I follow Michelle Greer on Twitter.and she turns up some good stuff, but this is a new one on me so far.
It suddenly hits me that the reason txt and now Twitter have taken off is that our minds are structured around short utterances. The things that make us pay attention and to which we respond most strongly are still the ones that brought us down from the trees.
Whether they are cries of anger, pleasure, confusion, amazement, fear or, in this case, grief, they speak to us in ways that the long form never will.
Maybe the reason letters were so long was not because we had such a lot to say, much of it totally inconsequential, but that they were such a big deal to write, envelope, stamp, and post that we felt we owed them more than we often had to say cogently.
Apparently 140 characters meets perfectly some keyhole in our attention span.
But enough of me.
RIP @debutaunt 1967-2009. may your spirit live on forever in the good acts of others.
It suddenly hits me that the reason txt and now Twitter have taken off is that our minds are structured around short utterances. The things that make us pay attention and to which we respond most strongly are still the ones that brought us down from the trees.
Whether they are cries of anger, pleasure, confusion, amazement, fear or, in this case, grief, they speak to us in ways that the long form never will.
Maybe the reason letters were so long was not because we had such a lot to say, much of it totally inconsequential, but that they were such a big deal to write, envelope, stamp, and post that we felt we owed them more than we often had to say cogently.
Apparently 140 characters meets perfectly some keyhole in our attention span.
But enough of me.
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