The New Attention Span
I was recently reading a post on LinkedIn, a popular business networking site. The post was an answer to a blogging question – the post explained that the new “millennium generation” has a very short attention span.
I would suspect resulting from a mass of information, quick television ads, computers, cell phones, and all the other technology that seems to whip past us at light speed, caused this short attention span.
Leading to applications such as Twitter and other Live Web sites.
Maybe Twitter limits its posts to 140 characters because that is the limit of peoples attention span nowadays?
The writer went on to say that not only do people not have time to thoroughly read much in depth, but with tweets popping up every 10 seconds, they basically have to extreme multi-task just to keep up.
How do they do it?
They scan very quickly. Unless it is something that directly relates to their interest or job function, people now give about 2 seconds to scan a post or tweet to see if it warrents further examination. Even if your post IS interesting, if it comes in the middle of an extreme scan by a reader, it still might get passed over.
So, as a blogger or business owner, how can you get your message out to the new attention span audience?
Keep your introductions short. Keep your tweets short, succinct, and to the poing.
People tend to notice messages that are new, different, and exciting.
Of course, it depends who your target audience is, and what your call to action is (what action you would like your reader / customer to do when they get to your site or store).
What is your attention span? Post a comment and let the world know.
