FUTURE OF ATTENTION SPAN

12Did you also have problems reading that headline? No wor-ries, you are not alone! A study by Microsoft showed that the human attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish - we start phasing out after eight seconds, whereas a goldfish can pay attention to up to nine seconds. We provide a solution to our fading attention spans and interest - caught your attention? Please read on!

THE MALFUNCTION OF HUMAN BRAIN CAPACITY IN TIMES OF INFORMATION OVERLOAD RESULTING IN INCREASINGLY SHORT ATTENTION SPANS MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR MOST TO FINISH READING THIS HEADLINE WHICH TAKES ABOUT 9 SECONDS TO READ

INTRODUCTION: WE ARE NO BETTER THAN A GOLDFISH…

There was a time when having a goldfish memory was not particularly enviable, but now the tables have turned. 15 years ago, the average human attention span was 12 seconds long. Fast forward to present time, and we are

down to just eight seconds, losing out to the average goldfish’s atten-tion span of nine seconds (Microsoft Canada, 2015). When there is a growing number of services catering to consumers’ shrinking ability to focus, with highly attention-grabbing and equally forgettable con-tent, who knows where we will end up? If you ask us, our vision is to break this trend and fight in order to regain our ability to focus on deep, rich content. And perhaps even work our way up to be on an equal footing with our fellow goldfish.

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119ATTENTIONSPAN

ANTON STRANDBERG, DÉSIRÉE JONEK, LEONIE FRANKA MELBER, ULRIKA ANDERSSON

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WHAT IS AN ATTENTION SPAN?Your attention span is the amount of time you can focus on a particular task before mentally wan-dering off. For example, the time span for which you can concentrate on a meeting before starting to think about something else, or looking at your phone. Although it can be hard to focus your at-tention for long, especially on a boring task, it is a skill that can be trained. And conversely, also be lost, as the recent research shows.

OUR DIGITAL LIFESTYLE IS AFFECTING US

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”

Herbert A. Simon

What is the reason behind our attention spans getting shorter? The famous economist Herbert A. Simon explained the relation be-tween a wealth of information and humans’ abilities to focus long before digitalization (The Economist, 2009). Obviously, digitalization and the Internet have made things even “worse” by

providing not only a wealth, but an overwhelming mass of information. The information overload has even multiplied, since we do not only consume it in front of our personal computers in our homes, but also on our mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, whenever and wherever we

want. Perhaps not surprisingly, we should blame our digital lifestyle, always being online, for the shortening of our attention spans. Studies show that increased digital consumption and social media usage lead to a worsened long-term focus (Microsoft Canada, 2015). While we are losing our ability to focus longer, we increasingly ask for more stimuli. Or to put it in another way, we always want to jump to the next shiny thing.

CURRENT TRENDSSo, how does the media industry react to in-creasingly shorter attention spans? Of course, they are jumping on the bandwagon and try to

maximize profits with the minimum of our attention. Companies’ services are catering

to our short attention spans because multiple clicks and switching between websites will gen-erate more ad impressions and increase the like-liness of higher CTRs (click-through rates) and conversion rates, hence maximize profit from online ads (Digital Marketing Reference, 2015). Furthermore, more clicks and pageviews make the user leave more data crumbles, making it easier for marketers to collect all these crumbles

and assemble them into big data, allowing for even more targeted advertising (McKinsey, 2013). From a purely economic perspective, it seems to be logical why companies pursue this vicious cycle of shorter articles, more impressions, more click-throughs and so on.

After all, we are increasingly busy, have less and less time and are looking for services that deliver news and information in a more per-sonalized way. We just want to know and read what is really relevant for us. The Swedish news app Omni is an example of a service which is promising only targeted and filtered news, according to the reader’s personal preferences for topics. If services will keep catering to the reader’s short attention spans, we will end in a doom loop of decreas-ing attention, maybe resulting in our complete inability to finish any article longer than ten lines.

The bottom line is, there are few business models that support content for deep insights, since it is more profitable to just create shallow content that the consumer can mindlessly click through. But the problem is not only that we lack services that can provide quality content. The content-providing platforms themselves are not built to help you focus, but rather the opposite. They are full of atten-tion-grabbing advertisement, such as pop-ups and animated banners. It is not unusual to find “relevant” links in the middle of an article, almost like you are supposed to stop reading and jump to another article. Such a distracting design is set up in order to make the reader unable to focus.

