Topic Tuesday #138 2015/03/10 "Short Attention Span Theater"

From Wikipedia : 

Short Attention Span Theater (abbreviated SAST) was an American clip show in which the hosts presented short segments of stand-up comedy acts and scenes from films airing on HBO and Cinemax.

SAST premiered on the Comedy Channel in November 1989; it was one of the channel's initial programs. Because the Comedy Channel, HBO, and Cinemax were all owned by Home Box Office, Inc., the show was used to promote the parent corporation's programming.

In April 1991, the Comedy Channel merged with Ha!, Viacom's competing comedy channel, to form CTV: The Comedy Network; two months later, CTV rebranded as Comedy Central. The network continued to order new episodes of SAST after this transition, but with some modifications.

Why Am I digging up this hilarious relic of the past? Because of the psychological ramifications of the title, and the meaning behind it. Short Attention Span Theater.  I recently read an article about getting your point across in a very time compressed format. Essentially, an elevator pitch.

See the atricle here: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-to-persuade-anyone-of-anything-in-ten-seconds-dg/

There have been many studies over the years as to the average attention span of humans in general and Americans in particular.  It would appear that our attention spans have become smaller over the years. Currently some scientists say that it can be as short as 8 seconds. If you are able to get past that initial transience, then you have a second barrier to get past, the "selective sustained attention" of people is about 5 minutes, and recurring roughly every 5 minutes there on.

Based on this information, if you want to grab someone and hold onto them until they really hear you out you need to capture them in the first 10 seconds and then be interesting and compelling enough to get past the 5 minute sustained attention span, and be able to use the next 5 minutes to get real buy in and compelling motivation to stay with it. Even if you manage this daunting task, you only have 20 minutes before they reach a sort of saturation and need a break to absorb or palate cleanse. Some people will drift away and come back to a topic of interest (or responsibility). Often they have to bounce from one to another to maintain a clear focus without becoming bored. Not only should you be concerned with the target of your elevator pitch, you need to be mindful of your own attentions during the pitch. It is just as easy for you to be distracted as those around you.

We have largely become a culture that is forever inundated with memes and sound bites. All these quick nibbles of information has likely contributed to our diminishing attention spans. There were estimates that placed the attention span of earlier generations as being much longer, though testing methods would be forever contested, anecdotal evidence seems to have some merit in this case. 

ADHD diagnosis may be influenced by the environment they person exists in. Likewise someone that is on the autism spectrum may have an advantage for having a more focused attention span as we travel headlong into a more information rich society.  

Now go see something shiny!