Why can't people read properly?!

[FMyUterus]

Might be a tad unreasonable but why do people bother replying to threads if they haven't read the op properly?

Op hi I have issues with my xx but the yy is having a hard time getting any attention from us and it's my 48th birthday today and everyone has forgotten it even though I get presents for my families fish, I just don't know what to do about the custard curdling

Or some other stuff like that

Most posters

hi op I'd try this recipe

But other people are like

have you thought you might have asd? Hi op, I don't know how old you are ITS IN THE OP!!

Read it!! Or even worse is when the thread has moved on from custard recipes to maybe the op has realised that there are bigger issues and they need help with that and people are still commenting custard recipes!!

[Kazzyhoward]

Yep, not just on SM but in real life too. It does seem that huge numbers of people have poor comprehension skills, if not poor reading ability, and it does seem to be getting worse. Not sure if that's down to poor education or whether people are dumbing down due to the likes of Twitter etc requiring short comments.

At work, we're constantly "simplifying" our written communications - using shorter/simpler words, shorter sentences, more bullet points, etc., and still we get a lot of client who simply can't understand and seem to want us to spoon feed them in tiny bite size chunks, usually verbally.

Eg., a template email we have is "your VAT returns needs to be submitted by 7 December, please let us have your records by 20 November". Then they email or phone to ask us when we want their records? Eh?? How much clearer could it be?

We have one particular client who always insists on a meeting every year - he brings in the letters we've sent him and asks us to go through them, basically we have to tell him in person exactly the same information that we've put in the letters. He sits there, making notes of what we're telling him. And no, he's not illiterate, he just seems completely incapable of understanding what's written in front of him, i.e. very poor written comprehension.

[FinallyFluid]

I watched The Write Offs last night, not everyone can read fluently or for that matter transfer their thoughts to paper fluently.

[IrmaFayLear]

I agree that many posters just like the sound of their own voice, so don’t read any of the thread, and barely read the OP.

I must admit it has got worse lately. The coronavirus threads are populated by many who clearly are not going to read anything save the OP and just post a stream of consciousness all about their personal situation. The “who should be vaccinated first” thread frankly made me feel a bit sick at heart.

[CatMuffin]

I got one of those emails from Amazon yesterday, saying "'As an owner of this product, can you answer this customer's question?" It was a question about Christmas tree liģhts. The question was "How many lights are there?"
The name of the product was "150 LED Christmas tree lights"

[FMyUterus]

@CatMuffin hahahaha!!!

[BarefootbyMoonlight]

There is an alternative option that it’s a wind up. My DB, when asked to read anything out (ref/ph/acc/card nos) that might be part of id verification process, proceeds to do so so so painfully slowly that most cave at the fourth number and interrupt with ‘thats fine’.

Its a bloke thing in our family to ‘pretend to not understand until other person is wound up trying to explain’

And I suspect there’s a touch of regional pride to make things awkward for officials in ‘pay back’ for faceless officials making things awkward for them.

Maybe some troll-‘lite’ prefers repeating questions/tangents to see which other posters will bite and give a bit of to and fro.

[CalishataFolkart]

Or another one about the nappy on the train 'is he a newborn op? Were all the loos closed?' she was 2 and no there were other toilets! stop asking questions that could be answered by just reading..

There was another loo, she just hadn't tried to find it . . . If you RTFT winkgrin

Crikey, the irony here is just

[SunshineYello]

Smart phones, 100%. An entire generation (deliberately) conditioned to read only first line, last paragraph, and look at the pics in the middle. This is the ideal layout to grab your brief attention to get clicks/views for advertisers.
I've noticed myself being it, and regularly misconstrue work emails as a result. I've learnt to only put important info in first and closing sentences as a result, but am also trying to read non-digital media to re-train myself.

[OrigamiOwl]

Definitely agree with this!
The thread where the poster was upset with her in-laws for not cancelling a visit to a pub when she's was going to hospital with a broken leg and needed child care was a prime example of this!
"Just put the kids in the car with you to go to hospital" was becoming the new cancel the cheque. The poster has explained with the broken leg she had to lay on the back seat to get to hospital and there was more than 1 child so they couldn't fit in the front.

[unmarkedbythat]

I think a lot of the time people come with what they want to say and if there is no thread it is really relevant to, by god they will make it fit somewhere.

[Enough4me]

I think people come on MN full of bias and often to vent simply because they can. Face-to-face it would be embarrassing and our family and friends would hate us.

Take the OP, she is clearly in need of an argument because her goat doesn't like custard. Just have to RTFT it's all there 🤷‍♀️

[GurpsAgain]

People who think the skin is the best bit of the custard should be sectioned.

[SnuggyBuggy]

Thinking about drip feeds or even the much detested reverse it is a really good way for the OP to filter out comments from people who haven't read the thread or at least their posts.

[Oysterbabe]

The only thing that annoys me more is when the OP doesn't include the age of the children. It's ALWAYS relevant and means all the posts will be
How old are they?
Until they share. There was one the other day and the 'child' was 22! That changes the responses a lot.

[EmpressWitchDoesntBurn]

Until they share. There was one the other day and the 'child' was 22! That changes the responses a lot.

Was that the one where a poster (not the OP) typed 22 by mistake for 11 & corrected herself a couple of posts later?

[NiceandCalm]

There are a lot of people who do RTFT plus all the hidden bits of info and questions that I can't see! Maybe they have Mumsnet Premium??

[Kazzyhoward]

@SunshineYello

Smart phones, 100%. An entire generation (deliberately) conditioned to read only first line, last paragraph, and look at the pics in the middle. This is the ideal layout to grab your brief attention to get clicks/views for advertisers.
I've noticed myself being it, and regularly misconstrue work emails as a result. I've learnt to only put important info in first and closing sentences as a result, but am also trying to read non-digital media to re-train myself.

Yes, sadly true. We now send multiple one sentence emails whereas in the past we'd send a long letter or a longer email (when people read emails on a proper computer screen). People really can't read anything longer than a twitter or text sized sentence on a smart phone. The sheer number of people who don't read past the first few lines!

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

this is so annoying though! I have a smartphone-bred friend who criticises me for sending her Messenger messages more than 2 lines long.
I have had to learn to put a point per message and then send, or her brain apparently can't process more than the first point

[EmpressWitchDoesntBurn]

I find it really annoying to get a flood of one line messages. So some people actually prefer it???

[donquixotedelamancha]

The secret to a good custard is real vanilla, from pods.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

@EmpressWitchDoesntBurn - I agree, it would annoy the tits off me! just say it all in one go! but I'm not of this era.

@Kazzyhoward - and getting multiple emails where one would do would annoy the tits off me even more! I can see why you're having to do it but I'd be hopping mad to have my inbox effectively spammed up with 10 emails instead of 1 containing all 10 items of info.

[nosswith]

Several years ago I remember from a training course that the way people read internet pages (in general) differs from reading a book. That is even before not having much time, not wanting to read ten pages, or any other reason to comment quickly.