Are attention spans declining?

Year on year the number of books we read continues to fall. Longer blogs are receiving less traffic than short ones, and '140 characters' appears to rule the world. Are we really in danger of falling attention spans?

This was the question put to some of us on LinkedIn, through the group - TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. And below is a selection of the more noteworthy replies.

But before that, consider this...



...wow, now there's a lot of information for you. Did you manage to keep up and take it all in ok? And has the answer to the question just popped in your head?


"Has the attention span declined or was it artificially elongated in the past by books and slow learning methods? Kids learn very quickly as is demonstrated by how quickly they take to computer games, yet are bored stupid in school.



Great Ted talk by Bill Gates saying how he went into the new type of school and sat in on a class which was totally different to anything he'd experienced. The teacher was highly energetic and constantly evaluating and re-motivating each student as he/she saw the attention dropping off.

Perhaps new technology allows us to learn at our real pace - an small example is that I read D'Vinci code in a couple of days, but watched the film in a couple of hours. I'm learning about things on Ted I would never read about, as perhaps my attention wouldn't be kept long enough by a book to the point of becomming interested."

...

"There was an era when symbols of communication later and now known as letters of the alphabet were the highest technological achievement, a development that would allow the spoken word and later written word be communicated to those that failed to be part of that conversation, so that they would reap the benefits of the discussions, events, speeches, you name it.



Written records, accounts, became the then bridge that closed the gap in the communication divide experienced by others due to factors like time, geographic locations and countless others that restricted them and us on being part of; and to be engaged in such discussions. Because of these developments we can still have the conversations with Darwin, Newton, Socrates through Plato, Ras Tafari, Ghandi, Moses, Mohamed, OR Thambo, Steve Biko.



This is an era where by these very same symbols have just changed the medium, from ink and paper, now to binary and the facilitating interfaces. It is an era that facilitates quick responses to inquiries that could have taken ages to respond to. This is an era that is accommodative of those that have a short attention span (of which we should not vilify) and those with a long attention span (if there is such an expression).

Maybe books have lost the appeal they used to have, but the very symbols that the books carry are still used for the very same purpose; and that purpose is to have that conversation, be part of that event and the discussion as we are having right now."

...

"This is an issue for theatre performance as well. Traditional story telling is losing its appeal. Linear storytelling with a beginning, middle and end may well be a thing of the past. The importance of plot and character may fall prey to celebrity and spectacle. The time pressure to communicate an idea or meaning in a very limited amount of time will ultimately reduce available alternatives. Will books, movies and theatre performance hold our attention? Will they remain financially viable means of imparting information?"

...

"Stefan, if I may...

Possibly we can consider here that allowing the general population access to books and long literary works is a relatively new phenomena. Going back in time (for the majority of the history of mankind) it was only few scholars and leaders that were given the opportunity. Then, these 'leaders' would issue proclamations, give verbal lessons and, essentially "tweet" salient points, together with their views, to the masses. It has only been in relatively recent times, with the advent of the printing press and the publishing industry, that people were encouraged to read, and this began mostly so they could learn the skills needed to support the industrial revolution. Literacy of the masses became useful to the economic/industrial leaders.

Now, we have come out of the industrial revolution, things move seemingly at the speed of light, and once we have completed our formal education people are now encouraged, and given access to electronic reviews, posts, short news clips and sound bites as a resource to 'keep up' and at the same time still have time to do the things leaders need them to do in order to support the economy. Reading full books has once again become a counterproductive luxury...

It's not a new phenomena, and I submit (tongue-in-cheek), the readership of books, long blogs and the like is once again rightfully returning to the world of scholars."

...

"There is great value in brevity.



A message can be improved by presenting it is less time. At toastmasters, I encourage members to improve their speech by taking things out.



A ten minute speech is too long for the regular weekly meeting format. Speakers must make their points in 5 to 7 minutes. Inexperienced speakers think they should talk faster. But the better speakers will include only 3 main points. By thoughtfully selecting which points to include, they remove something that is less important; less valuable; less interesting. This process makes the resulting presentation better.



Do the same exercise for a two minute elevator pitch. Include only one important point; open with an attention grabbing concept and finish with a call to action. 

When a message is reduced even more, as in a 60 second commercial, it will be even better. "I'd like to teach the world to sing..."

...

"I would say knowledge in 21C has got seggrated in different buckets, thanks to internet. We have instant knowledge beepers like Twitter which are more for reactive knowledge adaption(you read and then react to knowledge), then comes wikis which are highlighters, as in it provides a high level information. 


But books still remains as most credible source of knowledge. People still use books as source of information and not wikis and twitter, since success of former is defined more clearly with credible facts and information versus success of a twitter or wiki which can be easily manipulated with false followers to reflect as leading ones in their category.

The explosion of twitters of the world will always be short lived, and will be 
killed by next smarter application. Orkut was once considered as "The" networking application before Facebook.

I would put it like this- The interest in books has not decreased that much but there has been an increase in interest by people to read more about knowledge of new areas which they could not afford earlier due to high price tag of books. 
I would see this as a growth of a century coined as - Knowledge based Era."

