Have you ever written a blog post and wondered if people actually read every single word of it before they like, or comment on it? I do, all the time.
Especially when I post something that is close to 1000 words in length and less than two minutes later I have a notification saying someone has liked my post. Honestly, that kind of offends me.
Then again, I don’t know what the person on the other end is thinking. For me, sometimes I like a post after reading something really good in the second paragraph. What they said was either really funny, or just made me nod my head so much that I couldn’t hold back on pressing like.
Granted, when that happens, I still finish reading the rest of the post because surely it was just that good.
I don’t know if other people do that. I feel like there is a whole lot of skimming going on. And it’s normally reflected in some of the comments people make on my posts.
Or sometimes a post is just so long that people skim through it and try to pick up on big words. Or they only read the short paragraphs and forget about the long ones. Because who likes reading a long paragraph? They go on, and on, and on, forever until the person reading is just too intimidated by a huge block of text and decides to skip over it. Maybe they just skip some sentences, or some lines in the long paragraph. We’ve all done it haven’t we? Skipping over text to get to shorter paragraphs. There is a sense of comfort in short paragraphs. I don’t know why. Maybe we’re all in a hurry and just want to finish reading and get to the climax of the post, or book, or website, or whatever else we might be reading. A big block of text is sometimes like every page after the first page of results on Google. It’s there, but no one ever looks at it. Poor, Google. So many results, so few get looked at. Using one word, tell me your favourite colour in the comments below and nothing else. But sometimes a big block of text can have something important in it and people don’t even know, because they’ve skipped it. It was too long. It wasn’t worth their time. They didn’t want to read it, just like they didn’t want to click on page two of Google for results. It’s sad, really. I mean, words are words. It shouldn’t matter if they’re broken up in paragraphs or huddled all together. My high school English teacher always told my class to “let every word tell”. That’s something I remind myself every time I write. It helps eliminate the useless words and makes every word meaningful. And I think that’s important. Every word should matter.
Alright, that was a pretty long paragraph. If you skipped over it, I don’t blame you. You didn’t miss much, really.
In school, when they gave us time to read, you could always tell who the fast readers were. They were the ones flipping the page, while you were only at the half way mark. And then you got self-conscious. Am I a slow reader? Do I have a learning disability? Or are they just speed reading?
Regardless, I knew I didn’t miss anything. That I read every word. That I didn’t miss any specific instructions. I can only hope there are others that are the same way.
Well, I’ve said enough.
Leave a comment below.
I skim sometimes and other times I’ll read the whole thing. Depends on the content I guess :p
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That’s true! Hope you didn’t skim this one 🙂
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Ugh. White.
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Hahaha thank you!
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And I’m embarassed now.
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Pingback: The “Skimming” Experiment | The Captain's Speech
Black 😛
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That’s the comment I was looking for!
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BLACK
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Correct answer!
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BLUE!
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Also, I hate when I get a like 2 seconds after posting something, or on a lot of posts in a row. “I know y’all didn’t read it. Thanks for noticing my post though? Do I thank you?” I don’t know…
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That’s the worst! Someone did that last week to me! They liked 43 posts within two minutes.
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Geez. Now that’s excessive haha
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Well done! Also, I think you’re only the second person to say blue. I was shocked by that.
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Periwinkle is a shade of blue… with a purplish tint.
Nunatak. OKay. But how many names of professional athletes can those two brainiacs spell? I’d like to see them handle the Canadian names. Y’all have some funky last names up there. Eh?
Now…. I want to know. How many of your readers/followers/creepers/friends 🙂 actually read the comments left by the other readers/followers/creepers/friends 🙂 🙂 ????
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Hey now, we Canadians have a bunch of normal names. We’re just so diverse, with people from a bunch of countries, that “funky” names seem to be our thing.
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It was a compliment, Paul. Funky is awesome.
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Brown
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Correct!
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Let’s see………where did I laugh out loud? oh I’ve got it….”you could always tell who the fast readers..” I’m a fast reader lol. But I always thought why is everyone still reading? Did I miss something? Should I go back and re-read?
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You fast readers scare slow readers!
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You slow readers are secretly planning on taking over the world but the fast readers didn’t notice.
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Ha I wish! We’re just too busy thinking about our next meal to read fast. Or maybe that’s just me.
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And I didn’t trick you with my insert crazy sentence to see if you’re skimming!
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I knew that’s what you were doing!
