The Declining Human Attention Span: How to Keep Your Customers Engaged

First things first, I feel it is important to note that I am aware of the irony that may present itself in writing a lengthy blog post referencing the rapid decline of the human attention span.

This one’s for the remaining few that still enjoy an afternoon read and light competition against the average goldfish. Confused? Well, studies have shown that in 2018, the human attention span fell from 12 seconds (2000) to a mere 8 seconds, beating the ever-distracted goldfish, which clocks in at 9 seconds.

As a result of this, businesses and brands globally are struggling in their efforts to continue to attract consumers, and even more so to keep them engaged.

 
“But what if you could scientifically pinpoint the exact moment people’s attention is at its peak? What if you could identify the very instant they’re ready and willing to see something new?”

–The Moment of Next, Nielsen

We delved into ‘The Moment of Next’ a recent study which interestingly highlighted the aforementioned as ‘the time in a user’s busy day when they’re open to exploring something new – including advertiser messages.’

We’ve listed the good, the bad, and the absolute musts when it comes to attracting and engaging with your audience.

Social Media: Feeds Generate More
The study found that from an emotive perspective, a continuous scroll feed generates both 20% more attentiveness and a higher emotional response of 17%. This type of scrolling has proven to be so effective as the user is more receptive to new content and engaged with the unknown of what will be next.
With a faster pace of content being digested than ever before, target consumers can decide in mere seconds what to spend their attention on.

It’s fair to say, this is why social media platforms continue to remain relevant and so widely used. With the rapid rise of TikTok in early 2020 helping promote a faster pace of content digestion than ever before, target consumers can decide in mere seconds what to spend their attention on. What’s more, this paired with an expert algorithm that learns the user’s habits in very little time means that brilliantly, it’s an app that many of us still spend hours on, digesting bite-size tailored content for long periods of time.

Dedicated VS. Disruptive Attention
Something that is crucial to consider when targeting your audience in these key moments is whether you are advertising your message in a dedicate space with welcomed attention, or if you are in fact disrupting your user in their digital journey, as the latter can have a very detrimental effect.

An example of disruptive attention: Adverts shown before YouTube videos

We’ve all been there. You’re looking for a quick DIY solution and you’re bombarded with an advert wasting your time, waiting for the ‘skip’ button to appear. Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Studies have shown that when shown beforehand, users may infact develop a negative reaction to the advert, due to it being so intrusive.
Just look at the heatmaps below, which indicate where viewers were focusing. You can see that participants rarely looked at the video ad on YouTube but remained attentive to the videos on Taboola and Facebook. Why? Because Taboola and Facebook present videos in an infinite feed, compared to YouTube’s ads that are shown in a pre-roll format.