ATTENTION SPANS

 

Attention spans aren’t getting shorter at all.

People just guard their time better because content is now, to all intents and purposes, infinite. The sum of human output, knowledge and creativitiy far outweighs our ability to take in even a fraction of it. People guard their time jealously and with increasing ferocity.

Imagine you were told you had £28,725.50 in the bank on the day you were born and that’s all you would ever receive. You’d make sure you spent it wisely. That figure is your life expectancy, measured in days, if you were born in the UK. There’s a limited amount to spend and so much to spend it on.

My attention span is not getting shorter, but the threshold for holding my interest is getting higher. Don’t bore me. Please.

For the love of everything you hold dear, don’t bore me. Not only will I be bored, I’ll be annoyed that you’re boring, because I gambled a proportion of my 28,725.5 days on you and you wasted it.