Attention Lives On… in Communities

Marketers are misreading fragmentation as shrinking attention spans - but consumers are actually hyperfocused on what they care about.

Fragmentation is real. Consumers use nearly seven social platforms monthly. Streaming services have grown from 50 (2014) to over 600 worldwide. We all experience this - how many apps have you opened today?

But as marketers, we're conflating media fragmentation with an "attention recession." We've convinced ourselves that attention spans are shrinking, taking data (like those critical first 3 seconds of social ads) too literally and cramming messages into openings before "losing" people. At its extreme, we worry we're fueling societal decline through backing short-form platforms.

We need to separate fragmentation from attention.

The reality: many people doing many things for long periods. NOT many people doing few things briefly.

Adults' sustained attention has actually trended upward since the 1990s. Young people are just as capable of focus as previous generations - they're simply directing it differently.

"Fragmentation, it turns out, yields subcultural depths. Siloes are not shallows," writes Daniel Immerwahr.

Consumers spend deep time on things they care about.

People dedicate half their free time to their interests.

Members of online communities spend 3-5x longer engaging with content than the average social media user.

Joe Rogan's 2.5-hour podcasts pull 11 million listeners per episode. Gamers log hundreds of hours in virtual worlds. The evidence is clear: people sustain attention when they care.

We haven't lost focus. We've just refocused it.

Attention Lives in Communities

So consumers spend time on their passions - cool. But it’s more than that. They’re truly paying ATTENTION and that’s because of communities.

Recent Fandom research found nearly half of time spent with their interest goes to intentional, community-driven activities: Reddit dives, Discord chats, content remixing, fan merch creation and more.

Communities aren’t just groups of people who “like” the same thing, they’re active by definition. They’re living, breathing networks where people connect, share, and take action, together. It’s human nature to form them, and social platforms have made them visible at scale.

Communities are where people willingly spend their time and attention. That’s where loyalty forms, where passions run deep, and where brands can really, truly engage.

The brands winning today aren’t chasing audiences. They’re championing communities.

This was article out of a three part series. In the final piece of my community mini-series, I’ll be exploring 5 top tips on HOW to engage communities…stay tuned.

Please note that all opinions shared are my own in the spirit of positively moving our industry forward. Progress over perfection!

Alice Brady, Chief Strategy Officer, Responsible Marketing Advisory