We risk losing big ideas to character limits and emojis if audiences don’t allow time for depth, context and nuance.
I work in communications. That means, I’m in the business of concision. Over the years I’ve condensed countless reports into social media snippets, research papers into key messages, and complex issues into opinion pieces. Such repackaging is often necessary to reach a broader audience.
But even simplification has its limits.
Chatting with a graphic designer recently, I mentioned a fun idea I’d heard for a five-minute animated video to play in schools. She could barely disguise her horror. “Students today could never pay attention for five minutes,” she said. “Maybe a minute, probably less.” The worst part was, I knew she was right.
With the constant barrage of digital dopamine hits vying for our attention, focusing on any one thing for an extended period is a tall order. We want quick hits, shortcuts, summaries. Curricula have adjusted accordingly, as have media and editorial stylings.
Sometimes, I have this nagging feeling that we are letting people off the hook a little too easily. Yes, it’s getting harder to focus, but isn’t that difficulty more reason to try?
When someone begins a sentence with “I read an article saying…” it takes all my tongue-biting ability not to ask whether they did, in fact, read the article, or stop at the headline. There’s also a strong possibility that article is code for TikTok, but that’s a topic for another day.
I don’t pretend to be above any of it. As I write this short reflection, I am simultaneously watching a recorded TV show (so that I can skip to the good stuff) and taking breaks to scroll on my phone (because I, too, have the attention span of a gnat).
We should have known we were in trouble with the rise of TLDR summaries. The ultimate shortcut, which literally stands for Too Long; Didn’t Read, but really means “Don’t bother, here’s the gist.” It’s the written equivalent of that friend who blurts out the contents of the gift before you’ve even begun unwrapping it. Only in this case, the present is just left in the box, its contents never examined up close.
I worry that we’re headed for a future where big ideas are lost to character limits, and textbooks look more like storybooks. A world where scientific breakthroughs are expressed as Emojis and election platforms are reduced to Instagram carousels. If we’ve already reached a point where a video the length of an average commercial break is too long for a classroom, we’re well on our way.
The good news is, it’s not too late. For those of us working in media and communications, it’s time to help raise the bar. We need to challenge our audiences to think a little deeper and focus a little longer. If not us, then who?
Somehow, we must balance the insatiable demand for brevity with the responsibility to communicate depth, context and nuance. You know, those things that separate the person who truly understands a topic from the one who can regurgitate a hot take from their favourite influencer.
Part of the solution lies in resisting the urge to over-simplify. To fight the good fight, we need to give our audience some credit and assume they’re capable of engaging with more than just the surface level. It’s a bit like hiding vegetables in your kid’s favourite dish — they won’t notice the broccoli if it’s smothered in enough cheese. They’ll get their gooey fix and pick up the important stuff along the way, which is all that really matters.
And if you’ve made this far, congratulations. Your attention span is longer than the average fruit fly. In today’s world, that’s a real gift.
Amber St. Louis is an Ottawa writer and communications director.