Distracted reading

“I didn’t realise it’s a 3 year contract.” “I didn’t realise tax wasn’t included.” “I didn’t see the deadline.”

The document might have said all these things, but (assuming it’s not hiding things in the small print) there are various reasons why people may not be paying much attention to what you say.

• It may not seem relevant to them
• They may be in a hurry
• They may be under stress of some kind, which can affect our ability to concentrate
• They may be doing something else at the same time – scrolling social media, watching TV
• It may be too long...

Some teachers complain that our ability to concentrate on long texts has declined over the years. Adam Kotsko,¹ a theology professor, reports that

I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch ... Students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways.

Writing in the New Yorker, Daniel Immerwahr² is more understanding of the impatient modern reader:

Complaints about distraction are most audible from members of the knowledge class—journalists, artists, novelists, professors ... Above all, they demand patience, the inclination to stick with things that aren’t immediately compelling or comprehensible. Patience is indeed a virtue, but a whiff of narcissism arises when commentators extoll it in others, like a husband praising an adoring wife. It places the responsibility for communication on listeners, giving speakers license to be overlong, unclear, or self-indulgent. When someone calls for audiences to be more patient, I instinctively think, Alternatively, you could be less boring.

So when you imagine your readers, imagine them as not fully committed. Be alert for plausible distractors (information that appears to answer their question but doesn’t), and make it easy for them to see the main point at a glance.

Think about layering as a design pattern that allows you to address less committed and more committed readers at the same time.

And make your document forgiving of distracted reading. You may need to explain things more than once, if they might not have paid attention the first time. People dip in and out of documents, particular online.

And when they come back to it in a few month’s time, will it still be clear to them?

1. Adam Kotsko (2024) The loss of things I took for granted, Slate, Feb 11, 2024

2. Daniel Immerwahr (2025) Check this out, New Yorker, January 27, 2025