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

I can read

Yes.

It's not that they "insist" on not answering, they just have limited reading comprehension and/or attention span. With experience you learn to ask exactly one question in an email, and maybe you'll get an answer some of the time, and if you're lucky it will be coherent.

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.

I started listing the questions as

1. 2. 3. And so on. Which helped a lot.

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.

Poor reading comprehension skills are more prevalent than we think

You can get mad at everyone else or you can start playing to the lowest common denominator.

1. Question 1
2. Question 2
3. Question 3

How are the questions formatted?

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.

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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.

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.

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!?

try numbering them

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, … ?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Yes

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!

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.