Comment on Who benefits from the "14 Min Read" estimates popping everywhere?

Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• netvor@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  How does the estimate help you decide?

  I don’t get it. If I’m interested in something, I’m interested in it regardless of the length of an article, right?

  I mean, maybe I’m not interested in all of it, but then I can just spend, say, 30 seconds evaluating whether the article is any good and whether it spends a paragraph or two on the very topic I’m curious about. Length of the article does not have much bearing on that, it’s more about whether I know the terms I’m looking for and can spot them. (Of course, massive length may hint I will spend more time sifting through, but peeking at scrollbar is enough to realize that.)

  If the thing I’m interested in is buried in a massive wall of text, so what? I can ignore the rest of the article as much as I can ignore the rest of the blog (or the internet…)

  The real unpredictable thing for me is always that even if I’m looking for topic X, I might actually need to learn about W first, and often I’m underestimating the relevancy of W and its own depth. So I could spend 1 minute reading about X but still find myself unable to use the knowledge. That’s regardless of whether the knowledge was in a 1h long article or 10 min.

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  • RagnarokOnline@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’m interested in it regardless of the length of an article, right?

    For you, maybe, but not for me. I literally didn’t read your whole comment that I’m replying to right now because it was too long.

    My attention is conditional.

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  • miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    If Iknow it’s a 10 minute read:

    I can decide NOW whether to continue.

    Or in 1 minute whether to continue.

    Or in 4 minutes whether to continue.

    Or in 8 minutes…

    Or…

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    • netvor@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Or…

      …or in 30? That’s how it would work for me since I’m a very slow (distracted!) reader.

      I get the point, though. Thanks.

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