We live, work and play in a world that seems to be perpetually stuck in fast-forward. Our cars are fast, our food is faster and any task that can’t be simplified to a few minutes is rated in terms of its validity of even performing in the first place. If someone is ever to invent the ability to buy or sell time, they’re going to be an overnight success because of those scrambling to buy more time and those looking to make a few bucks selling theirs off.
So it is not without a liberal dash of irony that I delve into today’s topic: the inefficiency of words. Truth be told, it’s been playing on my mind for some time now, but this post on the PopSci front page was enough to push me into wordy action. The article is about an LED lamp that can be configured to convey meaningful online information by way of various visualisations.
As the world seems to be evolving beyond the printed medium (except for somewhat paradoxical books), particularly as it relates to newspaper and magazines, it’s not only traditional media that’s changing, but also the way in which information is conveyed. While a magazine page seeks to strike a balance between text, images and negative space, digitally conveyed information has a dynamism that a static page cannot compete with.
Image slideshows can showcase a series of pictures, embedded videos convey information in exciting ways and even basic (and contextually acceptable) font controls allow you to make tacky jokes keep digitally presented text interesting. All of these factors are a sign that we are looking into more efficient ways to consume information, and written words are starting to look a wee bit archaic.
If a single picture can tell a thousand words, then how much more information can a series of pictures or a dynamic image (such as video) convey? I’m not suggesting that all text be obliterated and we move away from it entirely (after all, this writer has got to eat somehow), but I think that we’re entering an age where static text is going to be taking even more of a backseat to an emphasis on alternate ways to convey information.
As a writer, it’s all a bit daunting at this stage, but I am all for greater efficiencies and the evolution of communication.
What say you all?
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I am a web and multimedia designer and so many of my clients send me through web concepts with TOO MUCH useless interactivity, just for the sake of it being “cool”. These sort of tacky add ons are detrimental to the overall usability and interest of the media they are presenting. Often I need to tell my clients to dial down the flashy useless images and animations, and add some decent text content to the website. Sure, as a multimedia designer I’m all for new ways of presenting information in a cool way, but there are definitely times where a picture is NOT >= a thousand words.
Kinda seems more like regression than evolution to me! We evolved the use of words in language to give us greater freedom of expression; so I can’t really see how we could convey our stories more efficiently without writing them. I think people still enjoy the process of reading and writing articles or stories or blogs too much to give it up… how will people post their Facebook status updates? Unless…
Unless the written language evolves into something like Kanji, where each character represents a concept, rather than just a word. That would be evolution.