8, 6, 7, 5, 3 or 9 reasons article titles are numbered list…
I have recently noticed that practically every article suggested for me has some sort of list in the title:
- 7 best ways to tie your shoe
- 9 things to stop doing
- 3 things to always do
- 36 habits of people you probably should want to be like
You know, stuff like that.
I find it interesting. Maybe even compelling. But ultimately frustrating. And, I have stopped reading those articles. As a human, I get the instinctual urge to click, but have no idea why. And since I am certainly no psychologist (and don’t even claim to be an amateur one) I would be curious to know what this phenomenon is.
I have my theory. No big surprise there, eh? And here it is.
I posit that it is a logical outcome of the loss of interest in nuance, the TLDR reaction and a misplaced interest in hacks. And the through line? Attention span.
There are hacks for everything now. And while the general definition seems to skew to the inelegant, temporary and cobbled together type of solution, we see plenty of life hacks. And what it is saying is, you don’t have to do the work, just use this hack. You don’t need to understand anything, just do these proscribed steps. Hacks for investing (you don’t need to understand markets). Hacks for relationships (you don’t need to spend time getting to know and understand someone). Hacks for eating (you don’t need to understand nutrition). Just follow these x steps and it will be fine. Thinking not required. Or even really encouraged.
Since we don’t need to understand things for ourselves we no longer care about nuance. We are forced to be polarized about everything, because we don’t take the time to discuss anything. I have to be all right and you have to be all wrong and I have to be able to do it in a sound bite or a tweet because no one can pay attention longer than that. Nuance is out the window. There is no emoji for: I agree with most of what you are saying but I would love to dive into this point a little more so I can understand where you are coming from.
Everyone needs to read “The Infinite Game”. Nobody wins politics. Nobody wins America. Nobody wins business. Sure you may win an election or a deal here and there, but that is a skirmish, nowhere near the whole war. America is an infinite game. Relationships are infinite games. Business is an infinite game. Leadership is an infinite game. There is no winning and there are no hacks. It all takes work, understanding and time.
Maybe skip the next ‘3 things all totally awesome people do’ article and just be you. You don’t need 7 steps to an awesome relationship, you need to talk to your relationship partner. Don’t jump to the article that offers easy steps to the solution, read the one that offers thoughts on the issue. Then read one that disagrees with the first one.
Work it out for yourself. Immerse yourself in the nuance.
