Where do you stand, dear reader, on blog post length? I won’t tell you how many online column inches have ben devoted to this. The consensus is that it doesn’t matter, it depends. One thing they all seem to agree on, however, is that longer posts get linked to more often.

The conclusion they draw is that longer posts are therefore better. I take issue with this and offer a different explanation. The reason is tl;dr syndrome. Too long; didn’t read. People are busy, too busy to read long posts, so they just scan them.

This is how it goes: “Boy this is a long post. It’s good though, at least what I’ve read of it sounds good, but I can’t read any more, so I’d better share it anyway.”

So you get this kind of social media message: “Very interesting, important article on blah blah blah, worth a read.” Does this create a kind of social media maelstrom of mediocrity?

Better to create a blog post that people have time to get through properly, no?