Hey I did write most of this last night, I just didn't have a chance to post it.
The average attention span of a Millennial is 12 seconds. The average attention span of a Gen Z'er is 8 seconds. That's down 33% from generation to generation. By that logic that means the average attention span of the generation before me was 18 seconds and the generation before that 27 seconds.
As a stand-up comedian that is very disconcerting. That means something needs to happen every 10 seconds otherwise people go their phones to find something more entertaining to look at.
The odd thing though is that the comedians of today don't match up that well with the attention spans of these generations, while the comedians of the past match up perfectly with these generations. In the 40s, 50s and 60s stand-up comedians were one-line comics, they moved from joke to joke. Now comedians tell longer stories and linger on moments they would be perfect for the longer attention spans of the later generations.
Short attention spans are the new norm though. Everything we do is catered to our short attention spans. Look at the news articles you read online. Time how long it takes you to read an article before you get to a page break and a link to another article. Websites are expecting you to lose interest and if you do they have an alternative for you.
Videos online need to be less than 2 minutes otherwise they won't be watched. Sometimes we don't even watch the videos if there is an ad longer than 15 seconds before the video we want to actually watch. We are built around the gratification and if it isn't being had on your website, we'll find it on another site.
When people complain how there is nothing to do they are really complaining about how they couldn't find anything to do within 20 seconds of when they started. So they stop and they just assume there is nothing going on.
We are in a weird time in technology and analog entertainment. They both need each other, but they both get in the way of each other as well. If I did my job hopefully you got this far. If you didn't well there's always next time.