...

"The function of a book is not only to deliver a categorical message. For example, the "message" might be an experience of tension and resolution which is created by a skilled author to present a moral or ethical paradox.



Mark Perloe is correct that it is an issue for theatre, and of course, for all the "classical" temporal (performance) arts. They all share a level of subtlety that is transparent only to those who have developed their understanding of the 'vocabulary'. Unfortunately, many people aren't even aware that such vocabularies exist.

Stefan, when you refer to "books", what category of books are you referring to? Great literature, or corner store thrillers, or business books? And in which cultures?"

...

"Perhaps the challenge is the time pressures that we all feel from 21st Century living .... along with the instant gratification conditioning that have crept into global society.

It's the "I want knowledge and I want insight .... I want it FAST. If it doesn't grab my attention in 30 seconds .... bye, bye.

This reminds me of the old elevator speech ... and I think it is more critical than ever. I believe we can no longer sit back and think "I've got some really good stuff here, why isn't it getting a fair hearing?". In the world of media communication overload - we all have figure out our own 'Dive Bomber Leadership' for getting our messages across. Irrespective whether that message is for business, for pleasure, for community, for charity. We have to create our own 30-second elevator speech in order to get through the noise and for the good stuff to be heard.

Dive Bomber Leadership" [with acknowledgement to Bhanu Dhir]



Taking a high level overview helps you see what is really going on, however, unless you fly low, you will never really undersatnd what you see.

1. Dive Bombers fly low, take chances and act with precision
2. Acting with precision is necessary because there is always too much to do
3. So, what is the intervention you can take that will yeild the greatest results

4. It's all about Project Management and Stakeholder Management
5. How are you managing your 'social media communication' project? Are you managing it as a project?
6. How are you managing your 'social media' stakeholders 

LinkedIN, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ecademy, Xing, Ning, Ping, iPhone, SMS, Voicemail, Email and not forgetting to mention the myriads of webmunities (web communities). That's what we see at 40,000 feet ... but which one should be our target - you can see that as 'destroy' or to be 'saved'.



Finally, Rand MacIvor (commented here already) has a wonderful blog about creative communications - it's simply brilliant and refreshing in the world of blogs. It contains few words but the message about thinking creatively is clear and it captures people's attention quickly and it is very, very inspiring."

...

"Could it just be we're moving rapidly towards a "hive mind," where no particular node (i.e. human being) needs to have large, in depth thoughts...but where each of us contributes our bits and bytes to the larger organism of which we're a part? As the internet, frequent jet travel, globalized economies and cultures continue to grow, the value of the individual appears to be changing...and where it once required a human to have a complete and in-depth picture of what was going on around them in order to be effective contributors to society, that something else is now (or will be) required?"

...

"I believe that this interesting topic has a deep element of human nature in it. I believe the human animal is tied innately to symbolism, due to the his/her reliance on the sense of sight first.

The speed of conveying this symbolism has progressed geometrically throughout history. From cave paintings to stone tablets to illuminated manuscripts to paper and pen to pencil to typewriter to email to twitter. In the same way as the conveying of information has evolved, so has the receiving of it. What would have taken a whole night to paint on the side of a wall can now be tweeted in minutes. A friend of mine told me he had just read that it took 80 years for the pencil to be accepted and in general use. How long did it take twitter to catch on? 3 months? I believe we all hunger for knowledge, and we think the faster, the better.

Genrich Altschuller describes the general description of this evolution in his Eight Patterns of Evolution of All Technical Systems. One of the patterns says that systems progress from mechanical to electrical to electronic to "fields". Another says as systems evolve they become more dynamic and more controllable. Another says that systems go from macro systems to micro systems (and now to nano systems). Smaller and faster.



All that being said, I think there is something unique about the book. It is in your hand. It has all the knowledge. It is a textural and tactile a physical experience. You can re-read anything you want at your own pace. You can dog ear the pages and no one knows. You can even make notes, and no one can hack into it (if you keep it hidden). There is nothing like sitting beside a fire in the fireplace with a glass of port and a good book for a night of imagery and imagination.

Books might get used less, but like those who said the video would kill the movies, we are more complex than that, and there is more to it than that."

...

"Kent, Good point. How can attention spans be 'getting' shorter. Our attention spans the length required to attend to the specific item. If it is a 30 second YouTube video, then it is a 30 second span, if it's 2hrs for Avatar then the span is necessarily 2 hours if we so choose. 

I think perhaps the original observation is that we are seeming to choose to attend to things which require a shorter span of attention?"

...

"I am probably older than just about everyone (if not everyone) who answered as I am in my 60s. I strongly believe that attention spans are a lot shorter than they used to be - part of the reason is that we have so much coming at us due to technology exploding that we are losing the ability to concentrate on any one thing for very long. I also think that we are trying to fit so much more into our days because we all believe we have to. I find that everything I do now has to be fast - that I don't want to waste time. In many ways, technology is wonderful, but in other ways we forgetting that there is a lot more to life than just being busy. We really do need to learn to "stop and smell the roses".

You can both read and contribute to the thread here.