"Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?"

Not much, what is going on with you?

Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?

I can read

I KNOW THIS ONE AND THE ANSWER IS : IT"S MICROSOFT'S FAULT.

Back in the day when Email first became popular, it was normal and accepted use to do "in-line-quoting". You would hit "reply" and get the text of the original mail with a quote character, mostly ">" in the begining of the line. Then you would put some empty lines at the point where you wanted to answer/comment and type your reply in the middle of the email you received, easily giving context to your words, and making it obvious to what this comment relates, while also showing which part was by the sender and which by you (due to the quotation symbols)

This was a very good system, and then came MICROSOFT OUTLOOK

and they defaulted to giving you a empty page when clicking reply and just dumping the whole mail you replied to somewhere below, out of sight.

everyone using Outlook started "top-posting" to the annoyance of every intelligent being in the galaxy, but because Outlook was the first email experience many people had, the culture of in-line-quoting was destroyed by the unwashed microsoft masses.

fast-forward to today, where a young person (that is below 50) posts about a topic just to vent, and a old person (over 9000) replies with a sincere history lessen from a time where even email were better.

yours truely,

someone who is still salty about that and just decided to make a youtube rant about it.

Been doing email since it began. Same frustrations.

Solutions (workarounds):

1. Email is structured with "executive summary" & "detail". That way I can write all the words I want but people can only read the first paragraph.
2. Never ask questions. Tell them what I'm going to choose, & give them opportunity to disagree. That way if they don't respond usefully I can take their "non-response" as a response & proceed anyway.
3. If I need to ask a question, use a phone call or go to their desk, or (shudder) make a meeting.

I usually number my questions, makes it more obvious

No.

I started listing the questions as 1. 2. 3. And so on. Which helped a lot.

For me it's not intentional. I get fixated on one of the questions that require more mental energy than the others and then forget to answer the rest. I have no excuses. My bad.

Poor reading comprehension skills are more prevalent than we think

Because people choose the easiest question to answer. You can't change people, but you can change how you communicate.

People are lazy, they get so many emails each day, they couldn’t be bothered reading messages properly. I have turned into a cynical annoying person and write emails with large clear action points like this:

Hi, I have some comments and questions.

Please answer 2 (two) questions so that I can proceed with my part of this work. Without an answer to both, no more work will be done and the project will be on hold.

Consequatur doloribus eaque ut quia veniam est ut. Vitae assumenda sed quisquam omnis dolores nesciunt fuga. Autem non sint minus sed quia. Aspernatur tenetur quis nostrum repellendus nostrum est qui. Sint aliquid est distinctio laudantium.

1. Yes or no- Does this mean that the flibbertygibbet must be completed first?

Reiciendis quia qui quia quo hic commodi molestiae vel. Ipsam ut quia et voluptates quaerat voluptatibus neque recusandae. Et fuga necessitatibus rerum debitis. Repellat facilis possimus ab sed eos doloremque. Ut rerum aut corporis. Cum voluptatem praesentium error.

2. You need to provide further information on the doohickey because there is not enough detail for me to be able to goober the whatchamacallit

And then keep forwarding the original email every day until I get the required information. When the boss asks why no progress has been made, I can show him the email trail asking for information.

Cover your ass, keep asking the same questions until you get an answer.

try numbering them

Reading comprehension has gone down the tubes. I dunno if it's from people watching too many TikToks and their attention span can't handle reading more than one sentence anymore, or what, but I have definitely noticed a change in people's ability to read and understand the content of what they just read.

Where I work, my old boss never wrote anything down, did not like to communicate via email, and insisted on phone calls/verbal meetings instead. When they announced they were taking a new job, we begged them to create an SOP of all the things they did with detailed instructions because NONE of it had ever been written down. We were told no, they couldn't do that. No explanation other than "I can't." And I'm convinced that they simply couldn't read, or could BARELY read.

So I created the SOP instead, detailed as hell, everything in one place. Sections, subsections, hyperlinks, it's all there. 2 new employees come into the office, I'm supposed to train them. I do, and I show them the SOP, tell them "everything you need to know is in this SOP", so that AFTER I train them, they can reference it.

They never reference it, ever. They ask me how to do the things they've forgotten instead. I just point them to the correct section in the SOP and tell them to read it. BUT THEY DON'T READ. It's insane! How do they get by in life in general!?

