Three Seconds
Posted January 8th, 2006 at 04:38pm
There’s a well-known maxim in advertising circles that you have approximately three seconds to hook your viewing audience with an ad. Within that time, a lot has to happen. Your viewer has to see the ad, assess the overall image, be influenced by the colours, drift to the area of main importance (the “heat”), zero in on the central visual or text message, absorb that, identify the significance of that with one’s own experience in some way, and then make a decision to carry on investigating the message or text. Now, no one tells you how to do this. The human mind is an astonishing contraption, capable of incredibly complex procedures and analysis within milliseconds, and it does all this automatically. The patience so advocated just a half-century ago is a rare commodity, and our little grey cells have been trained, as by a crack military drill, to disregard those advertisements that require more than three seconds’ investment.
Harken back to novels written in Victorian times and compare them to those today, and you’ll get a similar appreciation of how our minds are beginning to change when faced with a rapid-fire deluge of information. Way back when snuff was fashionable and the glimpse of a woman’s ankles was grounds for marriage, novels and stories often began with long and arduous descriptions of setting, delving into the intricacies of weather, tree branches, rock formations, the collapsing of a farmer’s wall down the road, and the progressive deterioration of several generations of day lilies. Today, we tend to favour in media res, beginning in the middle of things. The first paragraph of the first chapter, and we are already on the roller-coaster, holding tight. (Yes, literary pundits will think of a million exceptions here — I’m speaking in generalities.)
And then there’s incoming information, such as news. When you look at century-old newspapers (well, all but the most lurid ones — the Illustrated Police News‘ graphic and gruesome depictions of crimes such as those of Jack the Ripper are a notable exception), you’ll find many long-winded though inconsequential paragraphs that are polite to the point of verbosity, and verbose to the point of inducing sleep. Nowadays, we have approximately two seconds per headline, and –if we’re still interested– approximately three seconds’ reading to decide if we want to carry on with the rest. Hence the snappy, terse and oft-sensational writing of many modern papers and tabloids.
And then there’s that darn source of endless interaction, distraction and inaction, the Internet. How is that affecting the way we take in and process information? A few months ago, I posted an entry here called Who Would You Phone?, wherein I gave the example of a quiz show contestant with a choice to phone either someone with a good general knowledge-base, or someone well-versed with Google; I suspect that most people would choose the latter. This post was just picked up by my favourite educational blog, Weblogg-ed: go there and read Will’s lucid commentary, along with some very interesting ideas from his readers. Meanwhile, I’m just going to follow up with a few more thoughts here on my own little venue.
I’ve always maintained that folks today (and especially children) living in a technological society are being forced to adapt to a new way of learning and understanding, one that puts into place a number of “filters” to sift through vast quantities of information, gather the pertinent items, allocate a certain importance to each nugget found, and then bring these often-disparate items into some sort of tighter and holistic focus (which is quite close to the “vetting, synthesizing and recognizing patterns” that Will mentions on Weblogg-ed). Faced with over a thousand pieces of significant information per hour, how would we not? Bloglines, del.icio.us, DEVONthink/ DEVONagent, Tinderbox, Zoot, Copernic, and other web-based and client-side applications are there to help us, of course, as is the ability of Google to present results by way of both popularity and pertinence (well, depending on your search skills, of course).
And while we can teach people about acquiring and fine-tuning certain of these filters, most of them will come naturally over time as we learn to deal more effectively with the deluge of data. It’s similar to how we’ve learned to implement a “three second timer.”
Now, while it was never my intention in the original article to propose a return to yesterday (I definitely prefer the instant access of online library catalogues over their card brethern, and I use Wikipedia far more often than its two-hundred pound cousin atop the bookshelves), my main concern was how we were displacing knowledge with information retrieval. That contraption inside our skulls is a far more powerful computer than any search engine, and its primary strength relies upon its ability to analyse. Chief, then, is the comprehension of an undercurrent beneath the facts, upon which the facts can be seen and understood in their proper perspective. For example, while we don’t need to remember all the gods atop Mount Olympus, we should be familiar with the notion of myth and how it applies to our understanding of culture, history, religion and science. The dates pertaining to the rise and fall of the Third Reich mean little without realising the how and why. It’s the age-old and interdependent cycle of analysis and facts: facts, by themselves, are quite useless. Information retrieval, in itself, means nothing without the ability to process that data.
So, yes, filters are important in this age. But I lament the situation of many students I know who believe that finding information quickly is an excellent substitute for knowing or understanding it.
To be sure, we gather and we filter more effectively each day. And our power of analysis is just as robust today as ever. So where does the problem lie?
