4 Reasons Why I Hate Numbered Lists
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007Has anyone noticed the recent proliferation of lists online? Almost every blog has an article broken down into a numbered list. In an age of short attention spans, it seems people prefer their content to be bundled together and spoon-fed to them. The comfort of a limited list is that, you can scan it, absorb it and feel satisfied that you have digested all the key points relevant to that topic. This warm feeling is misleading.
So here is my own numbered list! Please read this with the provisos below in mind.
1. Contrived
Numbered lists are contrived, as our world is a world of shades and greys and not blacks and whites. Without a doubt assigning discrete categories is essential to make sense of our world, but care must be taken in the creation of categories and their interpretation, otherwise information will be lost along the way.
2. Arbitrary
Far from being a complete list, the lists on the internet are often not the definitive breakdown they imply themselves to be. Although these lists may pass themselves off as the authoritative source on the subject in hand, many are no more than the product of a moment’s thought. Sadly, readers frequently read these lists without realising this, and in mentally checking off their understanding of a subject, they make a grave mistake.
3. Repetitive
When the categories are not well defined, the same theme can be repeated more than once. This is particularly the case when the writer is aiming for a certain number, e.g. a “top 10”.
4. Trivialising
Again, if the writer has a goal of writing a certain number of categories, or if the writer merely is trying to pad out their list, unnecessary or even facetious categories may be created.
Conclusion
So if numbered lists are so bad, what is the solution? Well, the simplest solution of all is just to remove references to numbers off an article’s headings. Removing the numbers removes the psychological mindset that the list is complete, and keeps a reader in a critical state of mind. For example, we would have titles such as “Top Reasons for Using Firefox” rather than “8 Reasons for Using Firefox”. A small difference, but a significant one.
