Don't people read anymore?

[grumpyduck]

A couple of days ago I sent out several emails asking for some very simple information for a project I'm working on. The emails went to established businesses.

About half the replies told me that the respondents didn't read the email content (which was very clear and very short): they apparently went just by the subject line. In one case the response was to a totally different question than the one I asked.

I've been seeing this more and more over the past couple of years. I'm seeing it here on DU and I see it on other forums.

What's up with this?

[True Dough]

1. I read that you're an amicable bird

And what's good for the goose is good for the gander. My puns are running afowl of the terms of service. I'll flock off now.

[Ohiogal]

2. My 20 something sons tell me

Nobody uses e mail anymore except old people (of which I am one, I guess).

[OriginalGeek]

3. Definitely chocolate

Vanilla is too bland.

[zipplewrath]

4. Preconception

People tend to form an opinion on what the message will say, based upon the subject line, or maybe the first line of the post. They will then skim over the rest and stick with their original perception. Unless something really jumps out at them, they'll never put much thought into the content of the message.

People often do the same things with news stories. They read a headline, get a point of view, and then maybe read the first few paragraphs, mostly to re-enforce their preconception, and never really confirm that the headline projected the proper impression of the content.

[shraby]

8. I will read an article to the end because in the last couple of paragraphs is where the

real meat of the article tends to reside. No matter what the top part reads, the nitty gritty is found there.

[zipplewrath]

9. I often read ahead

Especially when I see a headline that doesn't make much sense, or if the first few paragraphs seem to be talking to the conclusion before discussing the context, I'll often skip ahead and read the last two paragraphs. It can often give a completely different impression of the beginning of a story when one knows the "punchline" so to speak.

[dumbcat]

10. Which is the opposite of what they teach

in journalism courses.

[elocs]

11. Yep, that's exactly what I learned in my journalism classes some 45 years ago.

The inverted pyramid where the most important information is at the top of the article because many people don't read much further than that.

[petronius]

5. I think most people just prefer to wait for the

TV or movie adaptation these days: books are more of a time commitment, and not as social/interactive as viewing something with friends...

[Solly Mack]

6. I still send snail-mail letters.

I can only hope people read them. Judging from some of the responses, I'd have to say not the whole letter.

[dawg]

7. Our attention span has been shrunk to the size of a text message ...

or a tweet.

[appalachiablue]

12. +1 Lol.

[Codeine]

13. Yeah, Megadeth were great, but I prefer Metallica. nt

[planetc]

14. Of course they do. Every single one of Hillary's emails has been read ...

more exhaustively than anything else ever written. It's been read by the Eff Bee AI. But the FBI's salary grade is above ours, and we know that most unsolicited email is requests for business or money or our SSNs. But the Benghazi Committee was running out of things they were pretending to do, so they sent off for some emails, hoping, as always, that a Clinton would incriminate herself and hand the evidence over to them. The Republicans aren't even smart enough to think like competent criminals. The shallowness of the games they play cannot be underestimated.