re: #284 freetoken

Tweeting is an example of our current society’s inability or indifference to deal with complex ideas. We (not people here at LGF, but the more general “we”) want quick answers — soundbites. We don’t want longwinded tl;dr answers. News reports have to be short, even at the expense of accuracy. Dramas have to have a satisfactory ending within an hour, unless they are part of some episodic series. Movies have to be action packed, relatively short on dialogue. Televised sports events have to be continuously commented on, with frequent cutaways to specific parts of the playing field.

When one of the missions of USA Today was to boil the day’s news into six column-inches or less, I knew we were on the road to the condensed version of everything needed to be an informed public.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest … they’re just the latest in a series of examples of our American impatience with complexity.