It’s not an overstatement that you barely have any time to get your audience’s eyes on your content online due to their short attention spans. It’s a challenge for everyone, including digital creators, who need to find a way to connect with their audience before they scroll down.
As Time magazine reports, people’s attention spans have been decreasing drastically in recent years. There’s a so-called inattention pandemic, according to Adam Brown, the co-director of the Center for Attention, Learning, and Memory at St. Bonaventure University in New York.
One of the main reasons why your attention span is suffering comes down to screen and internet use. Essentially, our brains crave novelty, social connection, and excitement. This is why notifications on your screens give you a dopamine boost.
Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, explained to Time that the internet was designed to capitalize on how humans think. “It’s not just the fact that there’s algorithms catching our attention. We have this sense that we have to respond, we have to check.”
The issue is that the more you get distracted, shift your attention, and switch tasks—for instance, to check your phone—the more your brain wants to “wander and look for that new thing,” says Brown. In short, being distracted eventually becomes a habit.
Based on Mark’s research, now, the average time before a person’s focus shifts from using an electronic device to something new is just 47 seconds. This number used to be around 2.5 minutes a couple of decades ago.
However, despite the drop in your attention span, it’s unlikely that this is permanent. A lot depends on how interesting you find a piece of content and what your lifestyle is like.
If all you do is consume a lot of short-form content (TikTok clips, Instagram reels, memes in your social media feed), you could try consuming more long-form content.
Intentionally give your undivided attention to a book, movie, essay, or article, and build your habit of focusing.
Something else that you can do is physically keep your screens and devices in places that are hard(er) to reach.
For example, everyone can take their phone and put it in a different room or in their bag so that they’re not enticed to keep checking it or reacting to non-stop notifications. (Switching on your phone’s Do Not Disturb mode is also wonderful for your peace of mind.)
Whether or not these pics will tickle your funny bone depends entirely on your sense of humor and interests. Random memes and pics aren’t up everyone’s alley. Some people prefer ‘traditional’ memes that are easily relatable and have a more straightforward format and approach to comedy.
However, other internet users are the opposite and embrace the chaos, irony, and lack of context because, for them, it’s a fresh way of looking at the world. And, to be fair, sometimes old meme formats get a tad stale.
