Ask HN: Do you guys even read the linked articles?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28614482

by fho • 5 years ago

22 25 5 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I recently noticed that I rarely actually read the linked articles just coming to HN for the discussion in the comments.

Asking around a lot of my colleagues do the same.

What does that tell us about HN? About attention spans?

severine2• 5 years ago

My attention span is alright, thank you.

I think I read about 40-60% of the articles relative to HN comments, usually because I (think I) get the gist of the article from the discussion.

fho• 5 years ago

Good point! And I think that's true ... often the top comment is enough to get the gist (or a completely anecdotal aside :-) ).

throwaway0191• 5 years ago

In 90% of cases, no.

kowlo• 5 years ago

Perhaps the articles are not as interesting as the discussions

mod• 5 years ago

Nor as good.

A USA Today article is going to lightly touch on a topic I'm interested in. The comments are likely to go into some interesting details.

Plus I just hate the web experience right now. HN is a predictable, quick, silent, ad-free experience where the layout doesn't shift.

mattbrewsbytes• 5 years ago

For me its not about attention span, people come to see what others (with similar mindsets) think about something. Especially if I'm just casually browsing stuff and avoiding work. When there is an article that I am genuinely interested in, I'll read it entirely.

There was some blog post article about The Framework laptop yesterday. I never heard of this laptop. I honestly thought web framework for some reason. Anyhow I clicked into the post, scanned and realized it was an actual company. Opened a tab to go see what they had and then returned to the comments to see what others thought. I have no idea what the linked article's opinion was about it.

I can scan through hundreds of comments on HN and get a better idea about some topic/product much faster than just one person's thoughts.

rapnie• 5 years ago

The comments are the 'sales pitch' for me that determine if the article is worth reading.

giantg2• 5 years ago

I read them.

endofreach• 5 years ago

Most times the comment section goes OT about things, way more interesting than the linked article. So most times i get so caught up in reading comments, i forget the headline is, what caught my attention.

nemosaltat• 5 years ago

I make it a point not to comment unless I’ve at least skimmed the article. Even if my comment, or more often, the comment I’m replying to, has little to do with the OP. However, I do often use the comment section as a heuristic for whether an article is “worth” my time.

Unrelated to your question: IMO _folks_ makes a friendly, genderless, drop-in replacement for _guys_ in most cases when addressing mixed (or potentially mixed) audiences. Granted, it can come off a little, well, “folksy” but I’d rather skew folksy than potentially offensive/exclusive.

severine2• 5 years ago

Good point. Before I comment I usually read the article if I haven't.

mPReDiToR• 5 years ago

A lot won't open on the Android program.

A lot are just clickbait.

A lot of the time the article is debunked in the comments.

The comments don't [buy Coca Cola] need Reader Mode or un-paywalling.

UglyToad• 5 years ago

It tells us there's an effectively unbounded amount of possible things to read on the internet and a lot of it is crap, debunked, hidden behind interstitials, paywalled, sales/marketing content dressed up as blogs or otherwise not worth interacting with.

In case it wasn't obvious, my answer is no in about 95%+ of cases. The comments serve as a pre-screen to determine if there's anything unexpected/interesting on the other side of a mystery link. Someone has already done the work of reading and forming a response, I'm going to re-use their (combined) effort.

sonbert• 5 years ago

If it seem interesting enough, I will definitely read it. And yes, even if the articles has no comments, if it looks interesting then I'll probably read it.

withinboredom• 5 years ago

I’m usually on HN when I’m away from home on a 2G connection (~100kps). Most linked pages take about 20-30 minutes to load (if at all) but HN loads up just fine and I can converse about interesting things.

risedotmoe• 5 years ago

I only read the article if I feel I can take away any more information than what I’ve gathered from the discussion or if I plan on discussing myself. Nothing’s worse than being hit with a “did you even read the article” gotcha reddit moment

mikewarot• 5 years ago

I assume everything is paywalled, and read the comments first for a link around it. Along the way I find out if it's worth reading.

I generally hold off commenting until after I've read the article.

krapp• 5 years ago

Yes, if it seems interesting. I'm here to satisfy intellectual curiosity and learn new things, after all, so I try to put in the effort.

Unlike a lot of people here, I don't find the comments particularly valuable much of the time, unless a commenter has specific expertise in the subject at hand, or a relevant anecdote, or shows that they have at least read the article and are making an informed comment. And, since so many people here don't read the articles anyway, the comments can sometimes provide negative intellectual value, as when people start commenting on the title alone.

guidovranken• 5 years ago

One of the reasons I don't always read the articles and go straight to the comments is because clicking on a link may result in an ungodly amount of cookie popups and autoplay video's exploding in my face whereas the HN comments are always the same predictable, comfortable web 1.0 experience. Dealing with this is a relatively costly intellectual operation, if you will, and frequent web use has conditioned the cost-benefit tradeoff I make when dealing with links.

_benj• 5 years ago

As others, comments determine for me if the article is worth my time. (Thanks to all that read the articles in the first place!)

But at the same time, I've gotten so much value out of the comments, a lot more than the actual articles, whether is book recommendations, related tools to the article, meeting people or whatnot... I def come here for the comments!

sn9• 5 years ago

I don't bother reading discussions about links I haven't read.

It's usually obvious when a comment is by someone who hadn't read the article.

zzo38computer• 5 years ago

When it can be read (and I am interested), then I will read it before writing a comment about it, but it doesn't always work. When it is audio or video instead, or if it doesn't work for whatever reason, I will just ignore the article, but may still read the comments if it looks like interesting (and reply to a comment if there is a comment that I can read and that I have further comments about). Sometimes an article has bad formatting but disabling CSS will help, so I may still read it in that case (but with CSS disabled).

q-base• 5 years ago

As other have mentioned, I do not think that you can draw any meaningful conclusion about attention, span by questioning the comments to linked articles ratio. In a lot of cases peoples attention is probably locked onto the comment section for longer than it would take to read the article itself.

The comment section is among other things an "open source quality meter". I can get sucked in by good writing in an article only to read in the comments that the entire premise of the article might be wrong. The comment section is filled with intelligent individuals that can vouch the link as well as perhaps link to something better.

Hence I always check the comment section.

joshxyz• 5 years ago

Haha, maybe we just read each other people's comments to serve as summarized context but in different perspectives. Works for me.

forgotmypw17• 5 years ago

I rarely do, and I wish it was more common to summarize an article in a top comment with one or two paragraph quote.

The reason is simple: HN is lightweight and works on all my devices, while other pages typically bog down my slower ones.

Ask HN: Do you guys even read the linked articles?

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