It is pretty clear that our modern society has more distractions than any other society in human history. Combine all the conveniences of modern day life that make acquisition of food and other necessities so easy and we end up with a lot of time on our hands, which we quickly use up with all our personal media options among other things.
While I write this, I am traveling by train. Across from me is a man watching a movie on his laptop. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but what is interesting is that he has four “windows” open on his laptop. The movie is one, but he also has his email, Facebook and calendar open in three other windows. He regularly switches from the movie to email to Facebook, back to the movie and so on. He has a plug-in wireless internet connection. God forbid we every be out of touch with the world.
Honestly, the most annoying part of all this, is that he also has a huge bag of cookies on the seat next to him and he’s not sharing. Chocolate chip cookies can be a distraction.
Hold on for a minute, I have an email…(humming noise)
Where was I? Oh, yes, chocolate chip cookies. Wait, no…oh, yes, communicating to a distracted world.
For those who work in all types of media (radio, TV, magazines, internet, books, etc) a significant amount of attention is paid to pulling readers through from one segment, time period, article or page to the next. Those things have always been important, but our distracted modern society has presented a unique set of challenges for everyone from authors to web developers. Never before have…
Excuse me for a second, I have a text message…
“Oh, man, that crazy guy, how did he get a video of a cat playing a piano! Dude, that is so messed up! But really funny. Reminds me the video of a dog playing a tambourine from…I forget.”
Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were still here. Back to communicating to writing books about cats. Cats are part of God’s creation and put on this earth for a purpose. Therefore, we can learn great spiritual lessons from them.
“Sure, I’d love some cookies, thanks for offering.”
(Now I need to get something to drink with these. I’ll be right back.)
It is pretty frustrating when other people get distracted when I am trying to communicate something to them. Must mean I need to write stronger, pull people through from page to page or I’ll lose them along the way. This applies to all…
(Ring tone)
“Hello? Hi there. I’m fine. So, what can I do for you? Wait, hold on for a minute, I need to say goodbye to someone on my blog. I’ll be right back.”
Sorry, I need to take this call, so I’ll cut this short. Remember, we are all vying for attention of a distracted audience. So when you write, make it good.
“OK, I’m back. Hey, that cat video you sent was crazy. Did I send you the one with the dog?”
