Re:No Thanks, Google. I'll Speak for Myself
by romwell on Wednesday May 09, 2018 @07:50PM
(#17035324)
I would disagree, if only I because I still write letters.
But then I am one of the people who writes SMS messages long enough that they are unreadable on the recepeint's end.
(And yes, turns out that you can type a long enough SMS message that it wouldn't display fully on a modern Android phone even after the auto-conversion to MMS. That saddens me. I guess you may be right, after all.)
On the other hand, people write more these days than they ever have. And even in this thread, the individual comments end up running quite long - long enough to be short letters if you were to write them by hand. Turns out, when you are actually trying to make a point, being brief is more difficult than being wordy.
So perhaps it's not the art of writing "long-form" (a modern term) that is dying - perhaps it's writing longform intended for one recipient only - and perhaps even that is temporary. Time will tell.
But then I am one of the people who writes SMS messages long enough that they are unreadable on the recepeint's end.
(And yes, turns out that you can type a long enough SMS message that it wouldn't display fully on a modern Android phone even after the auto-conversion to MMS. That saddens me. I guess you may be right, after all.)
On the other hand, people write more these days than they ever have. And even in this thread, the individual comments end up running quite long - long enough to be short letters if you were to write them by hand. Turns out, when you are actually trying to make a point, being brief is more difficult than being wordy.
So perhaps it's not the art of writing "long-form" (a modern term) that is dying - perhaps it's writing longform intended for one recipient only - and perhaps even that is temporary. Time will tell.