PROBLEM: WHY DO WE CARE?You are maybe questioning whether this current trend is a problem or not. While we might get a higher mental agility and become more efficient at information processing, research has shown that we actu-ally lack a deeper understanding of what we are reading (Financial Review, 2012). In other words, we have an improved ability to scan big chunks of information, but we can only grasp it on a basic lev-el. A shorter attention span also correlates with learning disabilities, such as difficulties with reading and writing, math skills and difficulty remembering. But perhaps most disheartening of all, our digital life-style may render us less empathetic. Not only do we miss the deeper meaning of the things we are reading, we are also getting worse at understanding how others feel.

FUTURE TRENDSThe good news is that all trends are meant to change sooner or lat-er, and more and more people are going to wish for content with deeper insights. There will be a need for a tool that can help read-ers regain their ability to focus and build new habits. In fact, there already are services that are trying to do this. One example is the

“WHILE IT IS EASY TO GRAB A READER’S

ATTENTION, IT IS VERY HARD TO

KEEP IT.”

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Forest application, which helps you focus by making you stay away from your smartphone for a set amount of time. The longer you leave your phone and focus on something more important, the more your forest will grow! Another trend breaker is the storytelling platform Coda Story, which reports on one crisis at a time to be able to deliver more depth to a single event. As they put it themselves, they stay on one story even after the spotlight has moved elsewhere. While other news agencies run to the next big thing, Coda Story spends the time needed to build a deeper understanding of the story.

Not only will we need services that have a deeper focus. There is also a need for a more emotional and empathetic content, instead of just hard facts and summaries. Of course, a deeper focus will often lead to more emotional content. It is more likely that the reader can connect to the story and reflect, compared to a story with only a basic summary of what has happened. It is not about catching up with the latest news and read bits and pieces of everything, but to dig deeper into one story. Instead of trying to cram in as much information as possible, we can experience stories as a mental retreat, even as a form of meditation. If you think about it, would you prefer to read one story and really connect to it, or read 20 and remember none. It is all about quality over quantity.

While it is easy to grab a reader’s attention, it is very hard to keep it. So it will become more and more important to be able to get the reader’s undivided attention. Instead of having all the content fight for your attention, it should be presented without distraction. And the best way to do that is of course to develop a service that can help the users to focus and build new habits. A service that provides in-depth quality content, and stories that deserve undivided attention!

THE DISRUPTIVE GOLDFISH APP AS OUR SOLUTION

Our Goldfish app offers the disruptive solution of a multimedia and in-depth content platform. As a reminder of our shrinking attention spans, we chose the goldfish as our brand ambassador and logo. The principle is easy - Read it now or it is gone forever!

The objective of the Goldfish mobile app is to change behavioral patterns when it comes to the shrinking attention spans of our ‘always connected’ generation. The app makes readers focus on and commit to an in-depth journalistic story for 30 minutes. We provide con-

tent as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which you do not want to miss out. By disabling push notifications, we make sure the experience is distraction-free. This way the stories can receive the attention they deserve and users can sched-ule some time off to balance out their everyday lives shaped by multitasking and multi-screen consumption.

INTERFACE AND FUNCTIONALITIESThe aim of Goldfish is to make our users sched-ule a time slot of 30 minutes in their busy cal-endars exclusively for the consumption and enjoyment of our profound multimedia content. The two major functionalities that will help us support readers in training their ability to fo-cus and extend their attention spans will be a screen-lock functionality and the preset time span of 30 minutes.

30 MINUTES SCHEDULE When using the Goldfish app for the first time, it will explain that you will have to stay in the app and with the content for the next 30 min-utes - otherwise you will lose the great story and never be able to read it again. So you better make sure you have time to complete the story. We chose a 30 minute time frame in order to really make a difference and give you the possibility to plunge into the story and to connect and feel with personas and stories. Creating real empathy cannot be done in ten minutes, we think.

LOCKED SCREEN FUNCTIONALITY After having confirmed that you want to experi-ence the story for the next 30 minutes, you will see the home screen in the full screen mode. The functionality will disable any notifications from other apps, the only exception of this are incom-ing calls, which you can choose to take. After the call, you will be asked to return to the Goldfish app. If you do not return, or exit the application before the 30 minutes ended, you will lose the content forever.

“THE PRINCIPLE IS EASY - READ IT NOW OR IT IS AGONE FOREVER!”

—— Goldfish’s logotype

—— Homescreen and instruction

—— Choose a story

—— Story screen and exit screen

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MARKET LAUNCH STRATEGY As a market launch strategy, we have chosen to release three new stories every week, every Saturday morning at 8 am. We want you to consciously create the habit of consuming and enjoying profound content a couple of times during the week. Since we provide a mobile ap-plication, it is up to you to decide whether you want to consume the story during the weekend with a nice cup of tea or during the week when you are commuting, or sitting at the airport try-ing to kill time. The most important aspect is that the content consumption should create an experience similar to meditation, relaxation and some time for yourself. Could there be any bet-ter way to train your attention span!?

