According to media philosopher Marshall McLuhan, the average attention span for a TV viewer was four to five minutes. In 1976. Today’s action movies with digital editing create cuts every three to four seconds.
Killian Avertising report on a recent study that concluded the average American spends two hours every day watching television. Reading, on the other hand, occupies seven minutes. So why are you forcing your audience to read PowerPoint slides full of text?
If you are presenting to a group of people who are used to watch movies with fast-paced, quick-changing action. And you deliver slide after slide of data-heavy content in a dead-pan voice, how long are they going to stay with you? Three minutes, four tops?
So why do so many presenters present like their audiences have attention spans of three hours. One reason lies in the differences between digital natives and digital immigrants.
Find out if you are digital native or digital immigrant.
Learn more about digital natives here. And digital immigrants here.
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