There is a tendency in the over-informed, information-rich but substance-shallow internet age to reduce knowledge to “bite-sized” chunks, easily digestible, numbered from one to ten lists. While agreeably a beneficial way to speedily and succinctly convey information, one can’t help but wonder whether this is a healthy situation for the art of writing itself, particularly in a medium which is predicted to in time to completely replace books. I would argue not.

1. Lists are easier to read.

“Chopsticks” is easier to play than Beethoven, but that doesn’t make it better. In greater difficulty comes greater rewards; the patience, persistence and determination one must employ to master difficult subjects are also their own reward.

2. Lists are easier to write.

Show me a poet who writes in lists and I’ll show you a bad poet. Poetry well written is the hardest form of writing; conversely it is also the most intuitive. Ease of writing almost never equates to great writing, except perhaps in rare moments of lucidity and inspiration–and even these most often come from hard-work, as in the practise of meditation, which produces states of transcendence and hyper-clarity, but fleetingly so at first, and with years of daily discipline required. As author William S. Burroughs relates, “As a child, I had given up on writing, perhaps unable to face what every writer must: all the bad writing he will have to do before he does any good writing.”

3. Lists have a certain authority.

There is a vogue of producing lists of all-time bests and favourites: “My Favourite 10 Films”, “The Top 10 Books of All Time,” which appeals quite successfully to our desire for a simple, black and white, first is best world. This isn’t a bad desire in and of itself, but sadly the world is seldom this simple–life is a canvas painted in shades of greys, where popularity is no guarantee of quality. Fashion, taste and fame are all fleeting, but quality as they say is permanent. You will almost never find Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Whitman or Dickinson on a list of top ten favourite authors, yet without at least a cursory reading of their works your understanding of writing and literature would be partially lit at best.

4. Lists grab attention.

Television pitched at a narrowing attention span has dumbed down a generation and lowered the public discourse, and the internet raises the bar no further, refining channel surfing to its ultimate low: near infinite channels and yet almost no content. Adapting to an audience without concentration or intelligence directed makes sense if your only goal is to capture attention, but it is oxymoronic–literally and onomatopoetically–if quality in writing is your aim. Cast not pearls before swine, as a certain carpenter once said–true, unless casting pearls is the business you are in.

5. Lists are usually arbitrary and opinionated, and thus almost never authoritative.

If you think that wisdom or mastery of a topic will come from only ten books, ten films or ten points you are sadly mistaken. The truly informed inform their own opinions, even while appreciating the truth of others, and forming balanced, insightful and wise opinions takes experience and time–there is no shortcut. If the 20th century should have taught us one thing it is that truth is not absolute but relative–show me a truth and I will show you an exception. It is nice to read the opinions of others, and valuable when they are more informed than our own, but don’t take them as substitute to discovering your own truth, which means reading widely, and in depth–and not only reading but in reflecting and understanding. All spiritual masters will tell you that illumination comes from within, not without. They will also tell you that there are no shortcuts.

In the face of ever increasing information it is tempting to substitute writing lists for actually writing, in much the same manner a GUI is applied to the front-end of a computer program to make it usable. However to continue the computer analogy, if you wish to actually write a program there is no alternative to learning to write code. To write well one must actually read good writing, not just lists or summaries of such, and then attempt to emulate it–rather than just abstract from it. Writing lists is a side-effect not just of the internet age but of academia, where information is paramount over style and feel, impersonal over personal and the mind over the heart. This is partly because the information to be parsed in scholarship is so vast that necessity demands it be refined, summarised and boiled down to essentials; sadly, it is seldom reconstituted to any particular beauty when rewritten.

Surely there is more to be communicated by writing than just information–afore-mentioned beauty, personality, insight, subtly, humanity and soul–none of which fit or deserve the limiting form of internet friendly lists.