What is the attention span of Humans?
Human Being’s attention span is lesser than that of a goldfish. Yes, you heard it right. So if you cannot hook your audience within the initial 7 seconds then you will lose your audience.
What is an attention span?
Attention span is the amount of time you can focus on a task before getting distracted. In the year 2000, the average attention span of humans was 12 seconds.
Currently, it is 8 seconds.
Do you know what the attention span of a goldfish is?
The attention span of goldfish is 9 seconds.
This is why hooking your audience within 7 seconds is very crucial for a speaker or a presenter.
If you cannot hook them, you cook them to boredom.
Why is our attention span decreasing?
This is the world of information. Unfortunately, information is abundantly available now. Abundant information leads to information overload. Every second, information is literally bombarded into our minds. Whenever we see something common we tend to instantly judge by saying “Oh, I think I know this” and our attention diverts to something else.
Secondly, we have trained our minds to distract themselves subconsciously.
Every time we decide to give our focused time on something important. “BEEP BEEP” Notifications pop up. We tend to glance through our phones every now and then. When we do this regularly, our subconscious mind will take it as a “cue”. So every time our mind is programmed to distract us from other tasks after a few minutes.
Your audience won’t have the patience to listen to you if you are not engaging enough.
Ask yourself, have you watched any advertisement on YouTube which did not grab your attention in the initial 3 seconds?
The most common answer will be a “BIG NO”
So always, make sure your opening is powerful to hook your audience.
