We’re taught that length equals depth and importance. Teachers assign papers by word count or number of pages. Long magazine articles convey gravitas. The thicker the book, the smarter the author. • Technology turned this obsession with length from a glitch to a stubborn, time-sapping bug. The result is billions of wasted words: • Roughly one-third of work emails that require attention go unread. • Most words of most news stories are not seen. • Most chapters of most books go untouched.
