We live in a paradoxical world.
Never in human history have we been so enmeshed, so engaged, so utterly transfixed by what has collectively come to be known as media.
That phrase, of course, encompasses all manner of electronic and physical content, from movies and TV, to music and video games, to books and magazines, to the Internet and smartphones and Facebook. There’s so much media of all kinds these days, in fact, that Millennials reportedly spend nearly 18 hours every day consuming it, according to Ipsos Media. Not surprisingly, about 50%—about nine hours a day—is spent pursuing various Internet-related activities.
Nine hours. A day.
Now here’s where that paradox comes into play. Even though Millennials (and no doubt many of the rest of us, too, even though that’s not what this study zeroed in on) are spending massive amounts of time online and with other media, we have simultaneously so utterly cratered our attention spans that at least one online news outlet has adopted a novel ploy to beg for our ever-shrinking attention in an ever-expanding universe of content choices.
Slate.com recently redesigned its website. And once you scroll past the site’s top stories, you’ll find a list of secondary stories that not only includes the traditional title and byline, but two other really interesting—and telling—bits of information.
Exactly when the story was published and … how long it will likely take you to read it. Most of those short bylines read like this one: “2H AGO – AMY S.F. LUTZ – 6M TO READ.”
And some of the stories, as you can see from the attached image, won’t take even that long. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes. It’s as if the publishers are pleading, “Oh, please, this won’t take you long at all. Could you please, please, please devote three minutes of your 18 hours of media time today to us? Little ol’ us?”
That plea is combined with a timestamp that’s not merely an old-fashioned, newspaper-style date, but one measured in minutes. After all, you don’t want yesterday’s news. You may not even want today’s news. You want the news from 17 minutes ago. Because, let’s face it, in our fast-paced world, anything much older than that probably doesn’t really matter anyway.
Slate‘s editors seem to be admitting—and, frankly, they’re probably right—that they know you’re so stressed and fragmented and attention-deficit-disordered that even asking for three minutes is too much. They know you want the newest, shortest, bestest news … right now. So they’re practically hyperventilating (albeit in a stylish, hip and unobtrusive kind way) in their attempt to convince you that this latest, greatest, 17-minute old story really will be worth the three measly minutes you’ll be required to invest in it.
It’s a small thing, really. But, I think, a telling one regarding how much information we’re processing these days and how fierce the competition has become for even a handful of minutes of your time—pretty much all of which is already devoted to the media anyway.
And if you’re still reading this, probably about three minutes after you started, well, thank you.
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