Technology Has Made All of us ADD!
Admit it. When you saw this blog, the first thing you did was see if it had a catchy title. Then the next thing you did was read the first few lines to see if it was going to be interesting. Next you likely scrolled through the page to see how long it is, and if the paragraphs are relatively short. And if the paragraphs are long, perhaps you will skim through just the first line of each, to catch the overall outlook of this posting. Even as I type more in this paragraph you are probably losing interest and have already skipped on to the next one. That is, if you haven't closed out this page already. Doing so, might make you miss some important information that is included, simply because it's buried in surrounding words that haven't caught your full attention. So you might miss that I would ask you to type a word that starts with an A in the comments section under the Facebook posting on my profile to prove that you read this blog. The longer this paragraph continues, the more likely that the above things will happen, simply because our attention spans are shorter. When I type to a blog, such as this one, the general rule is that the writer should make paragraphs as brief as possible, and also throw out the paragraph and grammar rules and put spaces, lots of spaces, even if they don't make sense.
Welcome back.
The first rule in any publication is to have a good headline to draw readers in. In a news story, or a blog, you have to answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Such as the following: "Robber who allegedly attacked woman last night in the Circle K parking lot has a criminal past." Who: the robber. What: allegedly attacked a woman. When: last night. Where: Circle K parking lot. Why: has a criminal past.
But that does not guarantee that the reader will click on the link that is provided.
Even if you use a fancy font.
Or a captivating photograph.
People just aren't that interested anymore. At least, not for longer than a few seconds.
Have you noticed that commercials used to be 30 seconds long, are now only 15? Also, television shows have now shortened their seasons from 24 episodes to no more than 12? Some shows have just 8 or 9 episodes for an entire season, but those seasons happen more than once a year these days. That change is not only so networks can feature several shows in one season, but by breaking up the season with fewer episodes can slow down to a crawl to accommodate our attention deficiency.
Facebook now has a new added feature that automatically plays videos when you scroll down your feed. They are always muted, but they play unless you scroll past them. This is to give you a preview of the video, or a trailer if you will, to entice you to actually click on it. For most of us, about 3 minutes is the cut-off mark for watching. If we see that the video is 7 minutes long, we probably won't watch it at all. If it's under 3 minutes, then there's a better chance, especially if it has a catchy title, and even better if there's a warning in the intro saying, "This will be the best two minutes of your day."
Two minutes? Hmmm....I probably can handle that.
In today's world, we like our food and our technology instantly. We don't want to wait more than 10 seconds for a page to load. We want to look pictures of your children and grandchildren, but if there's fifteen of them posted to your profile, we will probably only look at the first two or three before moving on. We might start reading several books, but rarely read them all the way through.
We have become a society of skimmers.
Not the kind that swipe your personal data at gas stations, but the kind who glaze over things in an effort to try to absorb the information as quickly as possible. We want our brains to absorb with the processing speed of a computer.
And that's understandable, but in most cases not possible.
My blog layout doesn't even register that what I just typed is not a complete sentence, or that it's a horrible way to start a paragraph. It has evolved and adapted to take into account the unofficial new standards for blog readership.
In these ways, technology hasn't made our lives easier to connect with our friends. We complain that we don't know what's going on with Aunt Dot and her new husband, but maybe that's because we didn't make an effort to read more than a few sentences of her last blog or her newsletter that is still sitting in your inbox unread, if not deleted.
Oh, and by the way, Aunt Dot got robbed at the Circle K last night so you should probably message her privately. But keep it short with just a few words or simply a sad face, or she might not read it.
Welcome back.
The first rule in any publication is to have a good headline to draw readers in. In a news story, or a blog, you have to answer the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?
Such as the following: "Robber who allegedly attacked woman last night in the Circle K parking lot has a criminal past." Who: the robber. What: allegedly attacked a woman. When: last night. Where: Circle K parking lot. Why: has a criminal past.
But that does not guarantee that the reader will click on the link that is provided.
Even if you use a fancy font.
Or a captivating photograph.
People just aren't that interested anymore. At least, not for longer than a few seconds.
Have you noticed that commercials used to be 30 seconds long, are now only 15? Also, television shows have now shortened their seasons from 24 episodes to no more than 12? Some shows have just 8 or 9 episodes for an entire season, but those seasons happen more than once a year these days. That change is not only so networks can feature several shows in one season, but by breaking up the season with fewer episodes can slow down to a crawl to accommodate our attention deficiency.
Facebook now has a new added feature that automatically plays videos when you scroll down your feed. They are always muted, but they play unless you scroll past them. This is to give you a preview of the video, or a trailer if you will, to entice you to actually click on it. For most of us, about 3 minutes is the cut-off mark for watching. If we see that the video is 7 minutes long, we probably won't watch it at all. If it's under 3 minutes, then there's a better chance, especially if it has a catchy title, and even better if there's a warning in the intro saying, "This will be the best two minutes of your day."
Two minutes? Hmmm....I probably can handle that.
In today's world, we like our food and our technology instantly. We don't want to wait more than 10 seconds for a page to load. We want to look pictures of your children and grandchildren, but if there's fifteen of them posted to your profile, we will probably only look at the first two or three before moving on. We might start reading several books, but rarely read them all the way through.
We have become a society of skimmers.
Not the kind that swipe your personal data at gas stations, but the kind who glaze over things in an effort to try to absorb the information as quickly as possible. We want our brains to absorb with the processing speed of a computer.
And that's understandable, but in most cases not possible.
My blog layout doesn't even register that what I just typed is not a complete sentence, or that it's a horrible way to start a paragraph. It has evolved and adapted to take into account the unofficial new standards for blog readership.
In these ways, technology hasn't made our lives easier to connect with our friends. We complain that we don't know what's going on with Aunt Dot and her new husband, but maybe that's because we didn't make an effort to read more than a few sentences of her last blog or her newsletter that is still sitting in your inbox unread, if not deleted.
Oh, and by the way, Aunt Dot got robbed at the Circle K last night so you should probably message her privately. But keep it short with just a few words or simply a sad face, or she might not read it.
A Joanne
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