The missing link today, I maintain, is the ability to focus. This is the private time, the breathing space, that the mind needs to assimilate and digest the information. Think about cramming for an exam — spending a day or two of intense study– as opposed to paying attention to the material all throughout a semester and learning it slowly, incrementally. One results in a quick but lacklustre pass, while the other leads to long-term understanding of the subject. Each day we cram more into our skulls, and understand less, because we are devaluing the notion of focus.
How to focus, though, is quite another matter, and one that differs so much per individual, circumstance and subject matter that it becomes impossible to produce a one-size-fits-all answer. For example, I find I can focus better on productivity issues –on gathering facts, analysing them, and making decisions– with a paper-based planner system. I learn facts better by sitting down in a nice cozy chair, in a room free of distractions, with a real book. I focus upon digital data by gathering all the important stuff into DEVONthink, letting it come up with correlations, and musing upon how it all fits together. And I’m far more creative when I can focus on a piece of paper or a whiteboard for extended periods in a room with creative individuals, instead of a solitary computer screen. That works for me — other people will find better tools for the job.
Really, it’s all about learning to think through the noise. Gathering, filtering and analysing are skills learned by exposure and experience, but focus is the only thing we must try hard to achieve. Lack of it is the single greatest obstacle to productivity and education today, one that can’t be solved simply by throwing more technology and data at it. Indeed, those three seconds may become two.
12 Comments Add your own
1. Cuccu | January 9th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
My major college professor (20 years ago) once talked about two fellow students he admired during his undergraduate years. He said that outside of class, they were fun-loving party guys, but during class their focus was legendary. That focus set them apart from the other students and helped them to achieve more in less time.
I didn’t get it at the time, but I’ve never forgotten it. Now I know he was right.
2. David Cruickshank | January 9th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
A fascinating insight, thank you.
I find there is a wonderful paradox around focus. By defnition, to focus on one thing is to lose sight of another and so the more time we spend focusing at one level, the less focus we have one level higher.
Focus, as you use it, implies attention to detail at a given level of granularity. The challenge nowadays is that we are provided with floods of information at every level - and the question we must perpetually ask is ‘what’s the best level to focus at’.
3. Todd | January 10th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Good stuff - thanks. David Allen linked to you, by the way.
4. Todd | January 10th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Of course, had I read the comments on his post before I posted here, I would’ve seen your response…
5. Brad Reid | January 11th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Speaking objectively about subjective events is never easy. I think I know what you’re getting at, but I wonder if some other metaphors (time-tested chestnuts) like “needing to see the big picture” or “not being able to see the forest for the trees” might help your rhetoric.
I was particularly struck by your idea that we could be devaluing the notion of focus. Here I think the threat might be especially prevalent among the young, who by becoming too used to a pop culture stream that is specially prepared for their own easy consumption are never even led to suspect the existence of such a thing as “the big picture.” Perhaps for some of them “the big picture” will never be anything more than a vague suspicion resting in the back of their minds while they spend their lives getting angry with a world that keeps banging up against them.
6. Kurt Settles | January 14th, 2006 at 3:17 am
Great post (as usual).
Recently I became aware that the amount of information I was allowing into my head was causing a “brain fog”, a sort of constant state of confusion. Notice that I said “allowing”. The ability to focus is directly related to the ability to maintain self-discipline. Many of the lifehacks being promoted on the internet are methods to counteract and redirect the information flow, to workaround the need for self-discipline.
Bloglines and del.icio.us and other information aggregation tools are great when used with self-control. Unfortunately, the layered/linked information that they present makes it very easy to break focus. Essentially, the depth of information is thin, but very broad.
I use Wikipedia at times, but it does not lend itself to focused research. Again, the layered/linked information is distracting. And, the distraction creates an impairment to understanding, interpreting, and intuitve learning.
7. Mark Bernstein | January 15th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
The difficulty with the observation that our attention spans are getting shorter — that our novels are tighter and our entertainments more immersive — is that the facts don’t fit the claim.
Look at popular film. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: a 100-hour, densely metaphorical film about growing up, filmed over 7 years and intended to be viewed over the same period. BABYLON 5, also almost 100 hours in length, conceived and executed as a single story. These aren’t lightweight, and they aren’t short, and they do require attention.
Look at the novel. Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey-Maturin books are best viewed as a 20-volume adventure novel. The most popular genre fiction of our era is the mystery serial, closely followed by the serial thriller. Downmarket, you’ve got entertainments like W.E.B. Griffin’s THE CORPS, currently clocking in at seven or eight volumes and pushing 3000 pages. From children’s literature (HARRY POTTER, or HIS DARK MATERIALS) to pop fiction to mainstream lit (ON BEAUTY, or the new Tom Wolfe), we’ve got thick books — often appearing over a span of years, some appearing over decades.
