Have attention spans really shrunk?

Paolo Kernahan

I'VE PROBABLY lost quite a few readers already, but not for the reasons you might imagine.

There's an ongoing debate about attention spans. Some say attention spans have shrunk. Others insist they haven't. The problem, they claim, is that the content – blogs, videos, books, etc – in some cases, just isn't any good.

Folks in the denial camp point to continuing growth in the popularity of podcasts – 464 million (and growing) global listeners. Movies on average are getting longer, even if not necessarily better.

However, compelling scientific research has tracked the decline in attention spans in recent years. Modern stressors coupled with the ubiquity of distractions – social media, streaming, gaming – have all whittled away our focus.

Online platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube simply mirror the consumption patterns of audiences. Video lengths, to a considerable *extent*, are dictated by the never-ending swipe that's such a big part of contemporary culture. It's not just video content. Online articles, in many cases, are noticeably shorter. Some have appended to them "a four-minute read." That reads like shorthand for, c'mon, this isn't going to take that much time.

Makes you wonder how modern audiences are getting through books like War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings. Some of the classics I read in my youth were written back when the principal means of entertainment was sitting around and looking at the radio. Committing to a book like Of Human Bondage was an easier prospect when there were no smartphones or computers.

The truth about attention spans today is more nuanced than a yes-or-no debate. Our ability to sustain focus has been changed by environmental conditions – increased competition for our attention both online and offline. Yet, some data on consumption seems to spar aggressively with the idea of fleeting focus. Contrary to urban myth, people are still reading books. Most signs in the industry point to continued growth in the book market.

What's changed is how these books are being read. People are reading fewer books than they did before, but they're also reading them in sips rather than giving over an hour to a decent immersion. Again, this comes down to the hydra-headed nature of modern living.

Consequently, the way we consume information or entertainment has evolved to account for the division of our focus. Let's look at podcasts again for a moment. Yes, there's growth in that niche, but how many people are actually listening?

In one survey, nearly 60 per cent of respondents said they listen to podcasts while doing something else – driving, commuting, chores, exercising, etc. That's diluted attention, which is less than desirable depending on your niche. The "listening" is intermittent, so the attention is fragmented.

Online content has to be engineered to adapt to the distractable nature of contemporary audiences. Here's a great example and a paradox rolled into one – blogs. It's typically recommended that most blog posts should be between 1500 and 2500 words. That's quite weighty for online content.

Readers of blog posts, however, don't actually "read" them. They scan them, picking out bits that are either of greatest interest or specifically answering a question they have. As such, the best-performing blogs are created to be scannable, with shorter paragraphs and lots of subheadings, pictures, superimposed quotations and graphics. These are all evolutionary adaptations to the way people's attention spans have changed and how they consume content.

It's important to note on the question of attention spans that the audience isn't a monolith. People's motivations and interests vary. As such, the time they apply to reading a blog or a book or watching a video depends on their wants and needs. Notwithstanding the diversity of audiences, though, we're all under the same time and attention pressures. Such demands inevitably brush up against the quality of focus we can apply to any activity or pursuit.

The nature of today's attention spans means we need to be more deliberate and strategic in the way we attract and hold the attention of audiences. This is true whether you're writing a blog, a video script, or even a humble e-mail.

As consumers of content, it's useful to return to the idea of deep focus. "Slow reading" is a great way to get there. For example, committing 15-30 minutes every day to reading an article or a book can mitigate stress and sharpen focus that's dulled by daily distractions. Attention is power because attention is mental clarity – decisiveness, taking action. That's why the whole world is after yours.