How come, that while the internet is full of pictures and videos of cats, most of what I deliberately consume is pure text? And it’s not just me, either. Both LessWrong and HackerNews are examples of full-fledged subcultures like that. Even parts of Reddit are like that. Why? Here’s some thoughts.

  • We value text: while most of the internet prefers pictures and videos for entertainment, we prefer to have information as text. Why? because while pictures/videos are certainly helpful, they rarely can describe the full picture with the necessary nuance.

More Examples

  • Books !!!
  • Scientific papers
  • Blogs
  • Newspapers, online or offline
    • sure, the hook is a big picture
  • every internet forum
  • Code
    • usually inverse problem: too few diagrams, if enough non-code text at all

Helpful

Nuance