Iran’s blogfather: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are killing the web (The Guardian)
Even before I went to jail, though, the power of hyperlinks was being curbed. Its biggest enemy was a philosophy that combined two of the most dominant, and most overrated, values of our times: newness and popularity. (Isn’t this embodied these days by the real-world dominance of young celebrities?) That philosophy is the stream. The stream now dominates the way people receive information on the web. Fewer users are directly checking dedicated webpages, instead getting fed by a never-ending flow of information that’s picked for them by complex and secretive algorithms.
I miss when people took time to be exposed to opinions other than their own, and bothered to read more than a paragraph or 140 characters. I miss the days when I could write something on my own blog, publish on my own domain, without taking an equal time to promote it on numerous social networks; when nobody cared about likes and reshares, and best time to post.
The whole article is worth reading but that last paragraph is a truth I can’t agree with enough. It seems like it is harder and harder to just write something and have someone read it or take a picture and have people enjoy it. Instead everything has to be “curated” and cared for to catch as many views and likes as possible.
I am even guilty of it here. On Twitter I linked to my link post here rather than the article itself. I want people to read my thoughts on the article rather than the article alone…
I agree with this post. I’m a little slow or self isolated by choice at times but lately I have started seeing blog post comments that just say “TL;DR” which is clever but seem odd on 200 to 300 word posts. Like if it’s too long to tweet then it’s not worth reading 🙂
Dan,
Yeah, it seems like the general feeling is that people are too lazy and won’t read content. By modifying your way of posting to appeal to that audience, you are simply reinforcing the idea that long form content no longer matters.