How are the questions formatted?

People are lazy and stupid, you can ask one question at a time or better yet setup a meeting to ask them verbally, you aren't getting any answers otherwise

Human communication isn't perfect. Some people have too many emails. Others need cues only audio visual interaction can provide to quickly parse info.

Use numbering, paragraphs etc.

Its their responsibility to read shit but its yours to be clear and concise.

I will put 3 simple 1 sentence questions in a numbered list and get a single answer back.

Idgaf any more I just copy/paste the same 3 questions and send it back.

Ah, one of my top complaints about digital communication. Doesn’t matter if it’s SMS or email, someone plainly doesn’t read the entirety of what you wrote even if it’s relatively short. Irritatingly sometimes taking another two follow-ups regarding the exact same subject or question ending up with both parties likely getting frustrated.

You can mitigate most of it by having extremely clear emails that are fast to read, with clearly numbered questions.

For me? Usually it’s because answering the first question on the list took a lot of time, research, or mental energy and I had forgotten there were other questions by the time I finally had the answer written down. Sense of accomplishment, hit send.

Yes

People are kind of stupid and lazy, and if there's no immediate benefit for doing something or punishment for skipping it, they'll do whatever's easiest. We're all like this to some degree, in some contexts or other.

It is a little funny to me that some people just don't have professional standards. I would make a good faith effort to respond completely to a work email because that's the job. But I don't think that's it for a lot of people.

There's a lot of ADHD and friends in the world, and a lot of it is untreated. They're not skipping questions out of malice. They're probably trying their best. Still failing, but trying. That counts for something.

A lot of people also don't read well. They won't likely show up on a texty medium like this, but they're out there. It may be uncomfortable and embarrassing for them to try to read your email, especially if the level of diction is high and the vocabulary extensive. Most people are emotionally kind of fragile, and won't put up with that shame for very long. I think that's why a lot of people want to hop on a call or have a meeting when it could've just been an email. They can talk fine, but communicating in written words is harder.

It annoys the heck out of me too. Generally what I do is reply with the remaining questions they haven't answered; sometimes they get the message and answer all of them, sometimes we go round and round until I have all the answers I need.

I work in IT so for the most part, if I have 5 questions, that's because there are 5 things I need to know. And I need to know because they want me to solve their problem, so if they want to do this one question at a time that's fine, but if I start out going one at a time I get complained at for being too slow.

I've also tried everything I can think of short of being explicitly rude in my messages. Numbering them doesn't work. Bullet-points don't work. One question per paragraph doesn't work. Asking them explicitly to answer all questions doesn't work (how did these people ever pass an exam?).

(And yes I'm aware I haven't answered all your questions (-: )

Bad reading comprehension

The human brain processes information by chunking - bundling up information into chunks to remember it. It's like a .zip file or compression on an image. That process is a bit lossy. If you've ever tried to write a technical document or a rules-set for a game, and had a user go through the document undirected, you'll see it in action.

The more complicated, technical, or tedious the instructions are, the more likely loss or misinterpretation will occur. A friend of mine says that writing a technical document is like programming a computer that skips every 7th line.

As a person who has written many of these, I've found ways to counteract / ameliorate their problems:

• the use of paragraphing important points that you want feedback on
• When sending to multiple people, but wanting feedback from a specific person, I bold, underline, and color their name next to their action item, so they know it's for them
• Using checklists or bullet points
• explaining things through multiple avenues, like with visual images and with text simultaneously

I hope this helps!

It's a mixture of stupidity and laziness.

I recently emailed my professor about a question on a take home test. I asked for clarification because the wording was weird. I also asked how I should format the answer, and where in the textbook I can find info relating to it. His email back to me just said "the answer is on page 75". It was not.

I have the same question, as I will receive replies through text messages that are like this:

Me: hey! Are we still meeting today? Where would be good for you? I'm open from 10am until 6pm so just let me know when works best.

Them: I can still meet today

I get responses like this all the time, and I don't feel like my initial text is too much.

Yes they are that lazy. The average office worker also has the attention span of a gnat. Write shorter emails with fewer questions if you can.

If you've got questions, put them in bullet points.

I'm not scanning a wall of text to find everything.

There's a whole academic study and degree for technical documentation. I wish more people knew how to write things.

