Are blogs too long?
I’m learning a bit about format in these past three days of writing and posting things to this blog. I write the blog in Microsoft Word, so when I’m typing it up, it just looks like a word document. When I’m typing away, I’m aware that I shouldn’t write too much, that when people write too much, I tend to scroll and skim a while. If it’s too long, I’ll just exit out of it. This has to do with my ever-shortening attention span, but it I think it also has to do with the device we are using. A 700 word document, like my Day 3 – Whole 30 blog, doesn’t look long on a laptop screen, but on a phone? Scrolling and scrolling.
It’s an interesting thing to learn. If I pick up a book about grace, I’m expecting to settle in and play the long game of learning what the author has to say. But, if I click on a friend’s blog entry about grace, my brain is not ready to sit around and deeply process it…not if I’m on my phone, that is.
So, where is the balance? If one has a crush on words, one may tend to spill too many on any given page. But, then, this is not Twitter. No one expects a blogger to truncate every thought and avoid metaphors because they take up unnecessary space. I think I’ll try some different lengths in the coming days. It may be very hard to keep it short – but it will be good practice.
