[dudul]

"Last summer, my kids and I spent a month in Greece, where their grandfather lives."

Very first sentence of the article.

God do I hate this style. Do we always need to start with your own, personal, true-to-you, totally-happened experience this one time?

Is it a new thing or it's always been like that and I didn't realize it?

[paulryanrogers]

Is it really so distracting from the larger point? Are you aware of counter evidence, proving Greece is systematically neglecting its children? Keep reading

[dudul]

Yes it is distracting. I'm sure Greece, like all other countries in the world except America, treats its children wonderfully, but I don't need to know that the author spent 2 weeks on vacation there, and everybody was so nice to their kids in the bookstore or the library.

And maybe the article eventually uses data that goes beyond "my 2 weeks visiting my dad", but then why do I need this idiotic intro? Is it supposed to build some sort of credibility, like "I was there, I saw it, I experienced it, now you have to agree with me"?

Anyway, no I didn't keep reading.

[clove]

I've seen this type of writing a lot, and I agree with you: It's an excuse to draw attention to the writer.

Anecdotes aren't bad if they lead into something more substantive. E.g., "My experience with my kids in Greece got me interested in [concept], and here is the data that I collected; my conclusion is that..."

But no, it's usually like: Check out this experience I had or quirky thing I do. Now let's talk about something tangentially related.

It's really a need to vent being displayed most prominently. Maybe covid/social media/WFM/inflation/whatever you want to blame has made people lonely to the point of trying to add water cooler talk into their publications.

[Mountain_Skies]

Making an emotional connection with the reader builds trust which later can be exploited to present assertions without solid evidence.

[techdragon]

Yes…

but often it tells you how little time they have spent actually engaged with the real truth of the place or places they are about to compare the problems of wherever they live, instead of the idealistic view of someone who was visiting family or being a tourist … it is a shortcut to that emotional connection to the reader, but taking that can sometimes leave the writer clearly marked as not actually having any grounds upon which the rest of their arguments can stand…

This however doesn’t appear to suffer from that. It seems quite well considered.