Notes & Posts: The Great Substack Divide

Thinking about: Social media

This is a Substack post, and immediately after I publish it, I will write a Substack note. What, you might be wondering, is the difference between a post and a note, and why do I create both?

On the Substack dashboard, you are given the option to “Create new,” and among the things you can create are articles and notes, along with videos, podcasts, and chat threads. Select “article” and you are asked to give a title and subtitle. You are then instructed to “Start writing ...”

Articles can contain images, audio, and video, but mine rarely do. They consist solely of words—900 or so on average. When an article is complete, I publish it, which in the case of Substack means emailing it, with one push of the button, to either all of my subscribers or to just my paid subscribers. I routinely send it to all of you.

I am astonished by my ability to do this. In a matter of seconds, I will reach far more virtual students than I taught during my four-decade career as a professor. And not to be forgotten, none of these students will ask whether my article is going to be on the midterm, since there aren’t any exams. None to write, and none to grade—meaning never having to argue about the grades students were given! Thanks to Substack, I find myself living in a college professor’s idea of paradise.

On being published, my article becomes what Substack refers to as a post. Although my subscribers will immediately be informed of its existence, my followers won’t, since they aren’t sent emails. To encounter my post, they must sign on to Substack, where it will show up in their feed. With these followers in mind, I accompany my posts with notes that typically consist of an attention-grabbing AI-created photo, along with a link to my post. By doing this, I also increase my chances of gaining new followers.

When I started my @morebetterthinking substack last summer, I had followers but no subscribers. Since then, the number of subscribers has swollen, and at present it almost equals my number of followers. Because I routinely accompany my posts with notes, and rarely create notes otherwise, my ratio of notes to posts is approximately 1:1. It has come to my attention, though, that having this ratio makes me a Substack outlier. It would appear that the overall ratio of Substack notes to posts is 10:1.

To understand why this is the case, consider the situation of a Substack content creator. It takes much less time and intellectual effort to dash off a note than to write an article. My notes are typically created in under ten minutes and, truth be told, I have fun creating the images that appear in them. My posts, however, typically require hours of deep thinking to create.

Now consider the situation of a Substack content consumer. In previous posts, I have described the intellectual spectrum, with Feelers at one end and Thinkers at the other—and most people lying somewhere between those extremes. There is reason to think that most people lie toward the Feeler end of the spectrum. (Indeed, there is reason to think that much of the world has lately gone crazy ... but don’t get me started.) Feelers who avail themselves of Substack will be drawn to its notes but turned off by its posts. They tend to be thought-averse, preferring instead to feel their way to conclusions. They don’t want to think more carefully than they do, and certainly don’t want to rethink things they have already thought about—which is precisely what many posts ask them to do.

Notes have multiple functions. They can report news or make announcements. They can also offer advice, maybe in the form of quick fixes for the problems of daily living, or maybe on how Substackers can build and maintain an audience. Many notes simply share inspirational quotes, photos, or memes. In other cases, people write notes in which they tell uplifting stories or recount the ideas that have lately been drifting through their mind.

Don’t get me wrong. This sort of thing has its place. Indeed, I rather enjoy the cartoons of Liza Donnelly. If you are an aspiring Thinker, however, you will think twice about spending the bulk of your Substack visits reading or looking at notes. You will realize that Substack can play the role of a cognitive spa, in which you indulge in confirmation bias by finding notes that reinforce your current beliefs.

Do too much of this, and you run the risk of slipping into a filter bubble—and reduce your chances of emerging from one that you have inadvertently slipped into. Substack is also awash in potential thought surrogates—people who will tell you what to think about any number of issues and events. As a Thinker, you will be willing to rely on expert opinion, but only from a carefully chosen expert and only if it is impractical for you to do your own thinking about a matter.

Substack is special because, if used judiciously, it can play the role of a cognitive gym. You need only bypass its notes in favor of its posts—and choose your posts with care. What you will seek are posts that encourage you to rethink your current beliefs and take a second look at claims that you are tempted to dismiss out of hand, in part because they are at odds with your current beliefs. Want to think more and better about history? Take a look at Heather Cox Richardson. Want to see Thinkers in action? Take a look at Josh Szeps and Sam Harris. Enjoy!