Reading was fundamental

While it may be true that reading isn't outright dead, it sure feels like it's gut-shot and bleeding out behind a dumpster.

I’m a lifelong reader. Reading has informed everything I think, know, and love. So it tosses a big, fat log on my burnout bonfire to see it reduced to low-fat milk status: we don’t read—we skim.

Since UIs are made up of symbols (just like writing), we’ve created a new kind of hieroglyphics for our 21st-century digital world. Most of these symbols have been hardened by common use, but we’re still inventing new ones as we go. Because this new language prioritizes speed over depth, we run into problems trying to pack more and more meaning onto a handful of signifiers.

It’s like trying to perform Shakespeare with a See ‘N Say. Rotsa ruck.

Hey, early web designers—remember greeking? Remember when it became all the rage to use custom 'ipsum'? Most of those references were rooted in actual literacy. You had to have read books to get the jokes. (So yeah, probably the last gasp of some web Boomer before burnout got them, too.)

Now? We don’t even bother with fake words. There’s no time to skim gibberish anymore. RIP, lorem ipsum. You died as you lived: filler.

Reading shaped my brain. It expanded my consciousness. Let me travel vast, fantastic dreamscapes. Remember the phrase “leaving something to the imagination”? Of course you don’t. That quaint concept was beaten to death even before they brought out the heavy artillery and went full Time Crisis on literacy.

Yet another reason for me to say ciao to UX.

I got into this field back when literature was still a thing—when you could rely on a shared cultural literacy: Walker, Wallace, Morrison, DeLillo, and Pynchon… not to mention Vonnegut, Oates, Hemingway, Twain, and Stein! Sheesh.

No, I’m hopping off this train at the slow bend, just before we arrive in Emojitown.
That ain't where I wanna go.

Yours in rankled resignation,
the letter R.

If you got that See 'N Say reference: OK, Boomer. I see you. And yes, I followed it up with everyone’s favorite cartoon Great Dane. So Scooby-Sue me.