Social Media and the Dwindling Attention Span
I would like to share an interesting fact: According to a survey of 2,000 people conducted by Microsoft Corp in Canada, an average human attention span is 9 seconds; the goldfish has an attention span of 8 seconds! The survey also showed that the average attention span of humans has fallen from twelve seconds in 2000 to eight seconds. Here’s another fact: According to a study by MarketingProfs, the new millennials cannot think more than 140 characters at a stretch! Maybe this is the reason why Twitter limits the tweet to 140 characters only. These findings are significant and perhaps worrying especially for educators that have to deal with the millennial generation in their classroom. Imagine the challenge to hold the attention of students (or participants in a training environment) in one hour face-to-face class. The challenge is even more profound for online courses. We have to accept the fact that we are living in the world full of distraction. What kind of distraction? The smart de...