The abbreviation of everything - my comment on The Immediate Media Age (GigaOM)

Om Malik writes: The Immediate Media Age: Of Broadband & Blogs - GigaOM.

"Our whole lives are about doing more in less time, trying to cram everything into 24 hours, in a day that is filled with constant interruptions. Instant messages, emails, and the constant chirping of cell phones have surely and slowly squeezed our attention spans. We have responded this to customizing the digital world according to how lifestyles. We have TiVo to personalize our television, watching only what we want. We plug in our iPods, using playlists, instead of listening to the radio waiting for our favorite tune. Like TiVo and iPod, the web allows us to customize what we want to read. Blogs offer short bursts of information in an easy to digest format that fits nicely with this socio-culture change happening around us. Blogs, also have the ability to focus on niche topics, allow almost anyone to publish, and then have it distributed over high-speed Internet connections instantly is what can be summed up in two words: “Immediate Media.”

My comment: This is from Om's blog about a year ago but I just ran across it. I sometimes call this development 'the abbreviation of everything' and this trend is quite scary as well as somewhat invigorating. Either way, I think we will not stop here (i.e. shorten everything), and if we think about the future of a connected ecosystem - a mass of 4+ Billion people with mobile devices - it will certainly look quite different from what the early adopters such as Om and myself are willing to endure (as 'usators' i.e. users+creators)

I think the increasing shortening of people's digital attention span, and the trends towards reading and writing quick blurbs and instant nuggets of wisdom (of which I am plenty guilty myself) will sooner or later spawn a trend back towards deeper reading and writing, just like the success of the console game GuitarHero has resulted in a rise in guitar sales and interest in 'real musicianship' - it will just take a bit longer because:

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