The problem is partially you. You want to write an email that can be skimmed by someone who only reads 10% of it and they'll quickly be able to understand you and reply to you

The person on the other end is probably an overworked wage slave. You can't expect them to read every email cover to cover.

I don't need to answer all questions that every human shoves at me. Seems like a polarizing take from the comments. I receive questions to my department that are intended for eight other departments to answer. I don't portray myself as the encyclopedia for anyone who has my email inbox.

If you ask 10 questions and I know the answer to two of them, I’m going to answer the two and respond expecting someone else to answer the other questions.

If they are all directed at me and I’m the only person in the TO, then I’ll answer what I can. The times I don’t answer is because I either don’t have an answer or don’t want to answer it right now.

Instead of immediately blaming the other person, reflect upon your words. If someone sent you the same message with different but similar questions, how would you respond? Were the questions clear and concise with reasonable answers or do they need discussion? If yes/no is asked, is the question really a yes or no question?

Remember, as busy as you are, the other person may be busier or dealing with emergencies and they are at least attempting to respond rather than just no response at all.

Yep that's fine push to production by Friday plz.

I've been reading the responses and it reminded me of the class I took called Business Communications, where they emphasized that CYA style communication was absolute nonsense, your responsibility when communicating is to convey information in a way that can be received, and if that doesn't happen it's your fault, not the recipient's, you can't control them only you.

So if this is just one person who misses all the questions, sure, it's them, but you still need to figure out how to get your answers. If it's everyone, it's you. Maybe these questions aren't amenable to email, maybe it's your format, if you want answers (and not just to prove you asked in some sort of gotcha game) you need to ask the people who aren't answering why they aren't.

Everywhere I've worked, people answer these by choosing a different font color and writing answers back in the email, but there are not a lot of questions by email. Maybe a note to "provide answers in BLUE" with the word blue in blue font would help?

Why are you sending an email with multiple questions? If you have more than one question, it merits a phone call. Nobody has the time to answer all of your questions via email all day every day.

I personally receive over 200 business emails a day. Can you imagine what it would be like to answer multiple questions from each one?

If you have more than 1 question, call. Don't wanna call? Then it's not that important.

I haven't done it very often, but the few times I haven't answered all off the questions in an email has been because some of the questions are a waste of time. I had an engineer recently ask me if I could move the location of where I was running a pipe through a floor grating. Changing the location would have changed nothing, made my job more difficult, and would have been a tripping hazard. All off this could have been avoided if they had gotten or from behind their desk and just gone and looked at what I was working on in person. I ignored their question and sent more pictures of the area. They finally said that I was good to proceed with my original plan.

Even when we converse, we get across just one point at a time. You have to respect other people's time and bandwidth (Okay, one or two points).

Sometimes I'm busy man and trying to get something done

I run into this when texting my mother.

She'll ask the same thing from 2 different perspectives (probably a better word but I can't think of it atm). Both are technically the same question, but I can't just say "yes" it "no", because it answers the question from just one or the other, but indicates the opposite from the other question's pov. Or sometimes needing to know between 2 possibilities she asks about one and then follows it up asking about the other.

For example, if we've recently met up to see my baby niblings (not even sure if this is a common use word, but I mean my nieces/nephews, aka her grandchildren), she could ask "Could you send me the photos you got in a text?" And then she would follow up with something like "Or did you already send them to my email?"

Now, I can't say "yes" or "no", I have to spell out what I did.

Other times it will be a question that she knows I picked one of the 2 options, but instead of just "did you do option A? Which would allow a quick answer "yes" which conveys that I did A, or I could say "no", which would indicate I did option B. One word, clear defined message. But she'll (sometimes during the process of replying- oof that's frustrating), she'll add "or did you do option B?" meaning I now have to spell out what I did.

I like efficient communication, and hate wasting a lot of words. And I'm any other circumstance, a 1 word answer works so well to convey the entire thing. But she almost always throws in a wrench by adding another question that conflicts with the ability to do that.

Hi based on you current post,

Why do people insist on answering only one question?

**Do people just not read? ** I would say most people have a lot to read, especially emails, I get dozens of them daily, archive a few thousands yearly. So I will gloss over, see if it's addressed to me, of not I will probably wait until it becomes my problem to react/reply

Are people thatLazy? No people are busy, is this the same question as the first, out a request for alternatives causes to not reading?

