Is it just me?

I’ve read much material on ‘writing to attract an audience’ and apart from the despicable ‘clickbait’ sort of titles the second most annoying advice (at least to my mind) is ‘add an image’. Why? Well, evidently this attracts the readers eye as it skips down the ‘Twitter feed’ or as it scans the website but, and here’s my problem with these images, they’re typically pointless other than as eye candy.

Okay, if the article is a puff piece or some non-technical diversion piece I kinda get it. You’re competing for eyeballs so an image can draw the eye, but if you’re writing a technical piece an abstract image at the top is just filler. I often use a text-only browser nowadays simply to avoid all the multimedia crap that serves no purpose beyond distracting me from what I’m really interested in. So I’m going to focus on content and avoid the BS images etc. designed to ‘attract an audience’. I hope to attract a smart audience that wants the content (that is, the actual information) in my writing rather than an idle distraction.

Yeah, I guess I sound curmudgeonly (I am), but like most people I’m easily distracted when I’m online (especially while working on ‘less-then-stimulating but necessary’ grind projects) so anything I can do to reduce that distraction is good for me and hopefully my audience.