I came back from an exhausted day of work, threw my keys in the bowl, and sunk down on my cushy comfy sofa, as I grabbed the television remote from the centre-table. I switched on the TV and my muscle memory instantaneously helped my fingers navigate towards Netflix (yes, through the same painstaking process we all go through by making sure we don’t go away too far on the screen by tapping too hard or too lightly on our remote buttons). The bright red letters faded back inwards to make way for millions of brightly coloured title cards begging for my attention. But not all attention is equal. Some attention is more equal than others. Case in point: the bell icon on the top right corner asking me to check out the new arrivals. Some catered to my tastes, some, not so much. As I’m experiencing all of these processes, my mind is racing against between the longing for familiar and the crave for something new and exciting. The end-result? A tinder-like swipe on all of the title cards which now must fight for my attention based on the same criteria as any other dating app; an exciting photo (in this case, an instantly recognizable celebrity) and a cool bio, i.e., a great description of what the show is about. All for that one perfect match.
This sets me thinking, what am I in a rush for? Is it because I want to find that perfect show/movie/documentary before my food gets cold as it sits on the table waiting to be picked up and eaten? Or is it because today’s the last day before a particular show will be taken off of the On-Demand website? The whole reason as to why I switched on the TV was to give my mental faculties some rest. Not because I wanted to break the world-record for choosing a TV show in the fastest time possible. I switched off the TV and sat there thinking with my reflection bouncing off of the black mirror. (See what I did there?)How have we, as species at the pinnacle of a technological breakthrough, managed to make it all about simply grabbing our attention?
I’ve narrowed it down to the culprit called “Skip this ad in…”
With the advent of this feature, the balance of power between the consumers and advertisers has forever tipped in the favour of average consumers. They now have the power to view the particular ad or not. In some cases, you’re still obligated to watch the complete ad, but by the time it hits 3 seconds, you see something more lucrative and click on that instead, which gives you the option to skip the ad before it. You might instantly feel good about that small win, but get ready for this: the whole ecosystem has been made to keep you browsing on it. Even if it means letting you win sometimes. Who’s the real winner now eh? Today, the luxury of multiple streams of content regardless of its category has empowered people to shift their focus jumping between streaming options in search for that perfect show with the perfect hook. This short attention span has meant that we are now being bombarded with advertisements left, right, and centre fighting to get a view, while it still being skippable. See what’s happening? We are still stuck in a loop. Just like Dr. Strange and Dormammu.(At this point, I’d like to officially declare my love for the MCU, and would like to let you know that all my articles have some sort of an MCU reference.)
All of these digital experiences and interfaces have led me to constantly being on the lookout for a ‘skip the ad’ button, scrubbing forward to the content which I think is more juicier, jumping between tabs to see which one brings me greater joy, and more recently, trying to view what happens next by taking a look at the small scrubbing window on Netflix. This has now translated into my physical world, where I’m constantly trying to flip the pages on a book to get to more engaging content, trying to find a familiar dish name by browsing swiftly through a restaurant menu, or worse, trying to skip towards the favourite part of my song before realizing it’s playing on the radio.
It’s as if I am trying to fast-forward my real life in the hunger for more and more content in the assumption that I’m running out of time.
In reality, no. From a nihilist viewpoint, for sure. So, what do I do to increase my attention span? Meditate? Go off the grid? Interact more with people in real-life? I can do all of these things. Instead, I choose to install an ad-blocker. Why you ask? Well, my goal is not to curb my hunger for digital content. It’s to stall the flow of all of this noise which takes me away from the experience of enjoying the content I would like to watch. Once I know that I can pay one-hundred attention towards my content without being bugged, I will be more inclined to immerse in it completely thereby paying more attention. The lesser and lesser I see the availability of options in the background noise, the more I would be forced to narrow down on one. (This is also the same logic by which Trade Joes functions. Seriously, look it up)
The concluding point is, more options deter one’s ability to attend to one option in the hopes that there could be a better option out there. Yes, just like the dating app. And once again begins the endless loop of swiping between a billion title cards in the hopes that something deserving of your attention will inevitably present itself, and once it does, the loop starts over.
