only after the downvotes.
Never assume your audience are idiots unless proven otherwise.
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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Asklemmy
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I think everybody should "dumb themselves down" on social media. Since you can only assume other people's background on a given topic and their grasp of (for example) English, you should write in a way that's understandable to as many people as possible while still getting your point across. That's just how good communication works.
I am not talking about better communication. If I was then I would have said "use a clearer style of speaking" or something like that.
I am talking about limiting what you discuss to the popular and easily-digested.
I wasn't just talking about using a cleaner style of speaking either. Choosing topics and the depth of these topics is part of communication as well. Those should be picked according to prior cues (the community you're in, previous exchanged comments etc.)
"Should" is arguable. (For example you might be fishing for the few in the crowd) .
But yes, your choice of topic. That's what I'm talking about. Sometimes it looks pretty narrow.
And if you do. Well, that carries with it it's own bucket of implications.
I try to be as simple as I can be without compromising the integrity of the points I make.
Nah, I'm just this dumb.
Not often. Certainly not when I'm shouting into the void.
When I'm answering a question or responding to a statement, I'll generally match the level of the existing discussion. I still try to say what I mean, but I'll try to avoid concepts with a lot of missing prerequisites. Target audience matters too, if you ask me how orbital rendezvous works, you'll get a different answer depending on where you ask the question. For example, I'd probably skip explaining how orbits themselves work if you asked in a community dedicated to kerbal space program or children of a dead earth, focusing instead on what the person asking is probably trying to do. Similarly, a comment in a community dedicated to real life space exploration is getting a more detailed answer than the same question in a community for the general public. Basically different assumptions about what the person already knows, and what the person wants to find out.
I do so less here than I would other places.
Not really but I do know my audience and I will alter the presentation of information
Dumbing things down is a sign of respectlessness towards the audience. So no. I am not doing this. I sometimes write things in a shorter way due to the nature of the medium, though.
But my Mastodon instance is configured to allow up to 5000 character per message, so there is plenty of space if I feel like.
not at all
Nah
Yes and no.
I think that there is a fine line between dumbing something down and sounding condescending. In time, I found that not treating people like morons is the best approach, i.e. accessible language and simple explanations must be used to aid in the speed and understanding of the information you are disseminating.
Because nobody wants to sit there and brainstorm something they don't understand, they'll just move on. But if you treat them like babies, people will just be annoyed and stop paying attention.
So its quite the nuanced subject, communication is an art-form.
We've all seen the "I'm very smart" people who come to social media, use random vocabulary vomit because they want to sound smart, and it happens here a lot. I agree with you, that's great if you can, and I won't say you "have to dumb yourself down", but often they do it to sound smart and want to feel superior because they think most people understand.
Actually a lot of people do understand them, they're just eye rolling at how pretentious they're being.
There's a balance. After all why use many word when some word do trick?
Not really dumbing it down so much as framing in accessible language.
A little bit. If I offer too specific expert knowledge I could be doxxing myself, so I make a version that sounds like I just picked it out from the top search engine result, but works well enough as an answer.
Sup bro?
I almost don't want to. If you can't handle honesty, truths or straightforward and shoot-straight kind of opinions. Then engaging in communication is simply not for you and nobody should have to walk on eggshells all of the time to appease someone's incapable sense of getting the point.
No but I edit for readability for ADHD, and also I limit the wordcount.
I relate. I edit, then edit again. How anybody can come up with the right words the first time is beyond me. And ya, brevity is power.
Brevity is the soul of wit, and my soul is a delicious peanut butter fudge; dense as hell.