Yes, a lot of contemporary fiction begins in media res. So does The Iliad. Homer had to get people to sit down and shut up so he could be heard, and so he gets right down to it. SING! O Muse!
8. dougj | January 16th, 2006 at 12:51 am
I hear what you’re saying, Mark, and well-said. To a certain extent I agree. I myself was quite caught up in the Babylon 5 series, almost as much as I am with the new Battlestar Galactica.
But I believe that both of these series are exceptions. Even the genre of science fiction, one that appeals so much (statistically, at least) to quite intelligent people, is quite riddled with sub-par but high budget shows that an eight-year-old could digest while playing his Gameboy. The other night, while searching through the listings of the Space channel for the season premiere of BG, I saw episode after episode of rapid-fire, depressingly childish shows with no regard for either the attention span or intelligence of their viewers.
True, one will see the occasional Harry Potter or Narnia or Tom Wolfe or Grafton or what-have-you, but let’s face it: these have the power of popularity, media and distribution behind them (and yes, quality, too). And what’s the statistic for the average number of books read from cover-to-cover in the US? I think it’s one book per person per 20 months? How many hours of fast-paced or mindless television are watched per person per week? 43, isn’t it? (Someone please correct my memory if it’s wrong.)
Most of this boils down to a simple point: given a choice, how would most people, statistically-speaking, rather spend an evening — watching some light, fast-paced fare on television, or jumping into a thick novel that may take a few weeks to read?
When I was working with a marketing/communications company about six or seven years ago, I did some pretty extensive reading about psychological studies conducted to determine a person’s attention span, and was behind the glass at more than one focus group study. Studies conducted by advertisers and psychologists from the 1940’s to today show that our attention span has been getting progessively shorter over the decades. Nowadays, as a rule of thumb, younger and more technologically-adept city-dwellers possess three to five seconds’ span, on average, unless there is another motivator (such as sexual attraction). Older, less technological, rural folks have over 30 seconds. The latter is also far more inclined to read: over 40% said they would rather read than watch television, as opposed to just 10% of the former. The main reason given by the 90% for not reading? It’s hard to unwind when you have to think.
And that’s a wonderful point about Homer. I do have to wonder, though: if he had to compete with modern entertainment for his audience, would he have changed his story and pacing? I shudder to think….
9. A Kiwi in DC » Focu&hellip | January 18th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
[…] I stumbled across this post on a million monkeys typing that really outlines a couple of things I’ve observed both with myself and my kids. As we get older our attention span shortens, I am personally struggling with internalizing the things I read, while I am great at finding them … it’s “learning them” that I struggle with. I read fast and don’t process well. I am exploring using some quiet time and using a new note taking method (paper, pencil, maybe Cornell) away from the distraction of a glowing screen. With my kids their focus is competely different, Kylie is the focus machine, Hunter is the goldfish. I don’t know if that will change over time, or if this is something they have already (at 4 and 2) learnt. […]
10. Philb | January 19th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
And a challenge to focus at work….I saw reference to this over on Lifehacker.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/53977.html
11. Craig Wong | January 22nd, 2006 at 6:51 pm
>As we get older our attention span shortens
Is this true, or is it perception?
I have a sense that as I get older (early forties now), that it is more difficult to concentrate. Perhaps there are more things to balance in life. But I have also noticed that when I am motivated and need to concentrate, that I can do so for many, many hours, but that it is only possible if I hide - get away from home, the office desk, internet, phone, etc.
Ten years ago I had a colleague (an IT professional) who predicted that we would see fewer and fewer older technical professionals as we get advanced in our careers. I believe he meant technical whizzes, not mid- or senior-level managers. I asked why, and he said “because older people lose the ability to concentrate.” The comment seemed curious then, and here it is again.
12. Terry Mann | May 17th, 2006 at 12:44 am
This is exactly what I’ve been thinking about recently. It has also become one of the key areas of study for a project I am undertaking in a University Course at RMIT, Melbourne, Australia. The subject is called ‘Integrated Media’, and we are studying and participating in blogs, video blogs, and other internet networked media forms.
I like it how you express this idea as ‘Filters’.
In my current study, we are refering to the difference between ‘Work’ and ‘Text’ - enter Roland Barthes, ‘From Work to Text”
Check out my video/text tertiary blog http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3110161
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