Why the fuck do people post photos of text instead of just text?
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/asklemmy/p/1210833/why-the-fuck-do-people-post-photos-of-text-instead-of-just-text
cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1210820/why-the-fuck-do-people-post-photos-of-text-instead-of-just-text
I find this very weird.
On one hand you got text, which is very accessible and very efficient and easy to translate for non-native speakers.
On the other, you got photos of text which is inefficient, hard to translate and not easy to read compared to just text.
So what gives? Why do people use photos of text instead of text?
Image description: the word "Because" in a fancy looking black font with a subtle shadow over a dark grey background.
i personally hate it, but afaik the reasons are
It's not inefficient, it's extraordinarily efficient.
There are efficiencies and then there are relative efficiencies. You could design a combustion engine that used its intake air very efficiently, but as our supply of atmospheric oxygen is effectively limitless, it would be completely irrelevant. No one is ever going to care how efficient their car is at managing its oxygen use.
Posting images of text is not cheap in terms of computer resources, but it's extraordinarily efficient in terms of human time. A quick screen shot, a box to select, and you're done. Sure, you could just as quickly copy the text of a tweet or other message, but you would also be cutting out important details. If you want to include the source's username, the site it came from, the profile picture, etc., each of these has to be gathered separately. Then they have to be pasted into a text entry box, as well as any images. Oh, and it won't actually end up being formatted like it was on the original site.
People post text as images for the exact same reason we invented computers in the first place - human convenience and time savings. If you want to post text that preserves its original context and source, it is almost always easier to just post a screen shot than it is to manually copy all that information over piecemeal. Yes, posting the text directly is more resource efficient, but that's pretty irrelevant in 2026. You do have points on the translation though. And of course it does make it harder for screen readers.
But there's your answer. Convenience.
Because clipping screenshots is easier than selecting and copying text on a touchscreen for most mobile devices.
It catches the eye of people scrolling through a feed better than a plain text post.