Most blog posts today have the form of lists. Like “3 things you never wanted to know!”, “3 ways to escape list hell”. You know why? Because it is scientifically proven that such posts are opened much more often.
List hell!
Here is why lists are evil:
1. They are a form of surrender
Here’s what I mean: I have tried to read a novel from Victorian times. Hard. I learned: my attention span does not cover an average Victorian sentence (which is roughly comparable to a current paragraph). But do we have to make things even shorter, be even more blunt and upfront? Isn’t it crazy that in blogging we optimize our sentences for machine readability to get high SEO (search engine optimization) scores and hence visibility?
2. They tend to oversimply things
I know: in times of information overload we all crave for simple truths more than ever. But some truths are just not simple. Some things can not be pigeonholed. That’s why I don’t promise you simple truths in this blog. This is why I have practiced some martial arts movements for years.
I don’t want to stop challenging you. my readers, with complex concepts and ideas. And, knowing me, I won’t!
3. They make me choose between a rock and a hard place
In view of the things above it seems I have to choose between loosing my readers or writing awful shopping list like posts. I hate list hell for that reason too!
I have yet to figure out a solution for this problem. Maybe I just convince all of you that we don’t want to end up in list hell. Until then I will just alternate between doing what is good and doing what works. And this post helps already…
PS: Am I the only one that thinks this way?
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