Attention span’s evolution.

For better or worse, digital has changed our lives. Shopping, watching TV series or traveling have been altered and during this process, we’ve become more intolerant beings. Attention span has evolved and brands must find the most appropriate ways to keep attracting users’ attention. Welcome to the age of digital anxiety.

In the late 18th century, the industrial revolution caused many changes in societies: agriculture, science, politics, transport and the society as a whole received the impact and, undoubtedly, people’s psyches were also affected.

Imagining the psychological effects suffered by people in the past is now easier to understand because we are currently being impacted by the digital age and all that comes with it. And if that wasn’t enough, it seems that we’re going through even more pronounced changes.

The digital anxiety is caused by the power of instantaneity and immediate reward of the digital age.

Digital anxiety: symptoms and effects.

• Digital attention span has gone from 12 seconds on average (year 2000) to 8.25 seconds (year 2015).
• More distractions: on average users check e-mail 30 times per hour and 1,500 times a week they check their mobile phones.
• An average user reads 28% of the words on a website.
• The average duration of a web visit is less than 1 minute and in the majority of cases between 10 to 20 seconds.
• Facebook users spend 1.7 seconds on average with any mobile content compared to 2.5 seconds on desktop.

But not everything is lost. What happened in the last few years is that tolerance has decreased and users have become pickier about what kind of content to pay attention to. Thus, with greater intolerance, users are more likely to dismiss or ignore the uninteresting or irrelevant content.

When users are impacted by relevant and significant content, they consume it, even if it means 8 seasons with 20 1-hour chapters or Harry Potter’s massive books. So anxiety exists, but there is also another side of the same coin. The one where dedicated attention to content which users consider truly interesting or relevant still exists and nowadays is becoming more pronounced.

So, how brands can keep capturing users’ attention?

The battle for consumer attention

Yes indeed. We are in the middle of a battle without quarter because brands compete between each other for the same “reduced” users’ attention.

Undoubtedly, everything depends on the type of brand we are talking about, but most of them have a common goal: build medium and long term relationships with their audiences. And with only snack or fast-consuming content, that won’t be possible.

In a solid content strategy there is a complementarity between the light/snack contents (easily consumed) and the deeper or more complex ones, those that require more attention or a type of action from the users, thus demanding greater attention from them.

It’s neither one nor the other, an effective strategy must include these two types of content where users can choose which type of content to consume at a given time or place. After all, it’s about reaching a high level of personalization for users and keeping in sight the brands or businesses’ goals.

Some tips to keep in mind to have the most effective weapons to win this battle:

• Useful and relevant ads: personalization and creativity are key factors to attract user’s attention. A common mistake such as showing an auto insurance ad to someone who doesn’t even own car is very harmful for the brand, but also to the digital experience as a whole. This type of nonsense is one of the factors that fueled the current intolerance in the digital ecosystem. With machine learning and with good creativity, there are many tools available to reach users in new and engaging ways.
• Improve loading speed: faster is always better in the digital age. A slow website is a main cause of abandonment in the vast majority of cases. According to a Google research 53% of users leave a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load. From that starting point, USERS CAN’T WAIT, so it’s always necessary to improve the loading speed of a website/landing/app to reduce waiting times.
• Focus on humans, not channels: it’s key to align the users’ expectations at each stage of the purchase cycle with the business goals. It’s fundamental to ensure that the user’s experience is the best and most relevant at every contact point. In the digital era, users have practically infinite possibilities of choosing the paths they wish and it’s the ultimate goal of the marketing area as a whole to “accompany” them in an integral experience to show users the content that marketing experts design and implement.