I usually number my questions, makes it more obvious

Yes.

Considering your wording in the last paragraph, I'm going to guess that your writing style is frequently overwhelming. Making sure that questions are clearly isolated (I'd suggest using numeric lists or bullet points) makes it clear what response you're expecting.

Additionally, if you're asking several difficult questions, it's likely that people will lose the thread partway through.

"Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?"

Not much, what is going on with you?

I KNOW THIS ONE AND THE ANSWER IS : IT"S MICROSOFT'S FAULT.

Back in the day when Email first became popular, it was normal and accepted use to do "in-line-quoting". You would hit "reply" and get the text of the original mail with a quote character, mostly ">" in the begining of the line. Then you would put some empty lines at the point where you wanted to answer/comment and type your reply in the middle of the email you received, easily giving context to your words, and making it obvious to what this comment relates, while also showing which part was by the sender and which by you (due to the quotation symbols)

This was a very good system, and then came MICROSOFT OUTLOOK

and they defaulted to giving you a empty page when clicking reply and just dumping the whole mail you replied to somewhere below, out of sight.

everyone using Outlook started "top-posting" to the annoyance of every intelligent being in the galaxy, but because Outlook was the first email experience many people had, the culture of in-line-quoting was destroyed by the unwashed microsoft masses.

fast-forward to today, where a young person (that is below 50) posts about a topic just to vent, and a old person (over 9000) replies with a sincere history lessen from a time where even email were better.

yours truely,

someone who is still salty about that and just decided to make a youtube rant about it.

Few people can focus enough to read.

I work in a technical field. In the past few years I’ve learned that interacting by email usually requires one-line sentences or bullet points, with any questions being numbered. No fluff, no secondary thoughts or possibilities. Keep it as minimal as possible.

It still fails to elicit a coherent response about half the time, but it’s the best I’ve found so far.

It didn’t use to be like this. But what’s to blame; screen addiction, microplastics, covid, increased stress, … ?

It's not that they "insist" on not answering, they just have limited reading comprehension and/or attention span. With experience you learn to ask exactly one question in an email, and maybe you'll get an answer some of the time, and if you're lucky it will be coherent.

People read the subject line, assuming it's not longer than about seven words, and then the first 30%, and last 15% of your email, in my experience. You can increase this by adding line breaks and bullets. In my experience, the best responses come from a short paragraph, followed by a couple bullet points, then a couple sentences, then your salutation/signature. I try not to write anything longer than that.

try numbering them

Cause frankly, your email is the 235th most important thing on my desk today.

Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?

I can read

My colleagues complain of the same things, saying they've tried everything. But I never have that issue.

Here's an example of what they might send: Hello Bob, we have just recieved all your documents, so thank you. But upon review, we have found that we are still missing x,y,z. In order to expedite the process we ask for your cooperation.

1. At your earliest convenience, can you please send not more than twelve months of documents x and how they pertain to y?
2. Can you clarify why z contains a substantial difference from the previous times it occurred in September 2020, October 2020? Don't hesitate to contact us with any further questions!

Here's what I would say instead: Hi Bob, to finish the file we require:

1. A max 12 months of documents x (showing y)
2. Why is z now so different from 2020 Sept, Oct? Thanks in advance.

People are lazy, they get so many emails each day, they couldn’t be bothered reading messages properly. I have turned into a cynical annoying person and write emails with large clear action points like this:

Hi, I have some comments and questions.

Please answer 2 (two) questions so that I can proceed with my part of this work. Without an answer to both, no more work will be done and the project will be on hold.

Consequatur doloribus eaque ut quia veniam est ut. Vitae assumenda sed quisquam omnis dolores nesciunt fuga. Autem non sint minus sed quia. Aspernatur tenetur quis nostrum repellendus nostrum est qui. Sint aliquid est distinctio laudantium.

1. Yes or no- Does this mean that the flibbertygibbet must be completed first?

Reiciendis quia qui quia quo hic commodi molestiae vel. Ipsam ut quia et voluptates quaerat voluptatibus neque recusandae. Et fuga necessitatibus rerum debitis. Repellat facilis possimus ab sed eos doloremque. Ut rerum aut corporis. Cum voluptatem praesentium error.

2. You need to provide further information on the doohickey because there is not enough detail for me to be able to goober the whatchamacallit

And then keep forwarding the original email every day until I get the required information. When the boss asks why no progress has been made, I can show him the email trail asking for information.

Cover your ass, keep asking the same questions until you get an answer.

Step 1. Stop emailing my boss.

Step 2. Recognize that if you're thorough and verbose, people's eyes will glaze over and they won't actually read what you send. Conversely, if you're concise and direct, people will complain that you're aloof and not sharing information.

Step 3. Resign yourself to things only getting worse as you get older.

Been doing email since it began. Same frustrations.

