Attention spans are getting shorter.

A comment highlighting this appeared in an April segment on Ted Talks, broadcast on CBS news magazine 60 Minutes.  During the segment interviewer Charlie Rose queried TED curator Chris Anderson about the eighteen-minute time limit imposed on the talks.  Anderson responded that, “..it’s a coffee break…you can listen to something serious that long without getting bored or exhausted.”[1]

It seems like we used to be better able to attend to complex information. I’ve spent most of the last 30 years working inside of large organizations. Written office communication once consisted of memoranda containing fully developed paragraphs often in documents running to multiple pages. Formal reports were a big deal — they were complex written analytic documents and seldom contained much in the way of Graphics. Now communications seem to be predominately short and often bulleted emails. Reports are heavy on graphics which are used to communicate what used to be contained in paragraphs. In extreme cases the graphics take over altogether, such as in PowerPoints where the images sometimes overwhelm the content and convey nothing substantive.

Lengthy or complex documents without graphics require more effort to digest. They require deeper thought of more duration.

Once upon a time our attention spans were much, much longer than Eighteen Minutes. 19th century Americans were accustomed to hours of oratory from speakers at county and state fairs, and from speakers “taking the stump” at a felled tree or other suitable open space.[2]

This bit of our history is long gone, along with the Literary Mindset that supported it. And the communications environments spawned by the literary mindset have become casualties. Philip Yancey commented last July on the changes in the publishing industry brought by reading on portable/mobile devices. Traditional Christian publishing (along with the broader industry) is collapsing as the ability of the industry to make money erodes, along with the ability of authors to make a living from what they write.

For anyone looking to communicate in modern culture it is past time to think about how to adapt. TED is one example of an adaptive strategy. TED successfully spreads significant and serious ideas by establishing personal connections with audiences. Rose set up the segment with the observation that “…what sets TED apart is that the big ideas are wrapped up in personal stories…and it is those stories that have captured the imaginations of tens of millions of viewers around the world.”

In addition, high value is placed on the attraction that the speaker and topic might have. During the interview Rose asked Anderson how TED speakers are selected. Anderson replied, “There’s no formula or algorithm that says what is right, it’s basically, it’s a judgment call as to what is interesting, what is interesting now.”

Rose commented further that “Anderson and his team spend much of their time auditioning and looking for the next great story. A great TED talk demands careful planning. Most speakers get months of preparation and coaching.”

Few of us have the resources to hit the high productions values TED uses. Nor should “what is interesting now” be the major criteria driving what we communicate about.  But TED’s approach does provides a way to think about the problem. The core idea is to make the most of the limited attention of the audience.

In whatever medium being used, get the most out of that eighteen minutes.

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[1] Charlie Rose, TED Talks (transcript). 60 Minutes. April 19, 2015. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-talks-60-minutes-charlie-rose/  This has unfortunately been moved behind a paywall but it is still worth watching.

[2 ]Neil Postman. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (20th Anniversary Edition). Penguin Publishing Group, New York, 2006. pp 44-45.