They say our attention spans are now worse than a goldfish’s.
I’m not too sure if that’s true, but I do see instances of it being proven true.
A couple of examples off the top of my head:
People skipping songs before they even get to the end (Probably not the best example, but I’ll list it anyway).
Checking social media in the middle of doing work.
Skimming through any kind of long form content.
I once heard that our attention spans didn’t necessarily get worse, it just evolved so now we’re more selective of what we pay attention to, which makes sense.
Or it’s the fact that we’re constantly surrounded by distractions, which I think makes the most sense.
Think about it.
When we’re in the middle of doing work, there’s nothing stopping us from going on our phones or opening another browser tab to look at social media.
When we’re watching YouTube videos, it’s so easy for a video thumbnail on the sidebar to catch our attention.
Content creators are aware of this.
When they put out videos or other types of content, they take that into consideration.
There’s a YouTube channel I revisited recently. They stopped creating content four years ago. But I rewatched one of their more recent videos and then watched a video they released over 10 years ago. It was amazing when I noticed how much slower paced that 10 year video was compared to the four year old video. Every part of my brain wanted me to click away while I was watching the 10 year old video.
And Jeff Mendelson is no exception.
He runs The One Big Tip Podcast and it’s exactly what it sounds like. He brings in guests and they share one actionable tip related to business and marketing. Most episodes are only 10 minutes long, as opposed to one hour long episodes (I even once saw a podcast episode that was three hours long!).
You can listen to the episode where it featured yours truly.
If you want to give it a listen, all you have to do is click the link below and look for the audio titled,
“Inject Entertainment: Writing Emails Your Audience Will Love to Read.”