition, unnecessary side notes, whatever) leads to me not respecting the message of the text as much as I would have if it was more succinctly written.

There's also a big difference between me comitting a few hours to reading a book by my favorite author, or a set of articles from news outlets I respect, versus some anonymous blogger linked on Hacker News.

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