Over the years, there have been different conversations on what the most valuable token might be. Some have said it is money, and others have said it is time. Yeah, money is the root of all evil, and time waits for no man. We all must have heard that saying or another once or twice. Well, for me today, I am here to say it is attention. There is now a huge growth in the market of content creation, and the growing force for this is attention. There is a lot of content in the world that is visually impossible to consume in one's lifetime.
Recently, I discovered that a total of 20 million videos are uploaded to YouTube in a day. 20,000,000, that is some huge number. Take out your time to picture this: companies and businesses are built on the premise of selling something to their customer. Be it a service, product or an item, something is being sold, but first attention is needed. The attention of the customer is what will bring the sales. On the other hand, content creators create for the purpose of views. Social media platforms all thrive on the attention it gets from their users, and platforms like 2go, MySpace, and more are now platforms of the past.
The world is looming with attention, left, right and centre. Then, when you think about it deeply, this attention it so desperately needs is limited. It takes only a couple of seconds for a person to lose interest or for you to lose their attention, and in return, this has driven the need for things to move at a faster speed. A better internet connection, a reel or video that goes straight to the point and does not beat around the bush and even down to the point of good things finally happening quickly or fortune favouring you in time before it is too late.
As this has brought about more innovation and growing content, there is also the absence of understanding that certain things also take time. We have accustomed ourselves to the fast driving world, and infact there are fast driving cars and self-driving ones, so who would not want things to move a lot faster than expected. I do not want sluggish movement as I constantly deny this slow-paced life where things are not driven with speed. Speed has come with the growing interest of attention, but we fail to remember that patience also plays a good role in this world.
I remember when commented on one post saying a 1 minute ad on TikTok would perform better than a full documentary on TV. (Maybe I didn’t quote that correctly)
It’s actually not because people don’t watch TV anymore; it’s just that TikTok captures attention 10× faster than TV commercials or news would. And it’s not even an age thing, because every age group is now on that app.
I put it to you, reading this, how many times have you gotten pissed by your slow internet? I am sure it is more than you can count. Making it even more solid for the point I am about to prove. There is no room for patience anymore in the attention-seeking world we live in today. Take your time to understand, although the world moves fast, do not forget to slow down sometimes to recoup. Even in a car race, the car slows down at some point to recoup where the team change the tyres and other parts if needed, and even in sport, there are halftime breaks for players to re-strategise and recoup. So it would not be bad for you to have one in your life as well. Take some time to regroup and be patient with yourself and the effort you are putting in every day. It is fine, we cannot be at our best everyday but we can come back better and stronger than we expect.
I am , a chess player and writer. I love to share the experience I have gained from different battles over the 64 squares and the knowledgeable insights from books I have read. But most importantly, I am a Midnight Owl and I founded the community Midnight Letters.
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Thanks For Reading!