Ambidextr Media

How do you get your message across to your audience when there’s a surplus of content and a shortage of attention?

This is a pressing question today. Everyone with a computer device and an internet access can produce media content. Information is thrown at us at faster speeds than we can digest, whether we like it or not.

As a result, it’s easy to drown in the vast sea of content or lose your audience to the sheer amount of noise being produced all over at all times. Luckily, there’s a way to get through today’s oversaturation of content.

Everything: Understanding the problem

Media content overload is so prevalent that we had to coin a new word for it, and it’s not pretty.

‘Doomscrolling’ is defined as the persistent consumption of content, especially short-form media, from online platforms. The phenomenon is made possible by the extreme abundance of content available in easily digestible formats such as TikTok videos, YouTube shorts, and Twitter posts.

After all, it can be so easy to binge-scroll and so hard to focus.

Recent studies about the effects of ‘doomscrolling’ reached similar alarming conclusions. The phenomenon is said to have direct links to mental health, characterized by its adverse effects on anxiety, lack of self-control, and depression. Furthermore, the most notable trend associated with excessive consumption of media content is a general shortening of attention span.

This is the problem.

Everywhere: Practicing the solution

It seems impossible to be noticed when the spotlight is scattered everywhere across the internet. But professionals offer us a trick to get ahead, and it has all to do with the way you communicate.

The adage goes: “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Modern startup CEO and author Jim VandeHei took this advice and then some. He coined the term smart brevity, or the philosophy of maximizing the value of your writing by shortening it.

Essentially, less is more.

The advice is simple, but it is not easy to practice. We tend to rely on more words than we need because communication is complicated. However, we can start by learning a thing or two from our understanding of the problem.

Smart brevity was born out of the necessity to fight for people’s attention against the distractions of excessive media content. It started as a way to adapt to people’s shortened attention span, but it has also become a better practice of producing content.

When you say more with less, you encourage your audiences to listen.

All at once: Too long, didn’t read

Phenomena such as ‘doomscrolling’ and content overload have undoubtedly rewired our brains. Aside from their negative effects on the personal level, they also ushered in the age of short attention span and short-form content. These pose a problem to the media content landscape of today.

Professional advice tells us to practice smart brevity, or shortening your content by focusing on the most important information. Simply, foreground why your content matters.

In the end, you get your message across by any means necessary. If the problem tells us anything, it’s that the means is adapting and standing out by balancing brevity and quality.

Blog by Edrian M. Nabong