What is going on? This question is vague, I see no point in replying, except maybe an opportunity to troll, or belittle you in this email that had now accumulated 30 people over 7 departments, and possibly one or two customer that were involved a week ago when the thread was about something entirely different.

In short, be specific, and format your message for readability. ;

Name whoever you expect to reply. Split your questions.
Make sure they're actual questions you need definitive answers to.

I make a point to ask one question.

First I ask it as the first line.

Then I elaborate on the question, what I mean, and why I'm asking in the body of the email.

Then the last a paragraph is restating the question in a different wording.

If you want to communicate clearly, then put effort into avoiding all ambiguity. If you have many questions, write many emails.

ADHD

I'm not sure. Maybe. Sometimes. I don't know.

I can only tell you that my best results have come from replying with a neutral "Thank you", then repeating the questions. I prefer it when they answer all my questions, but ultimately, if I want answers, I need to persist, and so I do.

Yes.

Considering your wording in the last paragraph, I'm going to guess that your writing style is frequently overwhelming. Making sure that questions are clearly isolated (I'd suggest using numeric lists or bullet points) makes it clear what response you're expecting.

Additionally, if you're asking several difficult questions, it's likely that people will lose the thread partway through.

Few people can focus enough to read.

I work in a technical field. In the past few years I’ve learned that interacting by email usually requires one-line sentences or bullet points, with any questions being numbered. No fluff, no secondary thoughts or possibilities. Keep it as minimal as possible.

It still fails to elicit a coherent response about half the time, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.

It didn’t use to be like this. But what’s to blame; screen addiction, microplastics, covid, increased stress, … ?

People read the subject line, assuming it's not longer than about seven words, and then the first 30%, and last 15% of your email, in my experience. You can increase this by adding line breaks and bullets. In my experience, the best responses come from a short paragraph, followed by a couple bullet points, then a couple sentences, then your salutation/signature. I try not to write anything longer than that.

Cause frankly, your email is the 235th most important thing on my desk today.

My colleagues complain of the same things, saying they've tried everything. But I never have that issue.

Here's an example of what they might send: Hello Bob, we have just recieved all your documents, so thank you. But upon review, we have found that we are still missing x,y,z. In order to expedite the process we ask for your cooperation.

1. At your earliest convenience, can you please send not more than twelve months of documents x and how they pertain to y?
2. Can you clarify why z contains a substantial difference from the previous times it occurred in September 2020, October 2020? Don't hesitate to contact us with any further questions!

Here's what I would say instead: Hi Bob, to finish the file we require:

1. A max 12 months of documents x (showing y)
2. Why is z now so different from 2020 Sept, Oct? Thanks in advance.

Step 1. Stop emailing my boss.

Step 2. Recognize that if you're thorough and verbose, people's eyes will glaze over and they won't actually read what you send. Conversely, if you're concise and direct, people will complain that you're aloof and not sharing information.

Step 3. Resign yourself to things only getting worse as you get older.

The person that inspired this message will never change. You have to treat them as if you were a lawyer, and they are a hostile witness. Ask them one question, then follow up with another, until you have your answers. Problem is, they will probably catch on pretty quick and leave you unanswered.

My rule is more than 2 questions and it's a phone call.

In email, I always make my questions the last thing right before my signature as a call to action. I think many people skip reading the entire email, but may read the line above the signature if they see a question mark. You always want the last thing they read to be the idea they have to act on THIS part.

• Phrase your questions unambiguously
• Bonus points for phrasing them with a binary response: "Do you want A or B?" or "Do you approve that we can move forward with the plan as stated here?"
• Only ask the questions you REALLY need an answer to. Every next question risks losing a answer you really need.
• Make self liquidating statements instead of questions "If you want a different path let me know. Unless I from you by the next Tuesday, I'm moving forward with what I described in this email"

If you write open ended or ambiguous questions you risk your audience having to take time to think about a response and they get distracted. Risky questions in this area are: "So what do you want to do here?" or "What do you think?"

Sounds like your emails are too long. Trim it to the minimum amount of words to get your point across and be professional, and put all questions in a numbered list.

In the US it's probably because literacy and reading comprehension is the lowest it's been since the 80s.

You are wrong. People do not insist. People are free to do.

For example, if I know the answer to question #2 then I can give this answer and why shouldn't I?

