WASHINGTON—According to reports, the vast majority of Americans have attention spans so low they stopped reading this very article several words ago. “This news in brief—yes, this very one you’re looking at right now—is only five measly sentences long, but people can’t even handle that,” said, ah, why even attribute the quote to a source, since everyone by this point is just half-scanning the page in disinterested incomprehension, if even that. “Now that we’re into the third sentence, nobody’s made it this far, I’m sure. You could put whatever you want in this space—you might as well just type out a stream of unrelated words like walrus, cauliflower, robot, bucket—and no one will notice.” As of press time, a nuclear bomb just went off in your hometown and everyone you love is dying, just seeing if you were still reading, didn’t think so, okay, see ya.

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