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I work in communications. That means, I’m in the business of concision. Over the years I’ve condensed countless reports into social media snippets, research papers into key messages, and complex issues into opinion pieces. Such repackaging is often necessary to reach a broader audience.
But even simplification has its limits.
Chatting with a graphic designer recently, I mentioned a fun idea I’d heard for a five-minute animated video to play in schools. She could barely disguise her horror. “Students today could never pay attention for five minutes,” she said. “Maybe a minute, probably less.” The worst part was, I knew she was right.