Psychedelic content has a reading apprehension problem. After working in the field for a handful of years, I’ve come to realize that the science driving psychedelics forward isn’t creating easy to digest content. For a while, this was a gut instinct, and I had nothing to back it up. Now, some proof has come out.
I found the proof I sought thanks to The Economist and their article- “Academic writing is getting harder to read—the humanities most of all.“
The article cites a “…backlash against an academic use of language that is removed from normal life.” I see the lack of a connection to normal life in psychedelic content. The piece continues saying, “Inaccessible writing is part of the problem. Research has become harder to read, especially in the humanities and social sciences.”
The Flesch Reading-Ease Test
The Economist examined 347,000 PhD abstracts over the last 200+ years to arrive at their conclusion. They “…reviewed each abstract using the Flesch reading-ease test, which measures sentence and word length to gauge readability.” This is quite apt as I write this on WordPress. Why?
WordPress users rely on Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO used to employ the Flesch reading-ease test to grade content for readability. (The Flesch reading-ease test got swapped out for the word complexity assessment in version 19.3) The reading-score can have an indirect, positive effect on SEO ranking.
The Economist article states:
A score of 100 roughly indicates passages can be understood by someone who has completed fourth grade in America (usually aged 9 or 10), while a score lower than 30 is considered very difficult to read. An average New York Times article scores around 50 and a CNN article around 70. This article scores 41.
The PhD abstract at the center of the controversy in The Economist scored a 15. This means the abstract is quite a difficult read. I’ve noticed similar reading difficulty in regards to psychedelic content.
Easy-to-Read Psychedelic Content is an Art
Psychedelic content often is dry, bland, and written for the psychedelic field, and not for a broader audience. The Economist piece mentions “anti-intellectualism” in the United States. To be fair, this has been a problem since the inception of the country. But maybe if academics wrote in a more accessible, and readable style, anti-intellectualism wouldn’t be such a problem.
This may be hard to hear for a lot of academics, therapists and scientists in the psychedelic field. People do get stuck in ivory towers and get accustomed to writing in an academic style that doesn’t resonate with the average American. This is no fault of their own, as this is what the academic system demands.
However, realizing your writing style doesn’t translate to a broader audience can bruise the ego. It takes skill and years of practice to learn how to switch gears and distill down complex information. I’ve got a master’s degree and wrote a 240 page thesis. I know academic writing, and I haven’t used that style in many years. But I have learned how to bridge both worlds.
The Best Writers Wrote at Basic Reading Levels
Making the complex simple and easy-to-read is an art and often genius. Some of the best writers in American history wrote at grade school reading levels. People like Hemingway, Hunter Thompson, and Cormac McCarthy all wrote books that almost anyone can read.
Unfortunately, for the academics, scientists, therapists and people who have a slew of acronyms after their names, they haven’t learned how to down shift. A company asked me to teach their employees about trauma, based on an article of mine. I told them I’m not a therapist, and have no professional or academic background in mental health. They weren’t bothered. The fact that I could deliver complex information in a digestible and palatable format was more important.
So why is not using the language of a wider audience a problem?
Does Psychedelic Content Meets its Audience?
- The Literacy Project reports that the average American reads at a 7th to 8th-grade level.
- 130 million Americans—54% of adults between the ages of 16 and 74 years old—lack proficiency in literacy, essentially reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.
- Last I checked, 70% of adults in the U.S. have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives. That’s 223.4 million people.
I think it’s safe to say that a Venn diagram between the 130 million Americans and the 223 million Americans is revealing. So who exactly is psychedelic content created for?
This raises some uncomfortable questions. Considering the cost of psychedelic treatment, psychedelic wellness, and/or psychedelic retreats, is psychedelic content geared towards the professional-managerial class (PMC)? Psychedelic access is a real problem for people outside the PMC. Generating revenue as a psychedelic business is a problem too.
If psychedelic companies target the PMC that’s understandable, given current economic realities and difficulties. However, if the psychedelic field is honest about addressing the global mental health crisis then the content it produces should use the language of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Psychedelic Content Can Be More Engaging
For argument’s sake, let’s assume psychedelic content targets the PMC. Even then, not everyone in that audience will resonate with psychedelic content. A person in the PMC may have a high reading level. However, if they’ve been working their entire life as a banker, engineer, or lawyer, they won’t be familiar with psychedelic language, especially not written in an academic style. Do you understand banker-speak, engineer-speak, or lawyer-speak?
Psychedelic content has to open doors to wider audiences, and not narrow access. We live in an era when people are starving for authenticity and connection. How does content convey authenticity and make connections?
By being more human through storytelling. Tell a story that makes people emote. Elicit a laugh, a cry or a smile. Use a funny metaphor or simile. Tell a joke. Use a humorous meme or picture. The old ways are dying. People are tired of stuffy and stodgy corporate-speak that reads like a car manual.
I wrote a piece once that combined Gabor Maté and Homer Simpson. If this doesn’t cover all the bases, I don’t know what does. Plus, psychedelics can be one of the most ridiculous experiences one ever has. So why do we have to be so serious? If we’re here to solve the mental health crisis, we better start talking like it, and make someone laugh. Because laughter is medicine too, if everyone gets the joke.
Reading Score for this Piece
Yoast doesn’t provide the reading score anymore. However, I can tell you that I received the green-for-go smiley face for readability for this piece. Although my rating on transition words is poor. Only 26% of my sentences contain transition words, which it tells me is not enough.