Everything on the internet is twice as long as it has to be

Even this headline.

Recently, I’ve stumbled upon this interesting article about evolution or atheism or something (I don’t quite remember what it was), but I do remember that it tugged at my heartstrings in just the right way. The first few sentences just brought the point beautifully across, a point which my mind - thoroughly stressed-out by the neverending roar of social media updates - just gladly accepted. Yes, these few sentences rang true to my predispositions and were so palatable as to provide me with some relief from the constant onslaught of rings and popups and reminders and all the other noise and let me focus - a rare experience these days.

Which is why I instantly decided to share it.

Once that thought had gotten hold of my mind I couldn’t really focus anymore on the article itself. Yes, it went on like that, something about dinosaurs and the milky way (the author obviously knew his awesome-o-pedia), but my brain was already somewhere else. On the long end with hundreds of likes and shares and friendly comments touting me as a sharer of wisdom, an amazing human being, somebody whose existence is acknowledged. So once I hit a really nice quote at the beginning of the third paragraph or so I just copypasted that to Facebook, put the url below it, and added some deep comment. The first sentence of the third paragraph - that is as far as I got in an article I found so enticing that I decided to share it with all these friends, co-workers and conference folk I’d barely talked to.

And this is symptomatic for all of the internet: everything on the internet is twice as long as it has to be. When was the last time you actually finished reading something on the web? Thoroughly follow an author’s argument without skipping to the conclusion paragraph? How long is your Instapaper reading queue?

Even the web’s most peculiar result, Twitter, with its laughable 140-character posts, follows this rule: while the first half of a tweet contains actual information, the second is invariably cluttered with snark, emoticons, links or that bane of the internet - hashtags. My rule of thumb is: in 90% of all cases you’re fine with just reading the first half of everything you find on the internet - even tweets.

Because, seriously, would any author ever be so cruel as to start their post with some well-meaning, insightful observation before diving into utterly destroying that argument in the latter half of their article? Thus fooling all people who had just (seemingly) read enough to get the gist of it? And share it to all their Facebook friends?

Or just repeat the same sentence over and over again ad nauseam? Repeat the same sentence over and over again ad nauseam? Repeat the same sentence over and over again ad nauseam? While interspersing some new words to make it look different? But still repeat the same sentence over and over again ad nauseam? Repeat the same sentence over and over again ad nauseam? Repeat the same sentence over and over again ad nauseam?

That could never happen.