Oh, FFS. There no new trend. Newspapers have been doing this for more than a century. The internet is more like newspapers than it is like books. Short paragraphs exist for the excellent reason that in their proper context, they are easier to read and improve comprehension. Why should anyone be against that?
I’ve been using smaller paragraphs on the Web for quite some time, and I agree with the other posters who say that more white space is easier to follow.
However, that is only the case for media which automatically get rid of double spacing after a period (such as HTML). The dot followed by a single space can barely be distinguished from just a regular word break. While I admit that a double-spaced sentence break is less aesthetically pleasing, it more clearly breaks up the paragraph into sentences. With single spacing, a paragraph looks like a wall of text rather than a structure containing discrete sentences.
Does any software not eliminate extra spacing? Well, there must be some, but I can’t remember seeing any normal webpage with it for a long time. Can you give examples?
this sentence has extra spaces, added deliberately using html
John Sandford uses a lot of shorter paragraphs.
I like his style.
QED
It doesn’t now. That’s how much the world hates extra spaces!
You have defeated the much-ballyhooed Space Force!
I just used my Jedi powers. These are not the spaces you’re looking for!
The attention span of many people was never that great.
It’s worse now.
Technology. Covid. Expectations of being always available. Type A Personalities. Prioritizing being busy.
Who wants to read a whole page? Unless you count doomscrolling, since a digital page can be as long as ones attention span.
TL, DR: Four words good. Two chapters bad.