Too Many Images

This isn't a rant, I promise. Although it will be a challenge to frame this objectively after a title that is so judgy.

I love photography. I love drawings and paintings and sculptures. I love digital art. I (used to) love seeing strange creations made purely by a mimicking machine. Imagery and visual art of all kinds are all so engaging, so alluring!

The modern Internet seems to have almost no limit for delivering this alluring and engaging imagery to us from every corner of every page. Even the ads and comments and buttons and backgrounds can be images. Sometimes there is so much imagery on a page that it is hard to easily distinguish between each component of the digital collage.

Aside form visual overwhelm, for me images can be a source of emotional overwhelm and drain. Don't even get me started on video! If something is moving and playing sound on my screen without my consent it immediately triggers a minor stress response.

But aside from jarring motion, even the content of still imagery can still have this emotionally draining stress effect. Of course, less intensely than the response caused by video.

The majority of images I encounter online are not something I'm prepared to see, or else it is often something that causes a splash of discomfort that wage a war of attrition on my emotions as I browse. It isn't just the disturbing content, but the mental resources required to process and classify any content in regards to the other content that surrounds it.

Do you see what I'm saying? Imagery requires too much mental processing when it is not a single focused scene isolated from other information. It is too easy (and often expected) to include imagery with everything, even when the context or message don't align.

And if you have a message with your imagery, how could it possibly align? The 1,000-word meaning of each image is even more subjective than the explicit words that shouldn't be paired with it.

If the claim is that you aren't expected to be processing what you are looking at, then why is it there?

I want to acknowledge that sometimes words just can't describe something. That is valid, and generally requires some type of imagery to more-completely convey an idea. Imagine a lego manual without any pictures! But these situations feel far more intentional and necessary than the grand majority of image-use online today.

I will end this incomplete non-rant (I can't tell how it isn't a rant) by gently suggesting that we all consider using less imagery online. This is especially important with written content, as I feel the imagery can distract from the intended message.

What do you think? Do you ever get tired of excessive obligatory imagery online? Or maybe you feel most imagery enhances your experience? Where would you like to see imagery used, and how?

<3 Grant