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JayDee comments on Open thread for January 1-7, 2014 - Less Wrong
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In this case, it's deliberately non-gendered language. Lower-effort, as kalium says. In my case because I cultivated the habit, in years past.
As both you and Douglas_Knight point out, there are tradeoffs involved. In the case of not gendering pronouns I expect I’ll continue thinking it worthwhile.
But it’s a helpful thing to consider- I’ll bet there are other habits I’ve developed that I’ve never considered if it’s worth the costs. Especially when I contrast my teenaged self – “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me” + “I’ll choose my words for my own aesthetical pleasure” – with the me of today – who does care, and on balance values communication higher than self-expression. I doubt my conversational habits have shifted as far as my preferences have.
I’m also interested by what you say about details. It’s not something I’d’ve thought of, worrying I tend more to being too verbose. But I like to write, and concrete detail / description is the area I’d consider my weakest there. I can think of some ways to practice this (started playing tabletop RPGs recently, for one.)
When it comes to details, the thing that count is whether the details help the person you are talking with to form a picture of the situation that you are describing in their mind.
If you are talking in "I" using colorful language that describes the qualia you perceive is nearly always good. That doesn't mean that sentences should be long. If you can transform one sentence into two, that's often good.
If you are talking in "you" it better to be a bit more vague. If you tell someone: "When you go to work on Monday morning at 7 o'clock and drive though rush hour, you know the feeling where you wish, you could just take a day off?", the might be irritated if they aren't in the habit of going to work at 7 o'clock or don't drive.
I"m okay with non-gendered language. In text it's nearly impossible to see what the words mean for you.
If your teenage self trained a bunch of separate word choices I would look carefully at them and judge whether they are real self-expression or whether they are more of a mask that's supposed to provide shelter.
Authentic self-expression draws attention, wearing a mask reduces it.
May I suggest that you not consider, but just experiment?