BUSINESS MODELThe Goldfish app will act as a content platform connecting three different actors: consumers, journalists and brands. The diagram shows how these actors are interconnected and benefit from each other.

CONSUMERSThe end-consumers are the readers, who are characterized by their multi-screen and al-ways-on digital lifestyle. Nevertheless, they

are curious and interested individuals, looking for more than just catchy headlines. They are looking to change the way they consume infor-mation. Hence, our readers have an increasing desire for in-depth content that can be con-sumed in an engaging way, which will provide them with deeper understanding they often feel they lack. The content delivered to them will be multi-media and presented in a way for the readers to “discover”, by clicking on images and discovering the stories behind it. Of course, the profound content should also be for free. The aim of Goldfish is to offer the consumers per-sonal stories that they can connect to and reflect about, instead of just hard facts and numbers, which they will have forgotten after eight sec-onds.

JOURNALISTSGreat journalists who want to take the challenge of delivering in-depth content to readers with short attention spans are key to the success of our business model. The content they produce should be more than “traditional” articles one reads in the newspaper. We encourage new forms of journalistic content, such as empathetic video documentaries, stories inspired by the for-mat of “Humans in New York” and other inno-vative ways to trigger empathy and discover peo-

“CONTENT CONSUMPTION SHOULD CREATE AN EXPE-RIENCE SIMILAR TO MEDI-

TATION, RELAXATION AND SOME TIME FOR YOURSELF. COULD THERE BE ANY BET-

TER WAY TO TRAIN YOUR ATTENTION SPAN!?”

ple’s stories behind their faces. Longer articles are as well going to be part of the multi-media experience, because we ultimately want our readers to regain their abilities to focus on longer stories.

BRANDS How to make a business model sustainable is always one of the biggest challenges, especially in the media industry. As a bottom line, we concluded that it is easy for brands and marketeers to gain consumers’ attention, but it is much harder to keep their undivided attention (Microsoft Can-ada, 2015). We believe that with our solution, we offer brands and companies exactly this opportunity by brand-ing the content produced by journalists in a very subtle way. Of course, we do not want to compromise the aim of our solution, which is why we envision a cooperation comparable to branded storytelling or product placement. This means that the content should in no way be affected negatively by a commercial involvement. On the contrary, we will choose brands that are historically or thematically linked to the stories and are expected to complement our stories. To wrap it up, brands ensure the money stream to-wards Goldfish and in return they receive the undivided consumers’ attention.

EXPANDING OUR SERVICEOnce we have established the Goldfish app and our user base has reached a critical mass, there are opportunities to expand our service. We will have the asset of a user base

—— Business model of Goldfish.

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of loyal readers who also have a great attention span and hence are able to offer their undivided attention. This user base is highly valu-able for content producers who are looking for an attentive audience. Therefore, we want to provide our service as a platform for other con-tent producers as well. A possible business opportunity could be to provide our software as a service (SaaS) to content producers who are looking for a tool of an exclusive attention service to reach loyal readers.

SUMMARYTo sum it up, even though our attention spans are currently shrinking, this is a trend that is going to be broken when more and more of us will wish for a deep, high-quality content that will help us regain our ability to focus. Instead of mindlessly clicking through links full of distractions, we will experience and connect to the stories we are reading in an emotional way. With the help of the Goldfish app, users will be able to focus on one story and gain new, sustainable media consumption habits. And perhaps most important of all, the stories will get the attention they deserve.

“A WEALTH OF INFORMATION

CREATES A POVERTY OF ATTENTION”

Microsoft Canada: Attention spans - Consumer Insights (spring 2015)

Financial Review, (2012). Business beware: technology shortcuts brain power. [online] Available at: http://www.afr.com/technology/technology-compa-nies/business-beware-technology-shortcuts-brain-power-20121023-j1l0k [Ac-cessed 20 Nov. 2015].

The Economist, (2009). Herbert Simon. [online] Available at: http://www.econ-omist.com/node/13350892 [Accessed 22 Nov. 2015].

The Digital Marketing Reference, (2015). Clickthrough Rate. [online] Available at: http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/clickthrough_rate/ [Ac-cessed 22 Nov. 2015].

McKinsey, (2013). Leveraging big data to optimize digital marketing. [online] Available at: http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/marketing_and_sales/latest_thinking/leveraging_big_data_to_optimize_digital_marketing [Accessed 22 Nov. 2015].

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