One cannot simply ask the audience to pay attention, one must earn it.
I don’t know why I wrote that sentence using posh language but maybe subconsciously I did so to make you take notice, and that’s the point.
Once upon a time we used the phrase ‘information is power’ but now we carry a supercomputer in our pockets where-ever we go and can look anything up in an instant. If information is no longer the super currency, what is?
You may have guested it, attention.
We are all short on attention and hyper distracted that gaining and keeping someone’s attention is now a skill and no longer a right you can demand unlike the valiant attempts to do so by my sixth-grade primary school teacher many moons ago. (Sorry Mrs Powell)
They say we now have the attention span of a goldfish due to the incessant scrolling of our social media feeds, but I don’t completely agree. Many of us will sit and watch a movie for ninety plus minutes or go to a concert for a few hours.
It is therefore possible to maintain someone’s attention for longer periods if the value is high enough that they don’t want to look away.
