THE ATTENTION DEFICIT: HOW BRANDS CAN BE HEARD IN A WORLD OF MEDIA OVERLOAD
THE COMPETITION TO BE HEARD HAS NEVER BEEN GREATER. PEOPLE HAVE ACCESS TO MORE CONTENT, AT MORE SPEED AND ACROSS MORE DEVICES THAN EVER BEFORE. HOW CAN BRANDS CUT THROUGH AND BUILD CONNECTIONS WITH PEOPLE WHEN THE CHOICE OF WHAT TO ENGAGE WITH IS SO VAST?
A (SHORT) HISTORY OF ATTENTION
According to a recent study, the average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds today.
This unfortunately puts us on a par with the goldfish, whoseattention span is estimated at 9 seconds. While that statistic may be tongue-in-cheek, we can all recognise the behaviours that contribute to fragmented attention. Staying on top of your inbox and Twitter feed have become two of life’s constant challenges – we’re trying to consume more information at more speed acrossmore devices than ever before:
Speed of information:
In 1805, news of Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar took 17 days to reach London, a speed of 3 mph over a distance of 1,110 miles. By 1865, news of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln travelled at 13 mph to reach London in 13 days2. How long does it take today? When the 2011 tsunami hit the coast of Japan, people in London knew about it in little more than a minute: a speed of over 350,000 mph. Information today is effectively instantaneous, and there’s more of it...
Volume of information:
When we consider all the devices people have in their homes and on their person, we find that we’re attempting to consume 15 hours of media per day3 and each of us is exposed to a volume of information equivalent to almost 200 newspapers daily4 – a more than fivefold increase since before the internet.
More devices:
Of course, it’s impossible to process all this information and part of the reason is multi-screening. This is the attempt to engage with two or more devices at the same time, such as checking your phone while watching TV. The IPA TouchPoints5 study found that 54% of adults and 79% of 15-24s multiscreen weekly, which is enabled by
the average GB household now having 4 internet enabled devices and 5% owning 8 or more.
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