44. Sustained Attention Lasts About 10 Minutes

44. Sustained Attention Lasts About 10 Minutes

• Most people can only really focus on something for about 7-10 minutes at a time. Things like videos, presentations and classes, often exceed this by several hours without any breaks to give the viewers a chance to refocus. In the visual world of art and design and advertising, most people only give about 5-10 seconds to the presented media unless it attracts their attention. Think about your Instagram home feed, how long do you look at each image as you scroll though?

Takeaways

• Assume that you have at most 7-10 minutes of a person’s attention.
• If you must hold attention longer than 7-10 minutes, introduce novel information or a break.
• Keep online demos or tutorials under 7-10 minutes in length