This article is so long-winded and repeating the same things 5 times that I found it incredibly irritating to read. I stopped after about 70%. I'm surprised it survived the cutting floor in this form. The content itself is not so bad.
I felt the same way. Here's the paragraph that I found most useful:
After watching kids play with more than 100 different types of toy, the researchers concluded that simple, open-ended, non-realistic toys with multiple parts, like a random assortment of Lego, inspired the highest-quality play. While engaged with such toys, children were “more likely to be creative, engage in problem solving, interact with their peers, and use language,” the researchers wrote. Electronic toys, however, tended to limit kids’ play: “A simple wooden cash register in our study inspired children to engage in lots of conversations related to buying and selling – but a plastic cash register that produced sounds when buttons were pushed mostly inspired children to just push the buttons repeatedly.”
In that sense I think there's a strong parallel with household computing: a PC in the 80s was far closer to the wooden cash register than a tablet/phone of the 20s. (which mostly inspire adults to just scroll down repeatedly?)
I don't have a problem with a long read. I have a problem with a text whose content is stretched thin to such a degree that 65%+ of it can be removed without losing a single bit of information.
In my opinion this text does not respect the reader. It seems more like mental masturbation for the author while trickle feeding the reader with the information they are looking for.
Comments
This article is so long-winded and repeating the same things 5 times that I found it incredibly irritating to read. I stopped after about 70%. I'm surprised it survived the cutting floor in this form. The content itself is not so bad.
I felt the same way. Here's the paragraph that I found most useful:
After watching kids play with more than 100 different types of toy, the researchers concluded that simple, open-ended, non-realistic toys with multiple parts, like a random assortment of Lego, inspired the highest-quality play. While engaged with such toys, children were “more likely to be creative, engage in problem solving, interact with their peers, and use language,” the researchers wrote. Electronic toys, however, tended to limit kids’ play: “A simple wooden cash register in our study inspired children to engage in lots of conversations related to buying and selling – but a plastic cash register that produced sounds when buttons were pushed mostly inspired children to just push the buttons repeatedly.”
In that sense I think there's a strong parallel with household computing: a PC in the 80s was far closer to the wooden cash register than a tablet/phone of the 20s. (which mostly inspire adults to just scroll down repeatedly?)
Above the title it says "long read". You were warned!
I don't have a problem with a long read. I have a problem with a text whose content is stretched thin to such a degree that 65%+ of it can be removed without losing a single bit of information.
In my opinion this text does not respect the reader. It seems more like mental masturbation for the author while trickle feeding the reader with the information they are looking for.
Fully agree - it was infuriating to read. It kept setting up some idea then jumping to a different topic.