The Internet has fucked up my attention span. I remember when I used to be able to complete books in one sitting or pick up long books without hesitation. Now, I just feel guilty when I look at my pile of unread books. Sounds familiar?
In the past few years, short-form content has had a tremendous surge with the rise of meme culture and platforms like TikTok.
Here's why it's totally fine (and in some ways better) to study and create short pieces of art or literature and why it isn't as bad as the world is telling you.
Make it stick.
Short-form content makes it much easier for information and new ideas to stick in the reader's head as compared to long winding articles. Saying more in fewer words is an art that impresses readers much more.
Authors of the Internet era are not afraid to make use of short sentences, bullet points and unconventional writing tools to make their point. Writer and artist Austin Kleon employs this frequently not just on his blog but also in his books. He makes use of large text and bold artworks to make his points stand out. His books are part guides and part coffee table magazines.
Of course, longer works have their own significance but do not mistake longer for better. In my experience, shorter (<200 pages) non-fiction books have much more to say than the longer ones. Self-help books between the length of 250-500 pages are the absolute worst. I consider long and hard before wasting my time on them. Books longer than 500 pages usually have something substantial to say, hence the length.
Create more
You have probably heard this story: A pottery teacher divides a class into two sections. The first section was asked to make as many pots as possible; they would be graded on the number of pots they presented. In the other section, students were asked to present a single pot each; they would be graded on the excellence of their individual pots.
Which group do you think finally came out with better pots? The first one! While the second group was busy trying to create the perfect pot, the first group was iterating the process, becoming better with each try.
Now, you see, pots and posts follow the same rule. The more you create and publish, the greater the feedback and faster the growth. Short-form content allows you to push out your creations faster while getting immediate feedback.
A fine example of consistent short-form content is Seth Godin. He has been writing on his blog for well over a decade. He has published over 7000 posts containing over 2 million words. This amounts to less than 300 words per article. Some of his articles are as short as 50 words. Yet he remains one of the most influential marketers and writers of this age.
Building an audience
Alright, quiz time:
Steve is a man in his forties. He is a neat freak. He is obsessive over the tiny details. He also loves helping people. What is he more likely to be, a farmer or a librarian?
Librarian, right? Wrong. Steve's characteristics may be similar to that of a librarian but you are missing out on one important detail. The number of farmers is hundreds, if not thousands, of times more than the total number of librarians. This is not a question of logic rather it is a statistics problem.
This same fallacy is used by people who say it is difficult to build a loyal audience by using short-form content. No, it is not! It's just that creating short-form content is easier and there are way more people creating short-form content than people doing the research and work to put 2000 word articles.
Have a look at TikTok- there is an ocean of mediocre and downright bad content. Remember, creating more doesn't mean creating mediocre stuff. You are already doing less work by cutting down on quantity, please keep your quality standards high.
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