Attention spans are getting shorter. I keep hearing it, lots of serious people tell me it, there are plenty of articles explaining why I should be worried by it. The line has become such accepted wisdom I’m surprised it’s not a Baz Luhrmann lyric.
I’m just not sure it’s true. I prefer to believe there are now lots of things competing for our attention, some of which aren’t that interesting.
What I’m definitely sure of is that ‘shorter attention span’ doesn’t mean ‘make content shorter’. Book sales are up (helped by BookTok), 60 million people sat through 127 minutes of Deadpool & Wolverine, the best podcasts are asking for hours of our time. We’ve never consumed so much longform content. We’re queuing up for part two of Wicked and part three of Dune.
Different content lengths (and different media) likely serve different purposes.
Here, a 2.46’ trailer for The Penguin, the 8-part HBO series starring Colin Farrell. It’s actually three separate pieces of content. The first, a six second introduction by Farrell, inviting you to watch the trailer. The second, for the attention deficient, a pre-trailer trailer, selling ‘vibes’ only. Then the classic trailer, intended to summarise without giving away the entire story arc.
Many of the same people prepared to watch the trailer – indeed, only the pre-trailer trailer, will happily find eight hours to binge-watch the entire series. It doesn’t have to be either-or.
It’s the same with the written form. With case study references, the headline is there to grab the attention, the standfirst (or kicker or sell) will provide a summary for those too busy to read the full article. The section headers point readers to specific detail. A pull-quote is a quick flash of colour and personality.
What is undeniable, is that we’re consuming a lot more content. As content creators, the challenge should only be to create content that cuts through. Otherwise, it’s a race to the bottom. And your six seconds will soon need to be two.
*The answer is yes, btw. If it’s great one-liners you want, you could do worse than remind yourself of the brilliance of The Economist ads.