Solutions (workarounds):

1. Email is structured with "executive summary" & "detail". That way I can write all the words I want but people can only read the first paragraph.
2. Never ask questions. Tell them what I'm going to choose, & give them opportunity to disagree. That way if they don't respond usefully I can take their "non-response" as a response & proceed anyway.
3. If I need to ask a question, use a phone call or go to their desk, or (shudder) make a meeting.

I will put 3 simple 1 sentence questions in a numbered list and get a single answer back.

Idgaf any more I just copy/paste the same 3 questions and send it back.

Reading comprehension has gone down the tubes. I dunno if it's from people watching too many TikToks and their attention span can't handle reading more than one sentence anymore, or what, but I have definitely noticed a change in people's ability to read and understand the content of what they just read.

Where I work, my old boss never wrote anything down, did not like to communicate via email, and insisted on phone calls/verbal meetings instead. When they announced they were taking a new job, we begged them to create an SOP of all the things they did with detailed instructions because NONE of it had ever been written down. We were told no, they couldn't do that. No explanation other than "I can't." And I'm convinced that they simply couldn't read, or could BARELY read.

So I created the SOP instead, detailed as hell, everything in one place. Sections, subsections, hyperlinks, it's all there. 2 new employees come into the office, I'm supposed to train them. I do, and I show them the SOP, tell them "everything you need to know is in this SOP", so that AFTER I train them, they can reference it.

They never reference it, ever. They ask me how to do the things they've forgotten instead. I just point them to the correct section in the SOP and tell them to read it. BUT THEY DON'T READ. It's insane! How do they get by in life in general!?

Poor reading comprehension skills are more prevalent than we think

No.

For me? Usually it’s because answering the first question on the list took a lot of time, research, or mental energy and I had forgotten there were other questions by the time I finally had the answer written down. Sense of accomplishment, hit send.

I started listing the questions as 1. 2. 3. And so on. Which helped a lot.

The person that inspired this message will never change. You have to treat them as if you were a lawyer, and they are a hostile witness. Ask them one question, then follow up with another, until you have your answers. Problem is, they will probably catch on pretty quick and leave you unanswered.

People are kind of stupid and lazy, and if there's no immediate benefit for doing something or punishment for skipping it, they'll do whatever's easiest. We're all like this to some degree, in some contexts or other.

It is a little funny to me that some people just don't have professional standards. I would make a good faith effort to respond completely to a work email because that's the job. But I don't think that's it for a lot of people.

There's a lot of ADHD and friends in the world, and a lot of it is untreated. They're not skipping questions out of malice. They're probably trying their best. Still failing, but trying. That counts for something.

A lot of people also don't read well. They won't likely show up on a texty medium like this, but they're out there. It may be uncomfortable and embarrassing for them to try to read your email, especially if the level of diction is high and the vocabulary extensive. Most people are emotionally kind of fragile, and won't put up with that shame for very long. I think that's why a lot of people want to hop on a call or have a meeting when it could've just been an email. They can talk fine, but communicating in written words is harder.

How are the questions formatted?

Human communication isn't perfect. Some people have too many emails. Others need cues only audio visual interaction can provide to quickly parse info.

Use numbering, paragraphs etc.

Its their responsibility to read shit but its yours to be clear and concise.

In email, I always make my questions the last thing right before my signature as a call to action. I think many people skip reading the entire email, but may read the line above the signature if they see a question mark. You always want the last thing they read to be the idea they have to act on THIS part.

• Phrase your questions unambiguously
• Bonus points for phrasing them with a binary response: "Do you want A or B?" or "Do you approve that we can move forward with the plan as stated here?"
• Only ask the questions you REALLY need an answer to. Every next question risks losing a answer you really need.
• Make self liquidating statements instead of questions "If you want a different path let me know. Unless I from you by the next Tuesday, I'm moving forward with what I described in this email"

If you write open ended or ambiguous questions you risk your audience having to take time to think about a response and they get distracted. Risky questions in this area are: "So what do you want to do here?" or "What do you think?"

Sounds like your emails are too long. Trim it to the minimum amount of words to get your point across and be professional, and put all questions in a numbered list.

My rule is more than 2 questions and it's a phone call.

Yes

Because people choose the easiest question to answer. You can't change people, but you can change how you communicate.

It annoys the heck out of me too. Generally what I do is reply with the remaining questions they haven't answered; sometimes they get the message and answer all of them, sometimes we go round and round until I have all the answers I need.

I work in IT so for the most part, if I have 5 questions, that's because there are 5 things I need to know. And I need to know because they want me to solve their problem, so if they want to do this one question at a time that's fine, but if I start out going one at a time I get complained at for being too slow.

I've also tried everything I can think of short of being explicitly rude in my messages. Numbering them doesn't work. Bullet-points don't work. One question per paragraph doesn't work. Asking them explicitly to answer all questions doesn't work (how did these people ever pass an exam?).

(And yes I'm aware I haven't answered all your questions (-: )