What does that mean?!? I seem to be asking this question more and more often these days. Perhaps this is connected to the fact that I seem to keep adding years to my chronological age, which means I’m becoming disconnected from the jargon and lingo younger generations are using. Regardless of the why I must research meanings, the reality is that it is indeed necessary these days and coming across the letters TL; DR in a recent communication from my Canadian friends at the Aspen Network was no exception. Are you ready for the answer? Too Long; Didn’t Read.

In the monthly prayer newsletter email, Kelly instructs readers to click below for the full newsletter, “But if you’re in a hurry, we have a special tl;dr section below the button. What is ‘tl;dr’? To put it simply, it means ‘too long; didn’t read.’ So, if the Full Prayer Newsletter is too long and you didn’t read it, you can still pray through the tl;dr below.” And he goes on to give us three bullet point summaries for our prayer lists. Thank you, Kelly, for being a multi-generational, multi-reading level pastor!

After a brief LOL-moment (laugh out loud), or better yet, a chuckle, I started considering the reality of our attention spans today, because it is a topic that arises often in the areas of neuroscience, generational research, education, and marketing. Many, many years ago when learning the basics of composing a press release for media distribution, I was taught to use the inverted pyramid method. Casal shares this description: “The inverted pyramid is a method of structuring a press release that puts the most important information first. While most writers are familiar with the standard intro, body, and conclusion, the inverted pyramid is the opposite. Start with who, what, where, why, and when. Then follow it up with supporting and background information.” This structure was followed so that if there was not adequate space to include the entire release in print, editors would begin cutting from the bottom. A basic TL;DR approach. Even press releases, like game summaries, are now moving to only including bullet points, no paragraphs to read.

This need to catch a person’s attention quickly is obviously nothing new—placing items on an endcap in a retail store, opening an educational lesson with a hook-and-bridge, or piquing someone’s interest within the first five lines of a blog post—all of these are effective strategies to gain attention in a world that is full of distractions. In examining the writing styles of colleagues who are fellow bloggers, I wondered about their chosen length: Lee Bensen and Wayne Jacobs fell into the short category and Beth Madison into the long category, I found myself somewhere in between. We each have a style that suits our purposes and writing styles; however, I continue to wonder if there is a best length for content these days. I’d prefer not to receive the news that someone TL;DRed a post; but the reality is that our in-boxes are full of important content to read, and there are Too Many Choices that make selection for our attention difficult.

After hearing a presentation on how student-athletes can market themselves at the 2022 Gulf South Conference SAAC Summit, I really noticed how often I bailed on reading a text, email, or website when I had to scroll the page more than three times on my smartphone to continue reading. I found this to be especially true on emails if I had to first scroll through the numerous names and email addresses of everyone receiving the message. So, if I myself, am experiencing this dilemma to say TL;DR, how often does this occur when my students are reading over the instructions for an assignment or listening to a lecture? At what point are they TL;DRing me? I will not dare touch how often this happens in a verbal conversation where the listener tunes out.

So, I’ll conduct a very rigorous and academic poll here: At what point do you say TL;DR? In communication, a book, a blog post? At what length do you bail and move on to something new? Number of times you scroll? Word count? Please consider sharing your answers in the comments below.

References:

Casal, A. (2018, August 29). Structure a great press release with the inverted pyramid. Newswire. Retrieved from https://www.newswire.com/blog/inverted-pyramid-is-the-key-to-a-great-press-release

Reid, K. (2024, January 11). 10,000 strong—a new chapter for prayer! [Email communication]. The Aspen Network.