It’s popular to say that our attention spans are getting shorter (though not like a goldfish), but that may not be entirely true. Studies are mixed, but it’s not clear that they’re getting shorter.
Tools like TikTok help play into this idea, where users are fed an endless stream of very short videos to help keep themselves entertained. On the flip side, many people still read books and watch movies, both of which take a great deal of focused attention.
Gary Vaynerchuk recently put it this way (in this interview):
“People are binge watching eight episodes of Netflix for seven hours on a Saturday afternoon. And then people are not watching a six second video after one second because it’s a piece of crap.”
I think what’s really happening is that we’re more discerning about what we’re willing to spend time watching because we have so much out there. 40 years ago, you’d be more likely to watch whatever was on TV (even if it wasn’t very good) because you didn’t have a lot of other options. Now, if whatever you’re consuming doesn’t interest you, you can immediately find something else.
If people aren’t consuming your content to the extent that you’d like, it’s easy to blame short attention spans. In reality, though, Gary is likely correct that this issue is that your content is “crap” and you should spend more time making it compelling to encourage people to stick around.
Just a few days ago, Wes Gay (local StoryBrand guy, https://www.facebook.com/wesgay) posted something very similar:
“People don’t have short attention spans. They just have options.
And they’re allergic to boring.
Watching something that’s not interesting? You can find something else you’d enjoy more. Or something to listen to or read that resonates with you.
People still act like we live in a world with only three TV channels. Not the case.
If people aren’t paying attention, then you’re probably not very interesting.”