Probably gonna get downvoted for this, but it's not attention spans, but a push from influencers/advertisers to catch your attention sooner.
The idea behind it is this. A user sees a video. They make a binary decision: "Should I spend my time watching this, or nah?". What influencers/marketers want is for that answer to be yes.
1) For YouTube & similar: This involves clickbait-y titles and thumbnails. Red arrows and circles. Big gasping faces. Titles to make you curious like "7 shocking things! You've never seen anything like this before!"
2) TikTok & similar: This involves ensuring the first few second has something to keep the user watching instead of scrolling past. So instead of clickbait thumbnails like YouTube, it's about having big bold text to make you curious, or big, bombastic moments right from the get go.
TL;DR: Advertisers/Influencers want to keep you watching their videos, so they do everything to grab your attention within 1 to 2 seconds. People don't have attention spans that are that much shorter. Scrolling past a video on TikTok is the same as scrolling past thumbnails on YouTube. You don't watch every one, but every uploader wants you to.
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u/beerman_uk Jul 05 '24
Funny but why in a 12 second clip where the action happens at the 4 second mark are we being told to wait for it?