First, I would note that this is one of the better pieces about attention problems and information overload. Far, far better than a work like Shallow, which weighs down a handful of actual insights with a vast collection of grumpy "good old days" rhetoric.
Having said that, I think the piece misses one key motivation for "TLDR culture": most online content is terrible. It is very bad and often non-obviously bad. If one starts reading carefully from the beginning, one will often (usually?) waste several minutes discovering that the article is not going anywhere good; that it explains a well-known idea, or is directionless, or is simply inaccurate. Skimming and skipping around are ways to avoid crappy content, and abandoning an article after reading a small portion is often a symptom of it.
I have not lost the ability to sit and read deeply. I may do it less than I would like, but that is a matter of time apportionment rather than capacity. But when I do commit that time, I will continue to do it with reputable, known-quality works instead of the average internet thinkpiece.
I totally agree. I've noticed this in my own reading pattern - when I'm linked to an on-line article, I first skim it very fast to identify if there's even anything worth reading in it, and if I determine that there might be, I go back to beginning and start reading.
It's a pattern born from experience - I've wasted way too much time reading through articles only to discover half-way that they could (and should) be summarized in a Tweet.
I first noticed that when I realized that I wasn't doing it with familiar authors. If Bruce Schneier posts something, I'll dive right in without skimming, but if "random Medium user" posts something it gets a TL;DR treatment first.
Having said that, I think the piece misses one key motivation for "TLDR culture": most online content is terrible. It is very bad and often non-obviously bad. If one starts reading carefully from the beginning, one will often (usually?) waste several minutes discovering that the article is not going anywhere good; that it explains a well-known idea, or is directionless, or is simply inaccurate. Skimming and skipping around are ways to avoid crappy content, and abandoning an article after reading a small portion is often a symptom of it.
I have not lost the ability to sit and read deeply. I may do it less than I would like, but that is a matter of time apportionment rather than capacity. But when I do commit that time, I will continue to do it with reputable, known-quality works instead of the average internet thinkpiece.