| Mar032009 | Long-Form |
I was sad to hear that the local paper of 146 years, the Seattle P-I, is undergoing layoffs and they’re desperately looking for a buyer or else they’ll be forced to move internet-only or close outright.
Mike Davidson wrote about the P-I and reflected on the future of long-form writing:
- Our attention spans are shrinking below even the levels caused by the television explosion of the ’80s and ’90s
- We are consuming more and producing less (no, sharing or reblogging does not count as producing)
- We value timeliness of information more than depth of coverage, or even truth in some cases
- We are driving most kids completely away from journalism as a profession
- We’re uncovering more of the who’s, what’s, when’s, and where’s, but less of the how’s and why’s
I think we all know who is to blame. The iPod and it’s fancy shuffle and letting you listen to songs in whatever friggin’ order you want. I remember the days when you had to listen to the entire album at least once. Mixtapes took some friggin’ effort. The “skip” button was never worn down to a faded nub.
Seriously though, these aren’t new concerns but for some reason they hit home a little harder when you see newspapers crumbling. I complain that I can’t crank out a decent blog post on a decent schedule but the real problem is that I don’t have the attention span to read it, let alone write it.
I really hope there’s some sort of counter-movement. Not a revolution but a band of advocates that help these twitchy children of tomorrow to find balance before we all die of heart attacks at age 30.
Merlin Mann at 43Folders is doing some really cool things. He’s just a schmuck that loves to create. He used to be obsessed with all sorts of productivity systems for managing his life but now he just wants to know how to tap into creativity and make something new and worthwhile without getting so involved in the meta of it all.
I’ve gotten busier at work and it’s given me new focus so I ignore a lot of the social chatter going on in my mailing lists. I’m skipping a lot of blog posts in my Reader. I don’t read every single Twitter message that is posted by the 40-odd people that I follow. I’m getting some momentum in this direction. I feel like I’ll have to make a big sacrifice soon if I want to keep any kind of attention span.
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