And I feel free to remain silent where I don't know things, or to forget that there have been more questions, or I don't have the time, or whatever...

As others have suggested, in order to communicate effectively, you have to tailor your message to your audience. Dumb it down, break it down, shorten it, order questions from most to least important or most to least relevant to the recipient, or just badger them relentlessly with follow ups until you have the information you need and talk shit about them behind their back to any competent coworkers you have.

Regardless, they're not going to just magically change, so it's up to you to do something different if you want a different result than you're getting now.

People can’t be bothered to read or do shit because their comprehension is trash. This happens constantly. I taught college courses for years and it was pulling fucking teeth to get people to answer essay prompts. For example:

In One Hundred Years of Solitude we see generational cycles of behavior blah blah blah, which characters fit this pattern, which characters do not, and why?

95% of answers: only characters that fit the pattern. They read the first few words and ignored everything else, and then have the audacity to complain that I said they only answered half the question.

Conciseness and directness help.

As an example, there was someone I worked with that tended to ask around a question.

"What do you know about x? What do you know about y? What do you know about z?"

Instead of "How do I get from x to z?"

I think they just want to understand the underlying process. And I can understand that. But I wasn't their mentor and it was at times frustrating.

Not suggesting OP is doing this. Just a general thought I had in regards to the question.

Mainly I’m asking all of you why do people insist on only answering 1 question out of an e-mail where there are multiple?

They are either distracted or don't understand that there are multiple questions. In a few cases they don't want or know how to respond to multiple questions in an email format because they are afraid of changing your text formatting (yes, at least three people have told me that was why they didn't).

Do people just not read?

Quite a few have terrible reading comprehension.

Are people that lazy?

Some are.

What is going on?

It is a mix of a lot of things, all of which are different versions of poor communication skills.

Put the questions in bullet points so they're easily visible. If it's part of a paragraph, it's getting lost.

Learn to ask better questions. Understand that you may only get one answer and ask the best most important question in a clear and concise way.

May I ask, regarding your typing are your questions buried in text?

If the questions are buried in text similar to your last paragraph, your not getting all those questions answered.

Yeah this drives me crazy. It's to the point where I have to drip feed my questions one after the other sometimes. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

• a single answer fits all the questions asked
• answering one question will make the others irrelevant.
• didn't realize there are multiple questions (usually down to formatting, or skimming a block of text)
• the person's just in a hurry, at least answering one is better than ignoring entirely

I tend to answer them all, but I’m weird that way

The question they are answering is the first one they read.

(/s)

They don't want to. Lazy, careless? Who knows. They zero in on one thing, type the one word answer and hit send.

Like others say, I bullet point multiple questions (usually with just a - , I'm not using a word processor to write emails) and if they don't answer some I'll quote the whole bullet list including whatever they answered and paste it back.

I'm a little blunt though and it puts some people off.

A lot of it is laziness but on the other hand my boss will often cc me on irrelevant emails, rather infamously sometimes forward an entire 20 responses email chain and tell you to read it, and send 8 paragraphs of questions with only one related to me. Frankly, it is overwhelming and a waste of time. I've started not responding and my productivity and mental health have improved.

Emails and texts need to be succinct. The higher up the chain you go the more true this is. The higher up the chain the more emails you get think 200+. If someone writes a paragraph you're skimming for relevance generally.

Tldr; professional communication does not need length. Justify your questions separately from actual bulleted or numbered questions.

Use bullet points as it helps. A lot of people suck at reading and a lot aren't great at writing. Some peoples' styles are also just not very compatible.

I had a trouble with this a lot when I was younger and got told:

• short sentences
• bullet points
• if all else fails multiple emails with a single question because apparently I have all the time in the world.

LOL, literally happened to me this morning, except my tormentor said "nope."

I'll harass him about it next week

People hate to read. I write emails that try to cover all bases, because I can't assume grown adults with advanced degrees know what's going on. Sadly, they'll not only not read it, but ask me to write less. Cutting the word count only leads to more confusion.

I'm so done with humanity sometimes.

I number my questions. Helps for visual organization.

I skip questions I don't want to answer.

It's funny that some replies are saying your post itself is too wordy or long. People just can't focus on anything anymore. As for the suggestion of bullet points, I've had people reply a single answer to an email that just had three short bullet points. So no, it's not always because the questions are buried in text, it's because people react to the first thing they see and don't finish reading.