You do not have to look far to discover global leaders who are anything but succinct and to the point. Long rambling speeches are everywhere as world leaders appear to want to outdo one another for the longest talk. If they are not doing that, they give lengthy, tedious answers to an interviewer’s question when a simple “yes” or “no” would have sufficed. I can’t be alone in preferring our leaders to offer more brevity.
However, it can go the other way too. I once worked for a boss who would not allow you to talk to him unless you could describe your needs in no more than three bullet points. Every conversation had to be brief and to the point, otherwise you were chucked out of his office. That was equally as annoying as a world leader rambling on with no focus.
The desire for brevity is made worse these days thanks to social media. If a TikTok video or Instagram reel does not grab attention and make its point in five seconds, most people scroll past to see if the next item is brief enough to convey its message. So important is this rapid scrolling and focus on brevity that Facebook is now offering people $3,000 a week to create such short, brief content.
However, new research in online dating shows the dangers of brevity. Psychologists in Israel have shown that brief or list-based online dating profiles have lower engagement than lengthier entries that tell a story. The research confirms that these longer profiles enable greater connection with the readers. These longer profiles also increase the perception of closeness.
This relates to a psychological concept known as “construal level theory”. Essentially, this means that the closer we perceive ourselves to something or someone, the less abstract it becomes. For instance, if you know someone who lives in Melbourne, Australia, they seem more real to you, despite the miles apart. However, if you don’t know anyone who lives there, then the people of Melbourne are more abstract to you. It turns out that when we are only presented with brief, bullet-point material, we feel less close and, as a result, have a more abstract view, reducing our connectedness.
Take the extraordinary outbreak of meningitis in Canterbury, Kent. If all you had been told was that several young adults had become victims of meningitis, you might think that sad. But given that there are 300 cases of this kind of meningitis in the UK each year, you’d probably consider this just a minor blip in the statistics. All you will have heard are a couple of bullet points, creating distance between you and the victims. However, once you hear that 18-year-old Juliette Kenny had been killed by the infection within one day of getting her first symptoms, your reaction would probably have been entirely different. This real human story increases your closeness, and you think much less abstractly.
That’s what the Israeli researchers have really confirmed in their online dating study. The longer, story-style profiles clearly improve the closeness between the profile writer and the reader. In turn, that cuts out the abstract thinking.
These days, we are often encouraged to be brief, to cut out the detail and just give the facts. Yet, all that does is to reduce closeness and increase abstract thinking. From a psychological perspective, it is much better to tell a complete story to reduce the “construal” of abstract ideas.
It reminds me of a consultancy job I did many years ago. I had been asked to provide an independent view of a new piece of software being introduced that was going to “revolutionise” business communication. It was called “Persuasion” and was a slide production software program to compete with PowerPoint.
As part of the job, I was asked, “If there was one thing you could change in the software, what would it be?” My answer was clear: remove the ability for it to include bullet points. Here we are, 30 years later, and we are swimming in a sea of bullet points in every presentation. The software forces us all into this. But do we feel closer to the topic? Are we thinking less abstractly?
As Annette Simmons says in her book, Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, “Nothing is more important to your success than the stories others believe about your work, personal and community life.” Stories mean so much more than bullet points.
Brevity has its place, and rambling helps nobody. But when communication becomes too stripped back, it loses the very thing that draws people in: human connection. Facts inform us, but stories make us care. If you cut everything down to bullet points, you may also be cutting away your impact.
