We live in an economy of attention

Did you know that your attention is the one thing nowadays valued the most?

Why do we actually live in an economy of attention? Because attention is a scarce good and it is also very hard to obtain. Don’t believe me? Well, did you know, after 2 seconds our brain decides to read further? I am happy you still are reading.

Today’s platforms like Facebook, Google, Amazon, WhatsApp and Instagram, Wish and Netflix all battle for those minutes and hours of yours and they battle hard for it because they know what’s at stake: attention and even just a few minutes is worth good money!

That’s why on social media 2 seconds is a KPI with a so called trueview, as after 8 seconds we get normally distracted, by a new notification, another pop up, a sound/smell/touch — it’s crazy how our memory seems to forget faster and faster.

We start forgetting after 20

In 2010, Will Thalheimer showed in a study that people forget 40% of what they learned in 20 minutes and 77% of what they learned in six days and 90% after 30 days. He explored 14 research articles, examined 69 conditions to see how much forgetting occured.

However, he also found out that the numbers vary as:

• The type of material that is being provided
• The persona’ prior knowledge
• The persons’ motivation to listen and learn
• The power of the methods used
• The contextual cues in the information and remembering situations
• The amount of time the information has to be retained until being re-used

Create information which is digestible

That’s why we have to snack information, we have to repeat know-how and we have to be persistent in showing benefits of the information provided, not only the marketing aode of it.

Why is that even more important today? Because we forget even faster as stated in 2010: we live in so called micromoments of knowing, going, doing, buying. It’s a battle for hearts, minds, and dollars is won (or lost) in micro-moments — intent-driven moments of decision-making and preference-shaping that occur throughout the entire day.

Snack your content

In conclusion this means just one thing: whatever you have to say, it should be presented like a snack.

Make your speech, writing, your work and art repetitive and recitative. Because when people explain what they’ve heard and read to peers, fading memories are reactivated, strengthened, and consolidated. This strategy not only increases retention but also encourages active learning through engagement with the information.