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100 Things You Should Know About People: #100 — Sustained Attention Lasts 10 Minutes

by

Susan Weinschenk

Posted

chart showing drop in attention after 10 minutes
After 10 Minutes Attention Wanes

You are sitting in a meeting, and someone is presenting sales figures for last quarter. How long can this person hold your attention?

7-10 — If the topic is of interest to you, and the person is a good presenter, the maximum you can focus on the presentation is about 7-10 minutes. And if you are not interested in the topic and/or the presenter is particularly boring, then you’ll lose interest much faster. For most people performing most tasks, they can hold attention for 7 to 10 minutes, and then the attention will start to wane.

Break buys you another 7-10 — People can take a short break and then start over with another 7 to 10 minutes period, but 7 to 10 minutes is about how long they can pay attention to one task.

The end of a journey — For those of you who have been following my series, “100 Things You Should Know About People”, you probably realized that with this post I have reached the end of my 100 Things. Stay tuned for what comes next!

Comments

9 responses to “100 Things You Should Know About People: #100 — Sustained Attention Lasts 10 Minutes”

  1. gef05 Avatar
    gef05

    I’ve greatly enjoyed the series, and am looking forward to what comes next (hopefully another series as useful as this one has been).

    Reply
  2. Hans Avatar
    Hans

    I very much enjoy your blog, Susan. Your posts are often an inspiration for my own blog.

    Cannot you change it into ‘200 Things You Should Know About People’.

    Reply
  3. taine Avatar
    taine

    could i translate this pice of this one onto my blog?

    Reply
  4. Susan Weinschenk Avatar
    Susan Weinschenk

    gef05 and Hans — glad you liked the series!

    Taine — yes, you can translate if you give full attribution and link to this blog.

    Reply
  5. taine Avatar
    taine

    thanks. i have put in my blog at http://blog.trilemon.com/2011/04/07/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-100-sustained-attention-lasts-10-minutes.html

    going to put more.

    Reply
  6. Linda W Avatar
    Linda W

    Another interesting post in an excellent series! Thanks for sharing all these articles.

    An attention span of 7-10 minutes is even less than I thought. Valuable info!

    Reply
  7. Charles Avatar
    Charles

    What is the empirical evidence for this? The a similar figure is often quoted in courses training new university lecturers. However, in practice, I’ve found that (physics) students do not like having breaks in technical material every ten minutes because, they say, it interupts their concentration.

    Reply
  8. PeanutButterJelly Avatar
    PeanutButterJelly

    very very very good helped me with my speech a lot – decided to do my speech on this ;)

    Reply
  9. 3 keys to growing your brand presence with social media TV apps | Smart Insights – ROI Overload

    […] Long-form videos, the ones most suitable for ‘streaming style’ viewing. Think of your prospect watching Netflix or your Instagram TV channel after a long day at work. Just don’t make these long-form videos too long. Seven to ten minutes maximum is a good guideline. […]

    Reply

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