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Too easy in find in a short comment.
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There are two reasons I can identify why people skim. Pardon me if I missed a hidden request.
1. Time efficiency. Why spend that precious time reading every word when you can still get the gist of the article by skimming?
2. Selfishness. I’ve not used this site long, but I feel there is this underlying desire to be noticed by everyone. A comment, no matter how mundane or uninformative, is a way to get your name out into the void on the off-chance someone will read your blog. Skimming allows for industrial scale production of these comments.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this cynicism. By virtue of posting, I have become an unwilling adherent to point 2, so let me encourage all who read this to not click my name and continue reading Captain’s Speech instead.
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I think you’re right on both points. I think we’re all in a hurry to read stuff, myself included. And I would agree with your second point, to an extent. I’ve only had a few comments on my blog where I can clearly tell the person just wants publicity for their own blog, sometimes they include a link to their site. But the majority of the time, people are genuine. Thanks for this!
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Turquoise
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That’s the right answer! I think someone else said turquoise too.
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Black, or pink….
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Thanks for reading every word!
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Like the color of deep red, I think I’m sometimes guilty of skimming and skipping. Sometimes I even like a post before reading it just because I like the blogger. But does it matter? They still get the like anyway
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That’s a good point actually. There are many bloggers where I like all of their posts regardless so I guess it doesn’t hurt liking it before reading. Thanks for giving me a colour!
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Pink.
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Correct! Thanks for playing!
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Black
like my soul😉LikeLiked by 1 person
Ohhh don’t be so hard on yourself! A lot of people said black. I’m about surprised by this.
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Black is an awesome colour! Ha. I get ya about the ‘liking’ thing though! So many people like words with 1,000+ words within minutes (or seconds) of it being published. Ha. Makes me feel like I’m being punk’d or something.
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Exactly! I think I just picture some people scrolling through their reader and pressing like on every post because they want people to follow them.
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Orange
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Don’t think I got many oranges today. Thanks!
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Black
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Yes!
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And men that paragraph is freaky long. Its just asking to be skimmed through
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Haha that was the point! To see if anyone would actually read all of it. Don’t worry, I never write paragraphs that long.
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Am gonna hold you to that
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Some days green, most days red :]
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It’s good to have variety!
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Teal-ish
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Correct!
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Love this post!
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I’m glad!
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Short comments = no skimming 😉
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Exactly! By the way, the name is your blog is clever. I’m gonna have to check it out.
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Thank you! Would love to hear your input! Definitely works better if you start from the beginning even though it starts with the most recent post. I’m new to this blogging stuff. And we won’t talk about how you repeatedly said that you keep your posts to 1000 words and my last one was definitely over 8000! Aaahhhh!!!! I hope my paragraphs are short enough!! 😁
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8000!!!! Oh my goodness haha. I’ll definitely give some input!
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Lol. It was a long ride and I just felt like it needed to be told together. I considered (for a second) to break it up but it didn’t feel right. Hope it can keep your attention!
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Multiple….. That’s one word right? Lol because well I’m indecisive and that pretty much sums that up.
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I’ll accept “multiple!” You’re indecisive on favourite colour?
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Yup I really love blue but I’m pretty sure I love brown just as much but together they are pure bliss… But then there’s yellow And orange aaahh why must we pick just one?
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Oh my goodness you weren’t kidding. Haha a lot of people said brown was their favourite colour! And black. I’ve never heard anyone mention those colours until I wrote this post.
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Crazy isn’t it. Brown just doesn’t get the credit it deserves sadly 😦 lol
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It definitely doesn’t sit at the cool colour table.
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I bet its all Red’s fault too! Lol jk I don’t hold grudges
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Red.
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Correct!
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Also, you got me down pat, I do skim read all the time. But… I read your post on how this was all a test, and went back. Apparently I never even read this post, which means I must have been skimming through my reader before I had to do chores. Whoops!
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Haha it’s ok! As long as you understand the main point of my posts, I’m satisfied.
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Consider them understood, Captain!
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Green
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Red
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I am a speed reader but I read every word and that’s a talent even my roomies get shocked :p
I get your point I guess I started writing narratives when I started my blog few months back but people like to read my poems ,lol words are less in them n I hate it 😦
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Write some narratives then! Your poems are great but don’t worry about what people want to read. Write whatever you want! People will read it.
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Yeah you’re right!
Will work in that 🙂
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Purple
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