Over the last few years, much has been written about the decline of text. In 2018, The New York Times boldly asserted (in print 🤔) that we were living in a post-text world.
For a society that considers written language to be one of the greatest human accomplishments, it may seem like a far-fetched concept—but the numbers don’t lie. Americans are trading in text for audio and video in every format available.
According to Edison Media Research, over 100 million Americans listen to podcasts monthly, and they tune in to an average of six podcasts each week. YouTube reports that people watch a billion hours a day on their service. In 2020, Netflix pledged to spend $17 billion on content—up from $15 billion in 2019—and Apple estimated they would spend $6 billion.
The abundance of content is likely the culprit behind our ever-narrowing attention spans. When Microsoft conducted a study measuring people’s attention spans in 2000, the results showed the average person can focus on any one thing for about 12 seconds. Fifteen years later, that dropped to 8 seconds—just under the 9-second attention span of a goldfish. Yeesh. Good for goldfish, I guess.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video can communicate a novel in a few short minutes. A well-executed video helps consumers instantly understand your product’s purpose and benefits.