Talking to my players

[Talakeal]

Given that note taking isn't writing dialogue, the rest of your post is ignored.
Fun fact: jotting down the important bits on a kneeboard while both flying and listening to the controller is something pilots did for many decades: your "science" is not science. (Haven't flown in a while, so I'm not sure if pilots have dumbed themselves down while following the magenta line and stopped using kneeboards, but we are drifting off topic slightly. I spent a lot of years flying and training pilots).

The above noted, yes cognitive overload is a thing - when all channels get filled up errors start to manifest; accident investigations are replete with exampled. However, simply listening to a person and jotting down the important bits is so damned easy even I as a seventh grader (back when dirt was recent) could do it.

Your assertion that people are unable to handle two channels of information flow is suspect.

How the speaker delivers the information (that's on you, GM) informs how hard that information is to process regardless of what else they may, or may not, be doing. Verbal delivery is a learned skill. Reading a three paragraph long box of text to describe the room, for example, is poor technique.

Someone a few posts up mentioned pauses: yeah, do that. It helps the listener digest what's coming in as they engage the audio channel and the "paint a picture in my brain's eye" channel. (and if they are smart, jot down a note or two)

Mostly agreed.

Its a real problem though; like last session I have a pretty brief description (maybe 3-4 sentences) and the player immediately started writing down what I was saying, fell behind, and then said they missed the second half because they were too busy writing down the first half. I don't see anything wrong with that, to me taking notes in real time is hard, especially when trying to pick out the relevant info from the chaff.

And yeah, I definitely could learn how to improve my process for relaying information, which is why I am asking for advice.

But yeah, three paragraphs of boxed text is way too much. At most I limit myself to one paragraph, and even that is a bit much, generally I prefer to keep it a sentence or less. Even that can get on my players nerves though, in my last game I had two players get pissed off at me for having a villain give a 9 second "monologue".



On a more personal note; did I say something to really upset you? If so I am sorry, that was not my intent. It just seems like you are generally one of the more wise and reasonable posters on the thread, but recently it seems like when you post one of my threads you are going out of your way to point fingers and call names.