Social Question

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Let's be honest now, when someone posts a link that is several pages of text do you read it?

Asked by SQUEEKY2 (23110points) December 9th, 2019

Being as interesting as watching paint dry, do you dutifully read the whole thing, or just skim it and try to cherry pick the highs and lows?

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25 Answers

ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

Depends on how wrapped up in the subject I am. Generally walls of text seldom get read.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Thank you for being honest.^

Demosthenes's avatar

It depends on the subject. I’ve had people link interesting articles that I read in their entirety and ended up looking more into the subject afterward. But that’s because I was already interested in it. If someone is in a debate and their “argument” is to let a multi-page wall-of-text speak for them, I’m probably going to disengage at that point.

lucillelucillelucille's avatar

It depends on the subject.

Dutchess_III's avatar

I sped red.

SQUEEKY2's avatar

Meaning you skimmed it for the high and lows?^

KNOWITALL's avatar

Depends on the subject matter and my interest level. I have no problem reading walls of text if they are pertinent, and I appreciate people posting here so we don’t have to look up link after link, it’s thoughtful.

And I have far more respect for people who post links, too.

Zaku's avatar

Depends on the subject, and what’s at the link.

I skip a LOT of questions for lack of interest. And being asked to follow links with no synopsis tends to have me skip questions.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Means I skim looking for important key words @SQUEEKY2. That’s what they taught us at Evelyn Woodhead’s sped redding class.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@Dutchess_III Darlin, I can ignore it once, but not twice. Sped redding?!
Pshewwww, my ocd feels so much better now. :)

KNOWITALL's avatar

@Dutchess_III Oh sorry, a joke, got it!

Dutchess_III's avatar

I am so narcissistic I thought everyone knew Cheech and Chong! Sorry for being obscure there.

ucme's avatar

I’m always honest!
If It’s something that grabs my attention & resonably coherent, then I’ve no issue with reading it.
If however they just meander on for the sake of it, my eyes glaze over & I fall asleep.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@Dutchess_III Back in my younger years we watched them all, but surprisingly I don’t remember much of them lol. Isn’t that how it works?

ragingloli's avatar

Depends on the credibility of the source.
For example, if someone posts a link to AnswersInGenesis trying to debunk evolution, I will not even click on the link.
It also depends on how much I care. Which is usually not a lot.

Dutchess_III's avatar

That’s a very good point too @ragingloli.

ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

There is the “post a link to evidence” thing people do here a lot. It takes little to no effort to do that yet the poster will want you to read page after page of writing that somehow justifies their position on some issue. They do that knowing you won’t have time or energy to read it and you will probably just shut up. It especially irks me when the link is to someones synopsis of a “study” which more often than not is a biased or misleading summary. Also if it’s a link to a statistics based on a limited and unscientific survey.

rebbel's avatar

No, can’t be bothered.
But of course, as more people have stated, it depends on my interest in the subject.
So, nine out of ten times that’s a no.
Not going to pretend either.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@ARE_you_kidding_me We never did come up with a list of approved sources though, that everyone can agree is ‘acceptable’. I find that to be a bit nitpicky, personally. I try to use NPR and other sites, but it gets rather tedious and as you see here, most people blow it off anyway.

Dutchess_III's avatar

No one with any common sense would blow off NPR.

SergeantQueen's avatar

If I’m the poster of the question yes, I click. If it is an insanely long link I’ll skim but it if’s short I’ll read. I try to find shorter links myself or I pull a direct quote/ summary and post that along with the link so the link doesn’t have to be clicked on

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