One of my favorite things to do on Twitter is go to the ‘Funny Vines’ twitter account and just go through all of them. If you’re not familiar, vine is an app where you can take a six second video and then post it for your followers to see. This app has become extremely popular and I think part of the reason is because the clips are very short so it can hold your attention for the whole clip. A couple of minutes ago I watched an eight second vine of a lawn mower driving by itself so fast that it took flight and someone in the background was singing “if you love me, let me go”. Since vine is owned by twitter, it’s very easy to link your two accounts and post your mini-movies to twitter. The challenge of vine is to see if you can tell your funny story in six seconds or less, which telling by the lawn mower vine, is very possible. Nowadays, the human attention span is shrinking and shrinking, especially on the Internet. Over the last year, it has plummeted from seven seconds to just over 5 [Greenfield]. On YouTube, whenever you want to watch a video, you usually have t sit through an ad. Sine our attention spans are so low and we have no patience, YouTube has made it so you can skip the ad after like five seconds. This has become extremely useful, and it probably has something to do with our attention spans getting shorter and shorter. What about when your computer is having a moment of slowness, do you get frustrated quickly and press a bunch of buttons, like that might help it load faster? I’m definitely guilty of doing that; we are so used to the fast pace of the internet and everything on it that we have become less and less patient as a human race. Studies have shown that 32% of consumers will start abandoning slow sites between one and five seconds [Weatherhead]. There are just so many things that we can get distracted with, why be patient and wait for the website to load when you can check Facebook? For me, whenever there is a commercial on, I immediately take out my phone and check Twitter or Instagram. The statistics aren’t even correct when they say how many people watch commercials based on how many people are tuned in to the channel, most people go on their phones and aren’t even paying attention to the dumb advertisement about car insurance. This is why ‘the clip’ is such a success, because people cannot hold their attention longer than about ten seconds. Because of apps like Vine, and because of the many distractions that pose as a threat to our attention span, short clips or Gifs are definitely the preferred standard for today’s media consumption.
Greenfield, Rebecca. "The Internet's Attention Span for Video Is Quickly
Shrinking." The Wire. N.p., 8 Aug. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Weatherhead, Rob. "Say It Quick, Say It Well - the Attention Span of a
Modern Internet Consumer." The Guardian. N.p., 28 Feb. 2014. Web.
8 Mar. 2015.
Nowadays, the human attention span is shrinking and shrinking, especially on the Internet. Over the last year, it has plummeted from seven seconds to just over 5 [Greenfield]. On YouTube, whenever you want to watch a video, you usually have t sit through an ad. Sine our attention spans are so low and we have no patience, YouTube has made it so you can skip the ad after like five seconds. This has become extremely useful, and it probably has something to do with our attention spans getting shorter and shorter. What about when your computer is having a moment of slowness, do you get frustrated quickly and press a bunch of buttons, like that might help it load faster? I’m definitely guilty of doing that; we are so used to the fast pace of the internet and everything on it that we have become less and less patient as a human race. Studies have shown that 32% of consumers will start abandoning slow sites between one and five seconds [Weatherhead]. There are just so many things that we can get distracted with, why be patient and wait for the website to load when you can check Facebook? For me, whenever there is a commercial on, I immediately take out my phone and check Twitter or Instagram. The statistics aren’t even correct when they say how many people watch commercials based on how many people are tuned in to the channel, most people go on their phones and aren’t even paying attention to the dumb advertisement about car insurance. This is why ‘the clip’ is such a success, because people cannot hold their attention longer than about ten seconds. Because of apps like Vine, and because of the many distractions that pose as a threat to our attention span, short clips or Gifs are definitely the preferred standard for today’s media consumption.
Greenfield, Rebecca. "The Internet's Attention Span for Video Is Quickly
Shrinking." The Wire. N.p., 8 Aug. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Weatherhead, Rob. "Say It Quick, Say It Well - the Attention Span of a
Modern Internet Consumer." The Guardian. N.p., 28 Feb. 2014. Web.
8 Mar. 2015.
--Marissa