Scrolling is killing our attention span! Scrolling reels and videos is destroying our ability to concentrate. We are now seeing shorter TED talks. We’ve all heard we have to grab people’s attention in the first 3 seconds of a video or they scroll past. That, together with our demand for short form video has led us to believe our attention spans are getting shorter.
I even emailed my TEDx speakers this year saying 10-12 minutes is optimum. Don’t go to the full 18 minutes allowed by TEDx for your talk time – people will switch off. You’ll lose them and your talk will not get the views you’re after. The Guardian wrote about it
I decided I couldn’t let my speakers see this so, I promised to email it to them afterwards. Which I did as it showed it is not our attention spans that are getting shorter.
We are happy to watch longer films (average film length in 2014 of the top 10 grossing movies in the UK averaged 129 minutes compared to 110 minutes between 1985 and 2000. [YouGov])
We’re happy to read longer article and books and consume longer video content. [In 2015 A new survey of bestsellers and critics’ picks has concluded that the average book is now 25% bigger than 15 years ago.]
I love listening to in depth, longer podcasts over 20 minutes. Adam Grant has actually recorded a podcast about it with historian Daniel Immerwahr. Listen here
So what is it that has changed? Are our attention spans actually increasing? What is making us consume some content but switch off from others?
We are drowning in content, everyone is a content creator, some of it is incredible and some of it is dirge you don’t even want to spend 3 seconds on.
Is your content captivating?
Your content needs to be engaging, rich in ideas and stories that draw you in, capture your imagination and make you want to watch more, read the next paragraph or listen to more of your podcast.
I love a TED talk, 18 minutes is just enough to get into the idea, to understand it, look at the data, hear the stories and change my mind about something. It can educate me about something I never knew about before. However Carole Cadwalladr could talk for 30 minutes and I would not be looking at my phone.
I can listen well for 45 minutes of a podcast, including a Q&A with the guest . I can even go up to an hour on those. In fact, I just listened to 90 minutes of Steven Bartlett and the “godfather of AI”. Ninety minutes and my attention was held THE WHOLE TIME.
In both these cases though the content, idea, guest, topic was enticing and delivered in an engaging way. It really is all about the quality of your content. We have the capacity to engage with longer forms of content, it just has to be high quality.
When you’re programming your next event, don’t focus on the length of talk, focus on the content – make sure it’s engaging and give the speaker the appropriate amount of time to get their idea across. It’s the content and delivery that matters. That is what will captivate and engage people.
